[exerpt] Corporation Busting: A strategy for Unions and Coops Toward Building a Labor-Ownership Economy

by Lisa Stolarski

Published in issue 71 of GEO. The full article is not currently online. But here's an excerpt from the sidebar:

What can cooperatives offer unions?
• Strategic control of unemployment levels
• An overall resulting increase in wages
• Place-based say in the organization of production
• Profit-sharing
• Stable revenue stream for organizing within capitalist enterprises
• A growing worker-based economy in which to participate as consumers
• Leverage in negotiations with employers throughout industries which cooperatives provide high road and high wage models

What can unions offer cooperatives?
• A share in start-up risks
• Motivated work force
• Access to a large pool of worker intellectual capital
• Perpective on industry-wide trends
• Cross-company worker solidarity
• A resulting leverage with competition
• The potential to reproduce the cooperative model in abandoned facilities

Lisa Stolarski is a founder of Jane Street Housekeeping, a worker cooperative, and also a member of the Industrial Workers of the World.