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Dear Barry, Tim, Dan and the ESOP Privatization Community,
There is a way for genuine labor leaders to be sold on ESOP/CSOP plus
the "real third way." But it takes a gutsy, authentic leader like
the late Walter Reuther of the UAW. I worked as the CCAP's director
of planning for Reuther when he headed the Citizens Crusade Against Poverty
from 1965-1968 and brought him together with Kelso in 1966. Reuther,
who was committed to the "revitalization of the labor movement" testified
on February 20, 1967 before the Joint Economic Committee of Congress
that year and pointed out that "stock distributions to workers would help
democratize the ownership of America's vast corporate wealth which is totally
appallingly undemocratic and unhealthy. . .If workers had definite assurance
of equitable shares in the profits of the corporations that employ them,
they would see less need to seek an equitable balance between their gains
and soaring profits through augmented increases in basic wage rates.
This would be a desirable result from the standpoint of stabilization policy
because profit sharing does not increase costs. Since profits are
a residual, after all costs have been met, and since their size is not
determinable until after customers have paid the prices charged for the
firm's products, profit sharing [through wider share ownership] cannot
be said to have any inflationary impact upon costs and prices." (Page
774, Part 4 of "Hearings, The 1967 Economic Report of the President, Joint
Economic Committee, 90th Congress, 2d Session.)
To give you some more background on the successes and failures of Kelso
and me in promoting the "pure Kelsonian" principles and applications among
U.S. and non-U.S. labor unions, please visit the CESJ web site at http://www.cesj.org
and read the labor sections of "A Personal Journey to the Third Way",
the case study on South Bend Lathe, and the long paper on Value-Based Management,
which you can retrieve from the CESJ "Site Map."
Dan was with me when I made a presentation before the former communist
labor unions in Moscow and he saw the positive response I received in making
the case for labor's very significant role under the "third way."
Working for the Banana Workers of Guatemala in 1972, Joe Recinos and I
came very close to acquiring all of United Fruit's banana plantations through
a leveraged ESOP with the backing of the U.S. anti-trust division of the
Department of Justice. In Egypt in 1987 we worked with the head of
the Chemical Workers Union to implement the first leveraged ESOP in the
developing world at the Alexandria Tire Company, a joint venture with Pirelli
Tire of Italy. In Argentina we developed a leveraged ESOP for the
Argentina utility unions in privatizing the San Miguel nuclear power plant.
In Bangladesh we are now working with all the textile worker unions to
privatize 9 textile mills which the Prime Minister wants to "turn over
to the workers."
So, Barry, Tim and Dan, the key to getting organized labor aboard is
challenging the leaders and even going over their heads to the rank-and-file,
when appropriate, to abandon the feudalistic wage system, which is the
cancer of every economy on the globe today and to return to roots of democratic
trade unionism by spearheading economic justice for all members of society.
(See our definition and paper on economic justice on the web site.)
Norm Kurland
Center for Economic and Social Justice
Web: http://www.cesj.org
Barry Randall wrote:
When I sent the original message
on unions and coops I was hopingto find out why unions
had not embraced ESOPs and why coopshad not embraced
CSOPs. I was hoping to find a way to convincethese
two groups to join "the ESOP/CSOP movement." Now
after reading Tim's message I want to change the question.How
could we take the best union ideals and framework along withthe
best from the coop movement and merge them with the bestfrom
the ESOP/CSOP concept? Is there common ground betweenthese
concepts where they could all be improved upon? Barry
RandallOttawa, Ontariobrandall@fox.nstn.ca
-----Original
Message-----
From: Tim Mitchell <pentim@netspace.net.au>
To: EOpriv@cog.kent.edu
<EOpriv@cog.kent.edu>
Date: Wednesday, October 27,
1999 9:33 AM
Subject: Unions and coops
I've just read Barry and
Dan's contributions re above with great interest. I
think that's an excellent discussion point. I've wandered to myself how
to make coops and esops compatible in a meaningful, practical and significant
way. In Australia,
there is a new group called Mutuality Australia which I will try and vend
in to this discussion. They are committed to the promotion of coops and
third way type ideas. I'm
also going to forward your comments Dan to some of the high level bureaucrats
in my Department of Fair Trading. They administer registration of coops
in this state and I have prompted them to develop some thoughts on CSOPs
in light of our pending competitive electricity and gas market at all levels
including residential. They are keen to set up a discussion group within
the Department on the subject and assuming we come up with something useful
feed it in to the regulation formation processes. I'll
keep you posted. Cheers Tim
Mitchell
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