Re: HOMESTEAD: Myth of Employee Ownership

["Norman G. Kurland" <thirdway@cesj.org>]

Mike,
You got the name wrong.  We had to rename the management model "Justice-Based Management" instead of Value-Based Management (a term we have used to describe a democratic leadership approach to worker ownership since the 1980s) to distinguish it from the more recent use of that term on Wall Street to describe a system for speculating in underpriced or undervalued securities.  If Wall Street wants to promote Justice in the economy they can find a virtual library on www.cesj.org, and we'd love for them to be using that the JBM term.  We also look forward to labor unions transforming themselves into democratic bottom-up ownership unions in order to raise the level of genuine economic justice for the bottom 95% of society, starting with the poorest of the poor.

If you have reached a conclusion that the writings on our web site are "incomplete", perhaps you have not spent enough time reading the materials available by clicking on the "site map" button.

Norm Kurland
Michael Bindner wrote:

Lynn,

 

Good to see you on the list.

 

Value Based Management is explained somewhat (though incompletely) at the CESJ website.

 

21st Century Economics is explained on mine www.christianleft.net.  I was going to explain it in print in Labor and Corporate Governance when the AFL-CIO Investment shop had the article quashed because they did not like my piece on social security.

 

Mike

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 W! alMart idea of working for less isn't a great foundation for the American Dream or any of its lesser versions.

There are, however, a number of employee owned union represented operations that are doing quite well.  I was hearing about one the other day, Market Forge in Boston, that frankly I thought was long gone.  We had management experts there who insisted that they needed a new plant, far away from where the workers lived, the workers stubbornly resisted, the end was supposed to be near, I hear now they are still in the old plant, still can get to work in a reasonable fashion, and the enterprise is succeeding.

I am not familiar with the systems known as Value Based Mangement or 21st Century Economics, but if they are somewhat similar to Open Book Management I would expect they are not entirely incompatible with a truly democratically governed employee owned entereprise with union represented worker-owners.

Lynn Williams