The Dying City

Bill Wiltrack · **Posted:** Sun Jan 22, 2012 4:22 am

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Cleveland

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tbieter · **Posted:** Sun Jan 22, 2012 4:42 am

Bill,

What are the causes of the decay?

Bill Wiltrack · **Posted:** Sun Jan 22, 2012 1:41 pm

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Grab the back of your shirt, read the label.

Then you tell me.

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tbieter · **Posted:** Sun Jan 22, 2012 3:22 pm

Bill Wiltrack wrote:

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Grab the back of your shirt, read the label.

Then you tell me.

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At hand was a sweatshirt, a garment that is official University of Minnesota gear. The label says "Made in Pakistan".

Why don't more unemployed workers form worker cooperatives to manufacture goods (sweatshirts) or to provide services?

Why don't labor unions favor and facilitate the formation of worker cooperatives?

http://usworker.coop/education
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative

Is collective action less creative and innovative than the individual business person/ entrepreneur?

Bill Wiltrack · **Posted:** Sun Jan 22, 2012 11:34 pm

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What is the matter with labor unions?

Worker co-operative seem a bit complicated.

Can you name me some Worker co-operatives that are successful in your country?

Can you name me some Worker co-operatives that are successful in my country America?

My city, Cleveland?

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John · **Posted:** Sun Jan 22, 2012 11:42 pm

Bill Wiltrack wrote:

Can you name me some Worker co-operatives that are successful in your country?

Can you name me some Worker co-operatives that are successful in my country America?

You're both in the same country.

tbieter · **Posted:** Mon Jan 23, 2012 3:06 am

Bill Wiltrack wrote:

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What is the matter with labor unions?
The labor union oriented worker must wait for capital TO GIVE HIM A JOB. He waits and complains instead of taking the initiative, starting an enterprise, and competing in the marketplace.

And unions must use government coercion to get and maintain their privileged position.Obama, the union, and the NLRB went after Boeing's new plant in right to work South Carolina. http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/12/nlrb-dismisses-south-carolina-labor-suit-against-boeing/

Worker co-operative seem a bit complicated.

Yes, its a lot of hard work, being an owner/worker.

Can you name me some Worker co-operatives that are successful in your country?

I remember when the Builders Commonwealth was started. I knew one of the founders. He is probably retired now, living in Florida, playing golf when he is not checking his portfolio. The business was wildly successful from the start because the workers were craftsmen and they hustled for business. http://www.builderscommonwealth.com/

Can you name me some Worker co-operatives that are successful in my country America?

My city, Cleveland?

Here is a worker cooperative in Cleveland.

"Something important is happening in Cleveland: a new model of large-scale worker- and community-benefiting enterprises is beginning to build serious momentum in one of the cities most dramatically impacted by the nation's decaying economy. The Evergreen Cooperative Laundry (ECL)--a worker-owned, industrial-size, thoroughly "green" operation--opened its doors late last fall in Glenville, a neighborhood with a median income hovering around $18,000. It's the first of ten major enterprises in the works in Cleveland, where the poverty rate is more than 30 percent and the population has declined from 900,000 to less than 450,000 since 1950."
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/02/15-7

See also http://www.yesmagazine.org/issues/the-n ... owned-boom

I am amazed that you were ignorant of the worker cooperative initiatives in your own city.

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Bill Wiltrack · **Posted:** Mon Jan 23, 2012 4:48 am

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Good luck to them and their business framework.

I'll keep my money on Organized Labor in the form of legally recognized contracts between labor, capital, and material/objects.

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Arising_uk · **Joined:** Wed Oct 17, 2007 2:31 am **Posts:** 10396

So essentially your 'way' is the way of the capitalist lackey.

N. Korea not looking so bad now.

John · **Posted:** Wed Jan 25, 2012 4:31 pm

Arising_uk wrote:

So essentially your 'way' is the way of the capitalist lackey.

Indeed. You'd have thought that a method of actually controlling the means of production would be of some interest, but maybe not.

Maybe Bill prefers the inherent conflict in the predominant system?

Bill Wiltrack · **Posted:** Wed Jan 25, 2012 4:57 pm

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Conflict?

Thousands upon thousands of legally recognized, modern Organized Labor agreements are constructed and continued each year.

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent.
~~~ Martin Luther King, Jr. ~~~

I would like to share a word with anyone who is reading this thread. The word is negotiation.

Negotiation is often a means of resolving conflict throughout the world.

This has been an enjoyable thread. I thank you all for participating.

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John · **Posted:** Wed Jan 25, 2012 5:07 pm

Bill Wiltrack wrote:

Conflict?

Yes, conflict.

Bill Wiltrack wrote:

Thousands upon thousands of legally recognized, modern Organized Labor agreements are constructed and continued each year.

Who is denying that?

But back to "conflict"...

Bill Wiltrack wrote:

Change does not roll in on the wheels of inevitability, but comes through continuous struggle. And so we must straighten our backs and work for our freedom. A man can't ride you unless your back is bent.
~~~ Martin Luther King, Jr. ~~~

You don't think a continuous struggle constitutes conflict?

Bill Wiltrack wrote:

I would like to share a word with anyone who is reading this thread. The word is negotiation.

Ahh, so it's not "conflict" it's "negotiation" you say.

Bill Wiltrack wrote:

Negotiation is often a means of resolving conflict throughout the world.

How can negotiation resolve conflict if there isn't, as you seem to claim, any conflict in the first place? You've dismissed a term and then offered another but used the original one you dismissed to define it.

Bill Wiltrack · **Posted:** Wed Jan 25, 2012 8:54 pm

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I again would like to borrow a few words from the great Martin Luther King;

All progress is precarious, and the solution of one problem brings us face to face with another problem.
~~~ Martin Luther King, Jr. ~~~

I think he stated almost exactly what I feel.

Thank you for allowing me to clarify this important position.

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Arising_uk · **Joined:** Wed Oct 17, 2007 2:31 am **Posts:** 10396

Bill Wiltrack wrote:

I think he stated almost exactly what I feel.

Thank you for allowing me to clarify this important position.

But you haven't have you!? Its only almost what you feel. Why not try saying what it is you exactly feel?

John · **Posted:** Wed Jan 25, 2012 10:17 pm

What a stroke of luck that someone else always seems to have said something that encapsulates what Bill thinks or feels.

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