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Challenging Capitalism through Workers’ Control
Vaz, Ricardo
http://dissidentvoice.org/2018/04/challenging-capitalism-through-workers-control/Date Written: 2018-04-18 Publisher: Dissident Voice Year Published: 2018 Resource Type: Article Cx Number: CX22219 From the upheavals of the early 20th century to the neo-liberal re-structurings of the late 20th century emerges the common feature of 'worker's control' -- a movement to protect jobs and communities. Abstract: -- Excerpt: Yes, because if workers take charge of their workplaces and decide on production, the labour processes, the values, everything changes. We have seen that in worker-controlled places. Security and health questions become central, and they are far from it in capitalist workplaces. For example, many worker-controlled workplaces start working with organic, or less toxic, production, because they are exposed to it. So once workers can decide, these questions become central. The struggle is no longer only about wage raises, which is the only struggle more or less allowed in the framework of capitalist society. Instead workers' control is automatically challenging capitalism. We have a central field of conflict, and obviously all the other fronts, like gender, race, etc., are equally important. But labour and production are not only fundamental for society but also a field we all have in common and that is absolutely fundamental for our survival and to the structuring of the whole society. In this field all other contradictions obviously have to be tackled too. We should not forget that the predominant way in which the economy and production are organised reflects on the rest of society. For example, as long as the dominant form of production was Fordism, the rest of society (universities, schools, bureaucracy) was organised in a Fordist way. So there is some kind of leverage if we are talking about labour and workers’ control. Subject Headings |