apologies, I forgot to attach the promised article, On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 5:18 PM, Pat Conaty < [email protected]> wrote:

Hi Michel, George and Stacco

You asked for more info Michel. Greece has so many self-employed workers and so do more and more countries in the UK as the state services are decimated by austerity. So what do trade unions and co-ops and social finance organisations do to respond to the growing precariat and right across Europe from east to west.

I talked yesterday of Gandian horizontal organising methods. This is democratic practical socialism in action if it is understood for its potency. There is a superb example - the WIEGO network for the supporting the precariat. You can have a look at their website.

Supported by the Textile workers union (that Gandhi helped found after World War I, these horizontal methodologies for economic democracy grew out of work in India with SEWA bank. Indeed as part of the integrated strategy their movement has combined since the late 1970s trade union, co-op solutions, mutual savings and loans and solidarity economy politics.

In India the network membership is now 1.7 million and WEiGO promotes the model internationally. They began with a gender focus but now organise empowerment for women and men.

This summary report attached gives you the their street wise and sophisticated strategy. They are now working in Eastern Europe, Latin America and other parts of Asia.

Their work is changing ILO policy because it is so successful and some trade unions are showing more interest and some co-op networks also.

We have a conference tomorrow in London on the precariat and new models of social union organising and WIEGO are speaking at the event that the Trade Union Congress are hosting.

Pat

On 16 Jul 2015, at 08:27, Michel Bauwens <[email protected]> wrote:

On Thu, Jul 16, 2015 at 2:21 PM, Pat Conaty < [email protected]> wrote:

...

Hence the argument for a partner state that is not on top but on tap in its support for new forms of Co-operative Economic Democracy to secure co-operative commonwealth.

Great Michel to see you setting out the framework for a Plan C (for co-operative commons). We need collaborative work to flesh this out but you have made a flying start.

would be great if you could add material here: http://p2pfoundation.net/Plan_C_for_Advancing_the_Commons_Transition_in_Gree...

-- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org

P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

<http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens

#82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/

-- Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net <http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation>Updates: http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens #82 on the (En)Rich list: http://enrichlist.org/the-complete-list/