Re: HOMESTEAD: Myth of Employee Ownership

[John Médaille <john@medaille.com>]

At 08:34 PM 1/19/2004 -0500, LynnRWilliams@aol.com wrote:

>I would like to agree with John Medaille's observation that an employee 
>owned operation requires a change in values, which I would describe in 
>terms of democratic governance practices at every level of the operation.
>
>I don't agree with the implication (that may not have been intended, I may 
>be over-reacting, if so please excuse) that this can't be accomplished in 
>a union setting.  It's correct that it certainly wasn't accomplished at 
>United Airlines.  There wasn't an adequate vision there, there wasn't 
>sufficient involvement or agreement with the whole idea, and truth to 
>tell, no one is managing a major airline successfully at the moment, at 
>least no one comes to mind. The only successful airlines in the U.S. or 
>Canada are little ones that work for less.  This WalMart idea of working 
>for less isn't a great foundation for the American Dream or any of its 
>lesser versions.

I certainly didn't mean to imply that it couldn't be done with unions. In 
fact, to some degree employee ownership *requires* a labor union. However, 
the way the labor movement is structured may hamper effective ESOPs and 
employee ownership in general. As long as you have an "pilot's union" and a 
"mechanic's union" etc., you fragment labor. What was needed was a "United 
Airlines" union with internal groups for different kinds of workers.

To some extent, the current structure of the worker movement dictates that 
it also be an "anti-worker movement," insofar as the interests of different 
kinds of workers conflict. When these workers are made to compete for a 
piece of a static or declining pie, then one union must be "anti" the other 
unions. This is made apparent in a case like UA, but is implicit 
everywhere. Overall organizations, like the AFL-CIO are attempts to unify 
the movement, but they are national when they should be local and regional, 
or even company-wide.



John C. Médaille

"A dead thing can go with the stream...
but only a living thing can go against it."
         -G. K. Chesterton
http://www.medaille.com/distributivism.htm
john@medaille.com

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