[P2P-F] 12 things you need to know about protests in Wisconsin, USA + Unions and P2P alternatives

[Michel Bauwens]

Dear Sam,

copying two more union-p2p friends on this dialogue,

Michel

On Thu, Feb 24, 2011 at 10:35 AM, Samuel Rose <samuel.rose at gmail.com> wrote:

> Thanks Mark,
>
> This a long-term perspective/investment. Based on an ideas first
> articulated to me by Richard Schulte of Flywheel Tech Collective, who
> is copied on this email, the idea is to work with Unions to start
> building worker-owned cooperatives of various types, especially based
> around production and design of open source technologies/software.
> Mark, I copied you because I know that you've been in dialogue with
> Unions right here in Michigan for years. I wondered if you might know
> of some Union folks here in Michigan that might be candidates for this
> type of thing?
>
>
> On Wed, Feb 23, 2011 at 10:26 PM, Mark Dilley <markwdilley at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > Sam  - thank you for sending this out what seems so many days ago - I
> have been following this pretty keenly and am curious about the title of
> your email "+ Unions and P2P alternatives"
> >
> > open ears from anyone here.
> >
> > Best, Mark
> >
> >
> > On 19Feb2011, at 5:19 PM, Samuel Rose wrote:
> >
> >> "What's happening in Wisconsin is not complicated. At the beginning of
> >> this year, the state was on course to end 2011 with a budget surplus
> >> of $120 million. As Ezra Klein explained, newly elected GOP Governor
> >> Scott Walker then " signed two business tax breaks and a conservative
> >> health-care policy experiment that lowers overall tax revenues (among
> >> other things). The new legislation was not offset, and it turned a
> >> surplus into a deficit."
> >>
> >> Walker then used the deficit he'd created as the justification for
> >> assaulting his state's public employees. He used a law cooked up by a
> >> right-wing advocacy group called the American Legislative Exchange
> >> Council (ALEC). ALEC likes to fly beneath the radar, but I described
> >> the organization in a 2005 article as "the connective tissue that
> >> links state legislators with right-wing think tanks, leading anti-tax
> >> activists and corporate money." Similar laws are on the table in Ohio
> >> and Indiana.
> >>
> >> Walker's bill would strip public employees of the right to bargain
> >> collectively for anything but higher pay (and would cap the amount of
> >> wage hikes they might end up gaining in negotiations). His intentions
> >> are clear -- before assuming office, Walker threatened to decertify
> >> the state's employees' unions (until he discovered that the governor
> >> doesn't have that power)."
> >>
> >>
> http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/479560/12_things_you_need_to_know_about_the_uprising_in_wisconsin/
> >> _______
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> Aso worth reading:
> >>
> >>
> http://prop-press.typepad.com/blog/2011/02/report-from-day-five-first-chance-to-reflect.html
> >>
> >>
> >> ________________________________________________________________________
> >>
> >>
> >> I think the time is here to start talking with people about
> >>
> http://p2pfoundation.net/The_Political_Principles_of_Peer-to-Peer_Advocacy
> >> here, in the Industrial Midwest (which includes WI)
> >>
> >> One simple way to route around party politics is to give people a
> >> direct p2p way to actively reflect existing poltics as we saw in
> >> iceland with http://skuggathing.is/portal based on
> >> https://github.com/rbjarnason/open-active-democracy
> >>
> >> Another parallel approach is to start applying collective decision
> >> making and pooling of resources directly to problems people are
> >> addressing. In addition, creating cooperatives, supporting alternative
> >> currencies when appropriate.
> >>
> >> Unions in all of these states have resources, including pension funds,
> >> that they could invest directly in worker-owned cooperative companies,
> >> as has been discussed by Richard Schulte of flywheeltechcollective in
> >> the past. Some of them have expressed interest in doing this. These
> >> kinds of changes for entities like unions are long term changes and
> >> investments, and will take time. However, I think every year that goes
> >> by makes more and more on the left receptive to p2p alternatives.
> >>
> >> If people are interested in working on P2P political advocacy and
> >> approaches in 2011-2012, let's talk here and continue to build towards
> >> thing people can really use in places like Wisconsin, Ohio, Michigan,
> >> Eastern Europe, South America, etc
> >>
> >>
> >>
> >> --
> >> --
> >> Sam Rose
> >> Future Forward Institute and Forward Foundation
> >> Tel:+1(517) 639-1552
> >> Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
> >> skype: samuelrose
> >> email: samuel.rose at gmail.com
> >> http://forwardfound.org
> >> http://futureforwardinstitute.org
> >> http://hollymeadcapital.com
> >> http://p2pfoundation.net
> >> http://socialmediaclassroom.com
> >>
> >> "The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human
> >> ambition." - Carl Sagan
> >
> >
>
>
>
> --
> --
> Sam Rose
> Future Forward Institute and Forward Foundation
> Tel:+1(517) 639-1552
> Cel: +1-(517)-974-6451
> skype: samuelrose
> email: samuel.rose at gmail.com
> http://forwardfound.org
> http://futureforwardinstitute.org
> http://hollymeadcapital.com
> http://p2pfoundation.net
> http://socialmediaclassroom.com
>
> "The universe is not required to be in perfect harmony with human
> ambition." - Carl Sagan
>
> _______________________________________________
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>



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