[P2P-F] Unions for Immaterial Production?

Sat Feb 26 12:35:56 CET 2011

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 <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>:

> 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, <orsan at tie-netherlands.nl> 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 <richard at flywheelcollective.com>:
>>
>>  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?
>>>>
>>>
>>
>>
>
>
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