[P2P-F] The emergence of peer production as challenge and opportunity for labour and unions

Michel Bauwens michel at p2pfoundation.net
Wed Mar 15 16:53:51 CET 2017


Dear friends,


Vasilis Niaros of the P2P Lab and myself (Michel Bauwens) produced a report
on commons-oriented peer production and the collaborative economy, and what
it could mean for labour and unions, commissioned by the European Trade
Union federation as the EU level, i.e. ETUC/ETUI


Thanks a lot for eventually tweeting and diffusing it as well:



ETUI Policy Brief 3/2017: emergence of peer production: challenges

and opportunities for labour and unions https://t.co/hNsiXoGOlb



Key points and Conclusions



Key Points:


— The emergence of peer production is not a transient phenomenon but an
essential part of the evolving economy since it is based on both
technological capacity and social demand. — As this emergence is
accompanied by many negative social and environmental externalities, it is
vital that the labour movement and trade unions demand strong regulatory
safeguards.

— There are also important potential advantages, such as a greater
opportunity to choose meaningful and autonomous work, as well as other
ecological benefits.


 — Positive responses that have been emerging include the creation of
generative entrepreneurial coalitions, platform cooperatives and labour
mutuals.


— This policy brief recommends approaches that support a new cohort of
autonomous workers and consider them as an integral part of the existing
labour and union movements.


— A productive model that combines global open design communities with
distributed manufacturing should be explored as a potential framework for
local re-industrialisation and the creation of a substantial amount of
blue-collar jobs


 Conclusions

In conclusion, both CBPP and platform capitalism have positive and negative
aspects. Given the interconnectedness of their emergence with current
technological capacities, we propose that the labour movement and trade
unions craft a policy response that:

— strongly regulates against negative externalities that affect workers
(e.g. the regulation of Uber and AirBnB);

— strongly promotes the positive aspects by making a link between the new
models and those corporate entities that take into account social justice
and distribution; in other words, supports generative businesses that
create livelihoods around peer production and member-owned or
multi-stakeholder-managed ‘platform cooperatives’;

— supports autonomous work, creates solidarity mechanisms that insert these
workers into systems of social protection, and attempts to bridge the
divide between the precariat and the salariat, without reducing autonomous
work to a subordinate status;

— supports the convergence of cooperative models with those of the social
and solidarity economy around the commons and the ‘sharing’ economy; and

— supports the creation of business incubators and the prototyping of
policies that re-create local jobs with a view to promoting potential
re-industrialisation through distributed manufacturing models.


-- 
Check out the Commons Transition Plan here at: http://commonstransition.org


P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net  - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net

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