Argentina's Real Labor Movement; Cleveland Worker Cooperatives – 27:11

Argentina: This is What a Labor Movement Looks Like
With
Marina Kabat, Prof., Argentinean History, Univ. of Buenos Aires; Coordinator, Working-Class Studies Workshop, Center for the Study & Investigation of Social Sciences (CEICS)
and
Immanuel Ness, Prof., Brooklyn College, CUNY and author The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest: 1500 to the Present

Fighting Unemployment and Poverty:Evergreen Laundry and Worker Cooperatives in Cleveland OhioProduced
by the Evergreen Cooperative Initiative

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Argentina: This is What a Labor Movement Looks Like
With
Marina Kabat, Prof., Argentinean History, Univ. of Buenos Aires; Coordinator, Working-Class Studies Workshop, Center for the Study & Investigation of Social Sciences (CEICS)
and
Immanuel Ness, Prof., Brooklyn College, CUNY and author The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest: 1500 to the Present

The economic collapse in Argentina has created a new labor movement for dignity and control over the work process and democratization of their communities. Recently, the Kraft food workers’ insurgent union successfully fought firings with a strike & plant occupation which receivedmass community and labor support despite violent state repression. The United Education Workers, a militant worker-led union, struck for living wages, closing all schools in the Buenos Aires region, to resist the government's austerity plan. Workers have also shut down the Buenos Aires subway system, suspended major construction projects & defended wages against government cutbacks. The piqueteros, unemployed & low-wage workers movements, are successfully staging mass actions, including blocking major roads & highways, even as police brutality grows. They have occupied & taken over factories leading to a national cooperative movement which has democratized workplaces for more
than a million workers.
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Fighting Unemployment and Poverty:Evergreen Laundry and Worker Cooperatives in Cleveland Ohio
Produced by the Evergreen Cooperative Initiative

“Something important is happening in Cleveland.” With the opening of the Evergreen Cooperative Laundry on October 21st – a worker-owned commercial-scale “green” business based in the Glenville neighborhood, one of the most severely disinvested areas in Cleveland. Mayor Frank Jackson called the laundry, “a model for how we can put our people back to work and rebuild our community.” This new model for economic development was inspired by the network of worker cooperative in Mondragon, Spain. It is the first in a network of worker cooperatives that is being launched in the city by the Evergreen Cooperative Initiative.