The effectiveness of collective bargaining has always been threatened by independent peers who are willing to accept lower wages and endure poor working conditions. For traditional manufacturing jobs, these 'alternate' workers can usually be kept from accessing the Means of Production by forming a physical barrier around the worksite or through various threats that can be carried out because it is easy to monitor who is actually entering the establishment. Yet these valuable techniques of intimidation and coercion so vital to protecting Worker Rights are unlikely to be applicable in the realm of "immaterial production". When it comes to something like Free Software, how can we, the International Programmers of the World, unionize effectively to *stop* independent programmers from creating the solutions that consumers need? This is a catastrophic issue, as many of these independents are willing to work not just for a low Wage, but for Free! They often fix bugs and add features without any pay at all! How can workers in the 'immaterial' sphere possibly "make a living" with such anarchy and disrespect for organized labor, and with no ability to stop that production?
Patrick, While I agree that intimidation and coercion have been used and are effective (at least in the short term) - I think that doesn't shine enough light on other factors that work. Off the top of my head, here are a couple: - Common goals - Solidarity with co-workers - workers in general - Sense of belonging What are others reasons to join together that people can think of? On 25Feb2011, at 9:39 AM, Patrick Anderson wrote:
The effectiveness of collective bargaining has always been threatened by independent peers who are willing to accept lower wages and endure poor working conditions.
For traditional manufacturing jobs, these 'alternate' workers can usually be kept from accessing the Means of Production by forming a physical barrier around the worksite or through various threats that can be carried out because it is easy to monitor who is actually entering the establishment.
Yet these valuable techniques of intimidation and coercion so vital to protecting Worker Rights are unlikely to be applicable in the realm of "immaterial production".
When it comes to something like Free Software, how can we, the International Programmers of the World, unionize effectively to *stop* independent programmers from creating the solutions that consumers need?
This is a catastrophic issue, as many of these independents are willing to work not just for a low Wage, but for Free! They often fix bugs and add features without any pay at all!
How can workers in the 'immaterial' sphere possibly "make a living" with such anarchy and disrespect for organized labor, and with no ability to stop that production?
Patrick, As a member of a unionized worker co-op who deals exclusively with software in the free & open source realm, I have not encountered many issues with the impact of unionization on projects we are involved in. If anything, unionization in the open source realm could be helpful. Say, if the workers of Sun Microsystems were unionized, could they not have resisted the buy-out by Oracle through a strike? You make a good point though - that developers in the greater community could act as 'scabs' in these situations. The thing is - as long as they aren't being paid by the company that the workers are striking against, then there is no issue, and they are not scabs. If anything, they could be seen as acting in solidarity with the striking programmers by ensuring that their software is still stable once they get back on the clock. Or they could assist them by forking the project and continuing development outside of the control of the company (like the document foundation did). The free and open source community is built around mutual aid, trust and solidarity (for the most part). The reason I make such a big point of union organization in the open source software and hardware communities is that when starting new ventures that are worker-owned, that these folks can build economies of scale around collective benefits, group purchasing, training & shared services. Having a union that is greater than your own shop is important when filing grievances and having a wider reach of agency and community. When these institutions are worker-owned, and part of an appropriate economic ecosystem, the balance of power tends to shift away from moneyed interest and towards federation. This means that there will generally be less likelihood of strikes and work stoppage. Just a thought. Richard On 02/25/2011 12:39 PM, Patrick Anderson wrote:
The effectiveness of collective bargaining has always been threatened by independent peers who are willing to accept lower wages and endure poor working conditions.
For traditional manufacturing jobs, these 'alternate' workers can usually be kept from accessing the Means of Production by forming a physical barrier around the worksite or through various threats that can be carried out because it is easy to monitor who is actually entering the establishment.
Yet these valuable techniques of intimidation and coercion so vital to protecting Worker Rights are unlikely to be applicable in the realm of "immaterial production".
When it comes to something like Free Software, how can we, the International Programmers of the World, unionize effectively to *stop* independent programmers from creating the solutions that consumers need?
This is a catastrophic issue, as many of these independents are willing to work not just for a low Wage, but for Free! They often fix bugs and add features without any pay at all!
How can workers in the 'immaterial' sphere possibly "make a living" with such anarchy and disrespect for organized labor, and with no ability to stop that production?
Your thought Richard evokes some others in my mind. Like orgainising facebook users and programmers at the same time, as well as youtube, twitter, google workers and users. Since users are peer producers, they are immaterial free labour for these compaines. In principle can claim the product of their labour back, ownership of facebook, youtube, google and twitter. Does anyone know if there is already a union in these companies? and some people would join in for such an experiment? Quoting Richard Schulte <[email protected]>:
Patrick,
As a member of a unionized worker co-op who deals exclusively with software in the free & open source realm, I have not encountered many issues with the impact of unionization on projects we are involved in.
If anything, unionization in the open source realm could be helpful. Say, if the workers of Sun Microsystems were unionized, could they not have resisted the buy-out by Oracle through a strike?
You make a good point though - that developers in the greater community could act as 'scabs' in these situations. The thing is - as long as they aren't being paid by the company that the workers are striking against, then there is no issue, and they are not scabs. If anything, they could be seen as acting in solidarity with the striking programmers by ensuring that their software is still stable once they get back on the clock. Or they could assist them by forking the project and continuing development outside of the control of the company (like the document foundation did). The free and open source community is built around mutual aid, trust and solidarity (for the most part).
The reason I make such a big point of union organization in the open source software and hardware communities is that when starting new ventures that are worker-owned, that these folks can build economies of scale around collective benefits, group purchasing, training & shared services. Having a union that is greater than your own shop is important when filing grievances and having a wider reach of agency and community. When these institutions are worker-owned, and part of an appropriate economic ecosystem, the balance of power tends to shift away from moneyed interest and towards federation. This means that there will generally be less likelihood of strikes and work stoppage.
Just a thought.
Richard
On 02/25/2011 12:39 PM, Patrick Anderson wrote:
The effectiveness of collective bargaining has always been threatened by independent peers who are willing to accept lower wages and endure poor working conditions.
For traditional manufacturing jobs, these 'alternate' workers can usually be kept from accessing the Means of Production by forming a physical barrier around the worksite or through various threats that can be carried out because it is easy to monitor who is actually entering the establishment.
Yet these valuable techniques of intimidation and coercion so vital to protecting Worker Rights are unlikely to be applicable in the realm of "immaterial production".
When it comes to something like Free Software, how can we, the International Programmers of the World, unionize effectively to *stop* independent programmers from creating the solutions that consumers need?
This is a catastrophic issue, as many of these independents are willing to work not just for a low Wage, but for Free! They often fix bugs and add features without any pay at all!
How can workers in the 'immaterial' sphere possibly "make a living" with such anarchy and disrespect for organized labor, and with no ability to stop that production?
Dear Orsan, the key question for me here is the following: can we find mechanisms of peer property that do not recommodify our practices, but leave the p2p practices intact? i.e. a simple profit sharing scheme by facebook/youtube etc.. would essentially recommidify the social exchange, as people would start behaving/producing as profit maximisers themselves? so are there mechanisms which can at the same time keep the value within those that produce it, while preserving the social advances of free collaborative labour? Michel On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 6:13 AM, <[email protected]> wrote:
Your thought Richard evokes some others in my mind. Like orgainising facebook users and programmers at the same time, as well as youtube, twitter, google workers and users. Since users are peer producers, they are immaterial free labour for these compaines. In principle can claim the product of their labour back, ownership of facebook, youtube, google and twitter. Does anyone know if there is already a union in these companies? and some people would join in for such an experiment?
Quoting Richard Schulte <[email protected]>:
Patrick,
As a member of a unionized worker co-op who deals exclusively with software in the free & open source realm, I have not encountered many issues with the impact of unionization on projects we are involved in.
If anything, unionization in the open source realm could be helpful. Say, if the workers of Sun Microsystems were unionized, could they not have resisted the buy-out by Oracle through a strike?
You make a good point though - that developers in the greater community could act as 'scabs' in these situations. The thing is - as long as they aren't being paid by the company that the workers are striking against, then there is no issue, and they are not scabs. If anything, they could be seen as acting in solidarity with the striking programmers by ensuring that their software is still stable once they get back on the clock. Or they could assist them by forking the project and continuing development outside of the control of the company (like the document foundation did). The free and open source community is built around mutual aid, trust and solidarity (for the most part).
The reason I make such a big point of union organization in the open source software and hardware communities is that when starting new ventures that are worker-owned, that these folks can build economies of scale around collective benefits, group purchasing, training & shared services. Having a union that is greater than your own shop is important when filing grievances and having a wider reach of agency and community. When these institutions are worker-owned, and part of an appropriate economic ecosystem, the balance of power tends to shift away from moneyed interest and towards federation. This means that there will generally be less likelihood of strikes and work stoppage.
Just a thought.
Richard
On 02/25/2011 12:39 PM, Patrick Anderson wrote:
The effectiveness of collective bargaining has always been threatened by independent peers who are willing to accept lower wages and endure poor working conditions.
For traditional manufacturing jobs, these 'alternate' workers can usually be kept from accessing the Means of Production by forming a physical barrier around the worksite or through various threats that can be carried out because it is easy to monitor who is actually entering the establishment.
Yet these valuable techniques of intimidation and coercion so vital to protecting Worker Rights are unlikely to be applicable in the realm of "immaterial production".
When it comes to something like Free Software, how can we, the International Programmers of the World, unionize effectively to *stop* independent programmers from creating the solutions that consumers need?
This is a catastrophic issue, as many of these independents are willing to work not just for a low Wage, but for Free! They often fix bugs and add features without any pay at all!
How can workers in the 'immaterial' sphere possibly "make a living" with such anarchy and disrespect for organized labor, and with no ability to stop that production?
-- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
Actually it is a technical problem which can be discovered on the way. I did not mean taking over profit and share among worker force, but actually workers of the facebook, youtube etc take over companies and transfor them into free products for all. If we organise inside these companies as well as users, like occupied factories, those can be taken over collectively. User and producer strikes can be organised creatively for key demnds -like privacy/not selling our info to companies, etc -i can think of several ways but we need skillful programmers and hackers for thechncal part. Here are several examples of immaterial labour organising: http://www.alytusbiennial.com/damtp.html document from their from their world congress - DAta miners: http://antisystemic.org/SW/DAMTP1.pdf this can be interesting for friend at flywheel, and of course Telkommunisten: http://www.telekommunisten.net/ the other interesting german speaking organised labour network is Netzwerk IT: http://www.netzwerkit.de/leaflet they developed creative techniques to oraganise and action, we might be trying to reach out similar org-nets and bridge our efforts together in order to organise immaterial labour transnationally, through a free online social network patform, Gaia is a prototype towards this aim needs to be developed and put into practice. best Quoting Michel Bauwens <[email protected]>:
Dear Orsan,
the key question for me here is the following: can we find mechanisms of peer property that do not recommodify our practices, but leave the p2p practices intact?
i.e. a simple profit sharing scheme by facebook/youtube etc.. would essentially recommidify the social exchange, as people would start behaving/producing as profit maximisers themselves?
so are there mechanisms which can at the same time keep the value within those that produce it, while preserving the social advances of free collaborative labour?
Michel
On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 6:13 AM, <[email protected]> wrote:
Your thought Richard evokes some others in my mind. Like orgainising facebook users and programmers at the same time, as well as youtube, twitter, google workers and users. Since users are peer producers, they are immaterial free labour for these compaines. In principle can claim the product of their labour back, ownership of facebook, youtube, google and twitter. Does anyone know if there is already a union in these companies? and some people would join in for such an experiment?
Quoting Richard Schulte <[email protected]>:
Patrick,
As a member of a unionized worker co-op who deals exclusively with software in the free & open source realm, I have not encountered many issues with the impact of unionization on projects we are involved in.
If anything, unionization in the open source realm could be helpful. Say, if the workers of Sun Microsystems were unionized, could they not have resisted the buy-out by Oracle through a strike?
You make a good point though - that developers in the greater community could act as 'scabs' in these situations. The thing is - as long as they aren't being paid by the company that the workers are striking against, then there is no issue, and they are not scabs. If anything, they could be seen as acting in solidarity with the striking programmers by ensuring that their software is still stable once they get back on the clock. Or they could assist them by forking the project and continuing development outside of the control of the company (like the document foundation did). The free and open source community is built around mutual aid, trust and solidarity (for the most part).
The reason I make such a big point of union organization in the open source software and hardware communities is that when starting new ventures that are worker-owned, that these folks can build economies of scale around collective benefits, group purchasing, training & shared services. Having a union that is greater than your own shop is important when filing grievances and having a wider reach of agency and community. When these institutions are worker-owned, and part of an appropriate economic ecosystem, the balance of power tends to shift away from moneyed interest and towards federation. This means that there will generally be less likelihood of strikes and work stoppage.
Just a thought.
Richard
On 02/25/2011 12:39 PM, Patrick Anderson wrote:
The effectiveness of collective bargaining has always been threatened by independent peers who are willing to accept lower wages and endure poor working conditions.
For traditional manufacturing jobs, these 'alternate' workers can usually be kept from accessing the Means of Production by forming a physical barrier around the worksite or through various threats that can be carried out because it is easy to monitor who is actually entering the establishment.
Yet these valuable techniques of intimidation and coercion so vital to protecting Worker Rights are unlikely to be applicable in the realm of "immaterial production".
When it comes to something like Free Software, how can we, the International Programmers of the World, unionize effectively to *stop* independent programmers from creating the solutions that consumers need?
This is a catastrophic issue, as many of these independents are willing to work not just for a low Wage, but for Free! They often fix bugs and add features without any pay at all!
How can workers in the 'immaterial' sphere possibly "make a living" with such anarchy and disrespect for organized labor, and with no ability to stop that production?
-- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
Hi Orsan, to organize ourselves as producers/users of value is a very fruitful path, which I have advocated in the past as well, but, do you mean the workers of facebook, rather than the free labour using the networks, I interpret you're saying the first? however, "taking over" would really require a revolutionary situation, but in the meantime there is a lot that can be done to strengthen the balance of power and 'social contract' that exists within such corporate platforms, I have a tag http://delicious.com/mbauwens/P2P-Conflicts, to monitor such struggles, Michel On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 6:35 PM, <[email protected]> wrote:
Actually it is a technical problem which can be discovered on the way. I did not mean taking over profit and share among worker force, but actually workers of the facebook, youtube etc take over companies and transfor them into free products for all. If we organise inside these companies as well as users, like occupied factories, those can be taken over collectively. User and producer strikes can be organised creatively for key demnds -like privacy/not selling our info to companies, etc -i can think of several ways but we need skillful programmers and hackers for thechncal part.
Here are several examples of immaterial labour organising:
http://www.alytusbiennial.com/damtp.html document from their from their world congress - DAta miners: http://antisystemic.org/SW/DAMTP1.pdf this can be interesting for friend at flywheel,
and of course
Telkommunisten: http://www.telekommunisten.net/
the other interesting german speaking organised labour network is
Netzwerk IT: http://www.netzwerkit.de/leaflet
they developed creative techniques to oraganise and action, we might be trying to reach out similar org-nets and bridge our efforts together in order to organise immaterial labour transnationally, through a free online social network patform, Gaia is a prototype towards this aim needs to be developed and put into practice.
best
Quoting Michel Bauwens <[email protected]>:
Dear Orsan,
the key question for me here is the following: can we find mechanisms of peer property that do not recommodify our practices, but leave the p2p practices intact?
i.e. a simple profit sharing scheme by facebook/youtube etc.. would essentially recommidify the social exchange, as people would start behaving/producing as profit maximisers themselves?
so are there mechanisms which can at the same time keep the value within those that produce it, while preserving the social advances of free collaborative labour?
Michel
On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 6:13 AM, <[email protected]> wrote:
Your thought Richard evokes some others in my mind. Like orgainising
facebook users and programmers at the same time, as well as youtube, twitter, google workers and users. Since users are peer producers, they are immaterial free labour for these compaines. In principle can claim the product of their labour back, ownership of facebook, youtube, google and twitter. Does anyone know if there is already a union in these companies? and some people would join in for such an experiment?
Quoting Richard Schulte <[email protected]>:
Patrick,
As a member of a unionized worker co-op who deals exclusively with software in the free & open source realm, I have not encountered many issues with the impact of unionization on projects we are involved in.
If anything, unionization in the open source realm could be helpful. Say, if the workers of Sun Microsystems were unionized, could they not have resisted the buy-out by Oracle through a strike?
You make a good point though - that developers in the greater community could act as 'scabs' in these situations. The thing is - as long as they aren't being paid by the company that the workers are striking against, then there is no issue, and they are not scabs. If anything, they could be seen as acting in solidarity with the striking programmers by ensuring that their software is still stable once they get back on the clock. Or they could assist them by forking the project and continuing development outside of the control of the company (like the document foundation did). The free and open source community is built around mutual aid, trust and solidarity (for the most part).
The reason I make such a big point of union organization in the open source software and hardware communities is that when starting new ventures that are worker-owned, that these folks can build economies of scale around collective benefits, group purchasing, training & shared services. Having a union that is greater than your own shop is important when filing grievances and having a wider reach of agency and community. When these institutions are worker-owned, and part of an appropriate economic ecosystem, the balance of power tends to shift away from moneyed interest and towards federation. This means that there will generally be less likelihood of strikes and work stoppage.
Just a thought.
Richard
On 02/25/2011 12:39 PM, Patrick Anderson wrote:
The effectiveness of collective bargaining has always been threatened
by independent peers who are willing to accept lower wages and endure poor working conditions.
For traditional manufacturing jobs, these 'alternate' workers can usually be kept from accessing the Means of Production by forming a physical barrier around the worksite or through various threats that can be carried out because it is easy to monitor who is actually entering the establishment.
Yet these valuable techniques of intimidation and coercion so vital to protecting Worker Rights are unlikely to be applicable in the realm of "immaterial production".
When it comes to something like Free Software, how can we, the International Programmers of the World, unionize effectively to *stop* independent programmers from creating the solutions that consumers need?
This is a catastrophic issue, as many of these independents are willing to work not just for a low Wage, but for Free! They often fix bugs and add features without any pay at all!
How can workers in the 'immaterial' sphere possibly "make a living" with such anarchy and disrespect for organized labor, and with no ability to stop that production?
-- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
-- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
I just noticed: http://AnDevUni.org """ The Android Developers Union We, the members and supporters of the Android Developers Union, are fed up with the conditions of the Android Market. We are tired of being treated like sharecroppers on Google's digital plantation! We have compiled a list of seven demands which Google can implement to improve the Market. Implementing these demands will absolutely improve the working conditions for Android developers, thereby improving the Android ecosystem and giving a better experience to our customers. """ Notice their approach is the same as traditional unions: To create artificial scarcity of some skill. This approach is destined to fail as the Means of Production continues to become cheaper. Wages and Profits approach zero as Barriers to Entry are reduced. This applies also to the "3D Printing" and "Tabletop Manufacturing" phenomenon - since, when *anyone* can manufacture some thing, there is no longer any way to prop Wages, and the difference between Price and Cost will be meaningless (Profit is undefined when Consumers own the Means of Production). The only viable approach I can see is to begin protecting the "other side of the equation" -> meaning, we must protect the Worker's ability to Consume by helping them organize to have ownership in the Means of Production from which they need the Outputs instead of trying to own the Means of Production for which they happen to have skills in operating. So, instead of Workers trying to own the factory where they work, they instead direct-invest* in things like Milk Dairies, Chicken Farms, Avocado Orchards, etc. because those are the Sources of the things they actually need, and let the potential Consumers of what they produce own that factory. (*) By 'direct-invest' I mean the Consumers would invest to co-own the Fields, Farms etc. and be 'paid' (their ROI) in Product instead of Profit - for the Product would never be sold since it would already be the property of those who intend to actually use it.
Dear Richard, Very interesting, thanks a lot for this contribution. I'd like to ask you a favour, we have a little directory of free software coops here, see http://p2pfoundation.net/Free_Software_Cooperatives, could you add your entity and eventually others that you know? Also, perhaps with Mark Dilley, Walton and Orsan, who like you are active at the intersection between unions/labour and open/p2p/free-software practices, I wonder if we could not have some kind of publishable dialogue, in which these issues here are trashed out for publication? I am personally very happy with what I see as a maturation of the link between labour and p2p practices, Michel On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 1:32 AM, Richard Schulte < [email protected]> wrote:
Patrick,
As a member of a unionized worker co-op who deals exclusively with software in the free & open source realm, I have not encountered many issues with the impact of unionization on projects we are involved in.
If anything, unionization in the open source realm could be helpful. Say, if the workers of Sun Microsystems were unionized, could they not have resisted the buy-out by Oracle through a strike?
You make a good point though - that developers in the greater community could act as 'scabs' in these situations. The thing is - as long as they aren't being paid by the company that the workers are striking against, then there is no issue, and they are not scabs. If anything, they could be seen as acting in solidarity with the striking programmers by ensuring that their software is still stable once they get back on the clock. Or they could assist them by forking the project and continuing development outside of the control of the company (like the document foundation did). The free and open source community is built around mutual aid, trust and solidarity (for the most part).
The reason I make such a big point of union organization in the open source software and hardware communities is that when starting new ventures that are worker-owned, that these folks can build economies of scale around collective benefits, group purchasing, training & shared services. Having a union that is greater than your own shop is important when filing grievances and having a wider reach of agency and community. When these institutions are worker-owned, and part of an appropriate economic ecosystem, the balance of power tends to shift away from moneyed interest and towards federation. This means that there will generally be less likelihood of strikes and work stoppage.
Just a thought.
Richard
On 02/25/2011 12:39 PM, Patrick Anderson wrote:
The effectiveness of collective bargaining has always been threatened by independent peers who are willing to accept lower wages and endure poor working conditions.
For traditional manufacturing jobs, these 'alternate' workers can usually be kept from accessing the Means of Production by forming a physical barrier around the worksite or through various threats that can be carried out because it is easy to monitor who is actually entering the establishment.
Yet these valuable techniques of intimidation and coercion so vital to protecting Worker Rights are unlikely to be applicable in the realm of "immaterial production".
When it comes to something like Free Software, how can we, the International Programmers of the World, unionize effectively to *stop* independent programmers from creating the solutions that consumers need?
This is a catastrophic issue, as many of these independents are willing to work not just for a low Wage, but for Free! They often fix bugs and add features without any pay at all!
How can workers in the 'immaterial' sphere possibly "make a living" with such anarchy and disrespect for organized labor, and with no ability to stop that production?
-- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
On Fri, Feb 25, 2011 at 10:39 AM, Patrick Anderson <[email protected]> wrote:
The effectiveness of collective bargaining has always been threatened by independent peers who are willing to accept lower wages and endure poor working conditions.
Study the phenomenon of sourceforge.net during the time of the Internet boom of the late 1990's and early 2000's and how open-source popularity got co-opted mostly by the legal system, big companies like Microsoft, and dubious notions of "intellectual property"; collectively, they effectively retro-graded the free Internet into little fiefdoms and walled gardens we have today. Then look at yourself: are you using a free operating system? or have you gotten seduced by Apple (for ex.)? Read the essays at the Free Software Foundation by Richard Stallman to see how the GPL has been specifically battle-hardened to avoid these traps. Also, the E.F.F. -- review J. P. Barlow's Declaration of Internet Freedom to remind yourself that the power of the Internet still lies waiting. Give money. They remain true to the vision and haven't sold out like the others. Never mind if Stallman seems eccentric or E.F.F. seems like a ghost town -- these are people doing real work and don't have energy to spend "flashing it up" for you. (....then look at pangaia.sf.net to see a long-term solution ;) Marcos
Dear Patrick, These are interesting remarks, though I suspect you are being ironic, but here a few counter-observations, that may even make it a non-problem: - the ability of peers to produce freely shared commons is not a problem, only the capability of netarchical capitalism to exploit the value without return, is; that shifts the locus of the problem to the problems of those peers as workers, instead of seeing them as 'scabs' - this ability of autonomous production is also a weapon or tool against employers, i.e. the locus of production can be changed to an autonomous site (used by striking journalists already in the past) - the ability to mobilize of traditional workers is also 'limited' by physical locality, so 'immaterial' internetworking may be and actually is a plus, see the great movement of the intermittents in France a few years ago for an example of labour struggles, or the contemporary mobilization of Arab working classes happening right now A further observation of scabs is that most often these were NOT workers from the striking factory, but outsiders, while in the case of free software we are talking about people being part of the same community with often shared values On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 12:39 AM, Patrick Anderson <[email protected]>wrote:
The effectiveness of collective bargaining has always been threatened by independent peers who are willing to accept lower wages and endure poor working conditions.
For traditional manufacturing jobs, these 'alternate' workers can usually be kept from accessing the Means of Production by forming a physical barrier around the worksite or through various threats that can be carried out because it is easy to monitor who is actually entering the establishment.
Yet these valuable techniques of intimidation and coercion so vital to protecting Worker Rights are unlikely to be applicable in the realm of "immaterial production".
When it comes to something like Free Software, how can we, the International Programmers of the World, unionize effectively to *stop* independent programmers from creating the solutions that consumers need?
This is a catastrophic issue, as many of these independents are willing to work not just for a low Wage, but for Free! They often fix bugs and add features without any pay at all!
How can workers in the 'immaterial' sphere possibly "make a living" with such anarchy and disrespect for organized labor, and with no ability to stop that production?
-- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
Very interesting and complex discussion, thanks Michel for creating this platform. and giving us to strech our brains. I currently try to force myslef to imagine and create peer governance mechanisms for existing traditional unions [mainly], as well as forming a new model in practice that would adopt p2p as its internal and external relational dynamic (gaia) [i could put less time on this]. Following the IWW experience, and combining several organising methodologies, I hope, if it gets success, this letter experience would motivate traditional union structures to change further [hypotethically]. The more I learn about the p2p theory and practices, the idea of organising immaterial labour is becoming a very good idea with gaia, together with material labour. I would like to invite you and others to discuss on this, in a publishible way. greetings Quoting Michel Bauwens <[email protected]>:
Dear Patrick,
These are interesting remarks, though I suspect you are being ironic, but here a few counter-observations, that may even make it a non-problem:
- the ability of peers to produce freely shared commons is not a problem, only the capability of netarchical capitalism to exploit the value without return, is; that shifts the locus of the problem to the problems of those peers as workers, instead of seeing them as 'scabs'
- this ability of autonomous production is also a weapon or tool against employers, i.e. the locus of production can be changed to an autonomous site (used by striking journalists already in the past)
- the ability to mobilize of traditional workers is also 'limited' by physical locality, so 'immaterial' internetworking may be and actually is a plus, see the great movement of the intermittents in France a few years ago for an example of labour struggles, or the contemporary mobilization of Arab working classes happening right now
A further observation of scabs is that most often these were NOT workers from the striking factory, but outsiders, while in the case of free software we are talking about people being part of the same community with often shared values
On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 12:39 AM, Patrick Anderson <[email protected]>wrote:
The effectiveness of collective bargaining has always been threatened by independent peers who are willing to accept lower wages and endure poor working conditions.
For traditional manufacturing jobs, these 'alternate' workers can usually be kept from accessing the Means of Production by forming a physical barrier around the worksite or through various threats that can be carried out because it is easy to monitor who is actually entering the establishment.
Yet these valuable techniques of intimidation and coercion so vital to protecting Worker Rights are unlikely to be applicable in the realm of "immaterial production".
When it comes to something like Free Software, how can we, the International Programmers of the World, unionize effectively to *stop* independent programmers from creating the solutions that consumers need?
This is a catastrophic issue, as many of these independents are willing to work not just for a low Wage, but for Free! They often fix bugs and add features without any pay at all!
How can workers in the 'immaterial' sphere possibly "make a living" with such anarchy and disrespect for organized labor, and with no ability to stop that production?
-- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
Dear Orsan, I really hope you will continue your efforts, in my experience, traditional institutions DO NOT CHANGE, unless confronted with competing alternatives, so traditional unions will not change if they do not see new forms of organisation that are threatening to take away their own members ... I intend to write a first response to Jean Lievens' essay soon, but I hope others will chip in, Michel On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 10:51 PM, <[email protected]> wrote:
Very interesting and complex discussion, thanks Michel for creating this platform. and giving us to strech our brains. I currently try to force myslef to imagine and create peer governance mechanisms for existing traditional unions [mainly], as well as forming a new model in practice that would adopt p2p as its internal and external relational dynamic (gaia) [i could put less time on this]. Following the IWW experience, and combining several organising methodologies, I hope, if it gets success, this letter experience would motivate traditional union structures to change further [hypotethically]. The more I learn about the p2p theory and practices, the idea of organising immaterial labour is becoming a very good idea with gaia, together with material labour. I would like to invite you and others to discuss on this, in a publishible way. greetings
Quoting Michel Bauwens <[email protected]>:
Dear Patrick,
These are interesting remarks, though I suspect you are being ironic, but here a few counter-observations, that may even make it a non-problem:
- the ability of peers to produce freely shared commons is not a problem, only the capability of netarchical capitalism to exploit the value without return, is; that shifts the locus of the problem to the problems of those peers as workers, instead of seeing them as 'scabs'
- this ability of autonomous production is also a weapon or tool against employers, i.e. the locus of production can be changed to an autonomous site (used by striking journalists already in the past)
- the ability to mobilize of traditional workers is also 'limited' by physical locality, so 'immaterial' internetworking may be and actually is a plus, see the great movement of the intermittents in France a few years ago for an example of labour struggles, or the contemporary mobilization of Arab working classes happening right now
A further observation of scabs is that most often these were NOT workers from the striking factory, but outsiders, while in the case of free software we are talking about people being part of the same community with often shared values
On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 12:39 AM, Patrick Anderson <[email protected]
wrote:
The effectiveness of collective bargaining has always been threatened
by independent peers who are willing to accept lower wages and endure poor working conditions.
For traditional manufacturing jobs, these 'alternate' workers can usually be kept from accessing the Means of Production by forming a physical barrier around the worksite or through various threats that can be carried out because it is easy to monitor who is actually entering the establishment.
Yet these valuable techniques of intimidation and coercion so vital to protecting Worker Rights are unlikely to be applicable in the realm of "immaterial production".
When it comes to something like Free Software, how can we, the International Programmers of the World, unionize effectively to *stop* independent programmers from creating the solutions that consumers need?
This is a catastrophic issue, as many of these independents are willing to work not just for a low Wage, but for Free! They often fix bugs and add features without any pay at all!
How can workers in the 'immaterial' sphere possibly "make a living" with such anarchy and disrespect for organized labor, and with no ability to stop that production?
-- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
-- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
Thanks Michel, me too! I am writing something on this at the moment for New Unioniosm Network of Peter Hall Jones, will copy on the P2P blog and scoop it when it is ready. Is is still a good idea to organize a skype meeting for knowing each other bit more and exchanging insights on the issue of immaterial labour and unions? And, with due respect to your experience, and being fully agree with you on the external challange needed, I want to keep hoping a radical change to come for the traditional union form, asap. This happened a century ago with the IWW experience so why not once more. I try to think GAIA as IWW 2.0 but its organized network (of networks via individual dots) version. The recent posts on my SNU blog are identfying possibilities. I just need to start organizing workers, activists, en peer producers. Tomorrow I will join a rare confernece of networks, movements, unions that signals positively: http://www.jointsocialconference.eu/ will try to report on the outcome to you. Quoting Michel Bauwens <[email protected]>:
Dear Orsan,
I really hope you will continue your efforts,
in my experience, traditional institutions DO NOT CHANGE, unless confronted with competing alternatives, so traditional unions will not change if they do not see new forms of organisation that are threatening to take away their own members ...
I intend to write a first response to Jean Lievens' essay soon, but I hope others will chip in,
Michel
On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 10:51 PM, <[email protected]> wrote:
Very interesting and complex discussion, thanks Michel for creating this platform. and giving us to strech our brains. I currently try to force myslef to imagine and create peer governance mechanisms for existing traditional unions [mainly], as well as forming a new model in practice that would adopt p2p as its internal and external relational dynamic (gaia) [i could put less time on this]. Following the IWW experience, and combining several organising methodologies, I hope, if it gets success, this letter experience would motivate traditional union structures to change further [hypotethically]. The more I learn about the p2p theory and practices, the idea of organising immaterial labour is becoming a very good idea with gaia, together with material labour. I would like to invite you and others to discuss on this, in a publishible way. greetings
Quoting Michel Bauwens <[email protected]>:
Dear Patrick,
These are interesting remarks, though I suspect you are being ironic, but here a few counter-observations, that may even make it a non-problem:
- the ability of peers to produce freely shared commons is not a problem, only the capability of netarchical capitalism to exploit the value without return, is; that shifts the locus of the problem to the problems of those peers as workers, instead of seeing them as 'scabs'
- this ability of autonomous production is also a weapon or tool against employers, i.e. the locus of production can be changed to an autonomous site (used by striking journalists already in the past)
- the ability to mobilize of traditional workers is also 'limited' by physical locality, so 'immaterial' internetworking may be and actually is a plus, see the great movement of the intermittents in France a few years ago for an example of labour struggles, or the contemporary mobilization of Arab working classes happening right now
A further observation of scabs is that most often these were NOT workers from the striking factory, but outsiders, while in the case of free software we are talking about people being part of the same community with often shared values
On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 12:39 AM, Patrick Anderson <[email protected]
wrote:
The effectiveness of collective bargaining has always been threatened
by independent peers who are willing to accept lower wages and endure poor working conditions.
For traditional manufacturing jobs, these 'alternate' workers can usually be kept from accessing the Means of Production by forming a physical barrier around the worksite or through various threats that can be carried out because it is easy to monitor who is actually entering the establishment.
Yet these valuable techniques of intimidation and coercion so vital to protecting Worker Rights are unlikely to be applicable in the realm of "immaterial production".
When it comes to something like Free Software, how can we, the International Programmers of the World, unionize effectively to *stop* independent programmers from creating the solutions that consumers need?
This is a catastrophic issue, as many of these independents are willing to work not just for a low Wage, but for Free! They often fix bugs and add features without any pay at all!
How can workers in the 'immaterial' sphere possibly "make a living" with such anarchy and disrespect for organized labor, and with no ability to stop that production?
-- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
-- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
HI Orsan, perhaps the IWW was a 'new union' rather than a reformed new one? In France too, there seems a new breed of unions has been formed which uses different tactics etc ... can't recall the name but it has Sud in the name and is infuential among railway workers .. please keep us posted on this essential linkage between p2p and labor, this essentially, is what is going to change our world, Michel On Wed, Mar 9, 2011 at 5:23 PM, <[email protected]> wrote:
Thanks Michel, me too! I am writing something on this at the moment for New Unioniosm Network of Peter Hall Jones, will copy on the P2P blog and scoop it when it is ready.
Is is still a good idea to organize a skype meeting for knowing each other bit more and exchanging insights on the issue of immaterial labour and unions?
And, with due respect to your experience, and being fully agree with you on the external challange needed, I want to keep hoping a radical change to come for the traditional union form, asap. This happened a century ago with the IWW experience so why not once more. I try to think GAIA as IWW 2.0 but its organized network (of networks via individual dots) version. The recent posts on my SNU blog are identfying possibilities. I just need to start organizing workers, activists, en peer producers. Tomorrow I will join a rare confernece of networks, movements, unions that signals positively: http://www.jointsocialconference.eu/ will try to report on the outcome to you.
Quoting Michel Bauwens <[email protected]>:
Dear Orsan,
I really hope you will continue your efforts,
in my experience, traditional institutions DO NOT CHANGE, unless confronted with competing alternatives, so traditional unions will not change if they do not see new forms of organisation that are threatening to take away their own members ...
I intend to write a first response to Jean Lievens' essay soon, but I hope others will chip in,
Michel
On Sat, Mar 5, 2011 at 10:51 PM, <[email protected]> wrote:
Very interesting and complex discussion, thanks Michel for creating this
platform. and giving us to strech our brains. I currently try to force myslef to imagine and create peer governance mechanisms for existing traditional unions [mainly], as well as forming a new model in practice that would adopt p2p as its internal and external relational dynamic (gaia) [i could put less time on this]. Following the IWW experience, and combining several organising methodologies, I hope, if it gets success, this letter experience would motivate traditional union structures to change further [hypotethically]. The more I learn about the p2p theory and practices, the idea of organising immaterial labour is becoming a very good idea with gaia, together with material labour. I would like to invite you and others to discuss on this, in a publishible way. greetings
Quoting Michel Bauwens <[email protected]>:
Dear Patrick,
These are interesting remarks, though I suspect you are being ironic, but here a few counter-observations, that may even make it a non-problem:
- the ability of peers to produce freely shared commons is not a problem, only the capability of netarchical capitalism to exploit the value without return, is; that shifts the locus of the problem to the problems of those peers as workers, instead of seeing them as 'scabs'
- this ability of autonomous production is also a weapon or tool against employers, i.e. the locus of production can be changed to an autonomous site (used by striking journalists already in the past)
- the ability to mobilize of traditional workers is also 'limited' by physical locality, so 'immaterial' internetworking may be and actually is a plus, see the great movement of the intermittents in France a few years ago for an example of labour struggles, or the contemporary mobilization of Arab working classes happening right now
A further observation of scabs is that most often these were NOT workers from the striking factory, but outsiders, while in the case of free software we are talking about people being part of the same community with often shared values
On Sat, Feb 26, 2011 at 12:39 AM, Patrick Anderson <[email protected]
wrote:
The effectiveness of collective bargaining has always been threatened
by independent peers who are willing to accept lower wages and endure poor working conditions.
For traditional manufacturing jobs, these 'alternate' workers can usually be kept from accessing the Means of Production by forming a physical barrier around the worksite or through various threats that can be carried out because it is easy to monitor who is actually entering the establishment.
Yet these valuable techniques of intimidation and coercion so vital to protecting Worker Rights are unlikely to be applicable in the realm of "immaterial production".
When it comes to something like Free Software, how can we, the International Programmers of the World, unionize effectively to *stop* independent programmers from creating the solutions that consumers need?
This is a catastrophic issue, as many of these independents are willing to work not just for a low Wage, but for Free! They often fix bugs and add features without any pay at all!
How can workers in the 'immaterial' sphere possibly "make a living" with such anarchy and disrespect for organized labor, and with no ability to stop that production?
-- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
-- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net
Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation
Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
-- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens
participants (6)
-
Mark Dilley -
Mark J -
Michel Bauwens -
orsan＠tie-netherlands.nl -
Patrick Anderson -
Richard Schulte