[P2P-F] Unions for Immaterial Production?

[Michel Bauwens]

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, <orsan at tie-netherlands.nl> 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 <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>:
>
>  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 <agnucius at gmail.com
>> >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
>>
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>>
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>>
>>
>
>


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