[P2P-F] [NetworkedLabour] Theses on a Unionism Beyond Capitalism

Sun May 1 16:58:57 CEST 2016

Bob hi, below is from the Resalience blog, the post reproduced from
David Boiller's. I remember getting an email about the below report from
Pat Conaty recently. Discussion comes close to on what type of new
unionism. I was wonder what would your thoughts about the below, in
relation to Peter's and Eric Forman's theses? Also Peter your thoughts
on the below?

by David Bollier, originally published by David Bollier blog  | Apr 28, 2016

http://www.resilience.org/stories/2016-04-28/mutualized-solutions-for-the-precariat

Large companies have long sought to boost profits by converting their
employees into “independent contractors,” allowing them to avoid paying
benefits.  The rise of the “gig economy” – exemplified by digital
platforms such as Uber and Airbnb – has only accelerated this trend.
Business leaders like to celebrate the free agent, free market economy
as liberating -- the apex of American individualism and
entrepreneurialism.  But the self-employed are more likely to experience
a big loss of income, security and collegiality.  There is a reason that
this cohort is called “the precariat.”

A new report by Co-operatives UK called “Not Alone:  Trade Union and
Co-operative Solutions for Self-Employed Workers” offers a thoughtful,
rigorous overview of this neglected sector of the economy.  Although it
focuses on the UK, its findings easily apply internationally,
particularly for co-operative and union-based solutions.

The author of the report, Pat Conaty, notes that “self-employment is at
a record level” in the UK – some 15% of the workforce – and rising.
While some self-employed workers choose this status, a huge number are
forced into through layoffs and job restructuring, with all the downward
mobility and loss of security implied by them.

Few politicians or economists are honestly addressing the implications.
 They assume that technological innovation will simply create a new wave
of jobs to replace the ones being eliminated, same as it ever was.

The sad truth is that investors and companies benefit greatly from
degrading full-time jobs into piecemeal, task-based projects tackled by
a growing pool of precarious workers.  This situation is only going to
become more desperate as artificial intelligence, automation, driverless
vehicles and platform economics offshore and de-skill conventional jobs
if they don't permanently destroy them.

The “Not Alone” report does not tackle this larger mega-challenge, but
it does fill an enormous void by addressing how the precariat might
begin to fight back.  In many respects, the challenge is about basic
survival for the Uber drivers and temp workers, agency staff and solo
creatives, who are now forced to fend for themselves.  Conaty describes
the basic problem:

    The self-employed precariat do not enjoy employment rights and
protections at work, or any of the implicit services associated with
being an employee, such as payroll or workplace insurance – let alone
pension or sick pay.  In addition, their potential income is indirectly
eroded by other costs such as agency fees.  They face additional
challenges related to being paid on time and the right to a contract.
To compound all of this, many self-employed are among the lowest paid
workers in the UK.

Not only are many self-employed workers among the lowest paid, they
often have careers based on “zero hours contracts” (no guaranteed work
or income), part-time work and “portfolios” (multiple temporary or
part-time jobs drawing on the same set of skills).  All of these
developments may serve the interests of capital and companies, but do
they really represent “progress” for most solo practitioners?

The report calls for the “cousins of the labor movement” –
co-operatives, trade unions and mutual organizations – to come together,
as they did in another era of history, to help form new institutions to
help the precariat.

In the US, one such advocate for the self-employed is the Freelancers
Union, which seeks to “connect freelancers to group-rate benefits,
resources, community, and political action to improve their lives – and
their bottom lines.”  The Freelancers Union is not a trade union or
co-operative, but it does provide health, dental and other benefits to
its 280,000 members.

In Belgium, a co-operative known as SMart provides invoicing and debt
collection services for its 60,000 members who work in commercial art
and design.  SMart functions as a kind of modern-day guild, helping
members avoid the burden of setting up a company and providing small
loans, training services, legal advice and shared workspaces.

General trade unions in the Netherlands and Spain represent
self-employed workers and provide services.  In India, there is a
Self-Employed Women’s Association that acts as a service co-operative
for its 1.7 million members, providing “micro-insurance” and advocating
for workers’ rights.

One of the more innovative mutual aid models is the “bread fund.”  It’s
a new type of organization first developed in the Netherlands that
provides sick pay to the self-employed.  Each bread fund has between 20
and 50 self-employed members who put aside money every month into their
individual bread fund account. The money remains theirs, but is used to
support them and other members if they become sick.  No bread fund may
have more than 50 members. In the Netherlands, there are currently 170
bread funds in 88 towns and cities, with more than 7,000 participating
members.

The report describes a large array of other self-help, co-operative
solutions. They include mutual guarantee societies (co-operative
societies of small businesses that guarantee each other’s loans), credit
unions for the self-employed, and co-operative money and credit.

The report also discusses ways in which the government can help legally
protect marginal survival activities – often known as the “informal
economy” – and integrate them into the mainstream economy.  An entire
section of the report deals with co-operatives in digital sectors,
“social care” and the “solidarity economy.”

As far as general strategies for helping the self-employed, Conaty
recommends four priority goals (my paraphrasing here):

    1) Recognize this growing workforce by developing organizing
strategies for them;

    2) Focus on providing mutualized services to workers in creative
industries, care services and the green economy;

    3) Represent the interests of self-employed workers in national
policymaking; and

    4) Help develop regulatory solutions to enable collaboration among
self-employed workers with respect to mutual guarantee societies and
worker benefits.

There is much to digest in “Not Alone,” and many creative challenges to
be met. This report illuminates this poorly understood landscape with
insightful analyses, useful detail and lessons from the history of
co-operatives and mutual aid.

Bob Haugen schreef op 1-5-2016 om 11:03:
> Re-read(ed) again. This is not really a response to GLC (or the
> article that started this thread), but we were discussing yesterday
> how (or if) working-class organizing can intersect with the kinds of
> proposals from the P2PF and also the kinds of projects we have been
> involved in lately, which are mostly alternative-economy things. Not
> what does the vast majority of the work in the world. Tiny in
> comparison.
> 
> I do see Nick Dyer-Witheford's Commonism article among your citations:
> http://turbulence.org.uk/turbulence-1/commonism/
> 
> We actually want to take over Walmart and Google and Cargill and John
> Deere, but don't quite know how to go about it.
> 
> 
> On Sat, Apr 30, 2016 at 8:14 AM, Bob Haugen <bob.haugen at gmail.com> wrote:
>> I don't remember if you posted it before or somebody else. It was awhile ago.
>>
>> Is the best URL for GLC?
>> http://www.social-globalization.uni-kassel.de/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Waterman_Global-Charter.pdf
>>
>> (I read that before, too, but will re-read in the light of this
>> current conversation.)
>>
>> On Sat, Apr 30, 2016 at 8:08 AM, peter waterman
>> <peterwaterman1936 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>> Bob
>>>
>>> Sorry for double posting. Put it down to jetlag (or age?).
>>>
>>> Yup, I thought it was a strong political-economic analysis but still
>>> 'labourist' in the sense of 1) assuming the proletariat, or one part
>>> thereof, is the privileged agent of a socialist future, 2) 'Unionist' in the
>>> sense of seeing their shortcomings in terms of bureaucracy and corporate
>>> self-interest, 3) defining workers in terms of their existence for capital
>>> rather than as human-beings for whom 'being a worker is something relative'
>>> (a Peruvian worker and book title), therefore not address (them as)
>>> citizens, species beings, gendered, ethnic, [fill this space).
>>>
>>> But rather than criticising him online I would rather offer him my Global
>>> Labour Charter project and get him to respond by either telling me what's
>>> wrong with it, or amending it as he sees fit.
>>>
>>> My GLC has probably also been posted on NL, but can probably found under
>>> that name and my name. Interesting to me is that despite it's having been
>>> around since 2005, in two languages, there has so far been no response to
>>> it. I wonder whether that isn't because it's utopian, to which most on the
>>> Left are either averse or nervous about.
>>>
>>> P
>>>
>>> rather seeking for a 'relational form' appropriate for the kind of
>>> capitalism he describes and decries. By 'relational form', rather than
>>> 'organisation' I open the matter up to 'networking'.
>>>
>>> On Sat, Apr 30, 2016 at 1:57 PM, Bob Haugen <bob.haugen at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Peter, I read this when it floated through here before, and re-read it
>>>> again, and it's a good analysis. But do you understand from it what
>>>> the author proposes to concretely *do*? As in what is to be done?
>>>>
>>>> And since you are apparently covering the waterfront of this general
>>>> topic, which of the various proposals would you at least somewhat
>>>> recommend at this stage?
>>>>
>>>> On Sat, Apr 30, 2016 at 1:48 AM, Peter Waterman
>>>> <peterwaterman1936 at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>> Check this out:
>>>>> https://roarmag.org/magazine/rethinking-union-labor-organizing/
>>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>>> NetworkedLabour mailing list
>>>>> NetworkedLabour at lists.contrast.org
>>>>> http://lists.contrast.org/mailman/listinfo/networkedlabour
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> --
>>> Click for recent writings:
>>>
>>> https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BwAVbfM6AWJpUmloOEhtUlppSnM/view?usp=sharing
> _______________________________________________
> NetworkedLabour mailing list
> NetworkedLabour at lists.contrast.org
> http://lists.contrast.org/mailman/listinfo/networkedlabour
> 