Just last week Hartmarx, a Chicago company in the business of making business suits, including the one Barack Obama wore at his inauguration, filed for bankruptcy. Wells Fargo, its biggest creditor and a recipient of $25 billion in bailout funds, wants to liquidate the company. But Hartmarx workers have said no. On Monday they voted to occupy the Chicago factory if the bank goes ahead with liquidation. That’s just one of the many stories from around the world—from France, Poland, Canada, the UK, and Argentina—of workers taking direct action to save their jobs and rebuild the economy. Why can’t we fire the boss? It’s a question Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis explored when they made their film, The Take, about Argentina’s movement of worker-run businesses. The idea may be catching on and last week we sat down with the filmmakers and with workers and organizers from Republic Windows and Doors in Chicago to talk about how direct action campaigns have fared. Then an update on the Hartmarx campaign with Ruby Sims, President of Workers United Local 39C in Chicago and Joe Costigan Treasurer of Workers United Chicago Region. Finally, speaking of life and labor in precarious times, Andrew Ross, the author of Nice Work if You Can Get It joins us in our studio.
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Year in Review: Why Can't We Fire the Boss?
This year saw a lot of economic upheaval and at least in the beginning, some militant labor action that the U.S. has grown unused to. Back in May, Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis appeared on GRITtv along with labor activists from around the country to ask the all-important question: Why can't we fire the boss? We wrote then:
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For information on GRIT magazine, go to www.grit.com.
Right on Naomi Klein. The thought about firing the boss is such a good idea. It is obvious to me that we live in a contradiction in this country: we elect our public representatives but we do not have any input whatsoever about who runs corporations which have more control over our lives. Corporations should be more democratic. Workers “should” be able to elect their supervisors and corporate presidents! Workers would have the same or more concern to elect supervisors as they have to participate in governmental elections.
Workers would elect those who do the best job for the health of the companies which would in turn be able to share greater profits with their workers.
I worked for ten years for a ready-mix company which was sold twice in that time to larger corporations. There, I was a teamster truck driver for several years and worked my way to a manager’s position just to have my supervisor come in one Friday and tell our whole plant that it was going to be shut down immediately. This was after the upper management wasted millions on computer programs which didn’t work, millions on automatic mixing systems for the trucks which didn’t work, millions on buying trucks at the wrong time, and hundreds of thousands on conveyer belts which were never used. The local drivers and local managers new that such decisions were disastrous, but the upper management would not listen or consult the workers.
The time has come for a democratic work place. None of these corporations have made their money without the help of common workers. It seems to me that workers deserve the right to be heard and change things democratically. The workers know more than anyone else about the changes which need to be made or not made in order to make a company more efficient; they are the ones who should have the power.
My father created a small logging company which I helped with for several years, but my father was the sole investor in that small company; he deserves to run it. But most supervisors of large corporations invest nothing into the corporations they work for; and, in such corporations, upper management is so out of touch with the needs and ideas of common workers, their decisions are usually not made in the best interests of the workers or the health of the corporation! Anyway, keep going Laura. Love your show.
By gordsd on December 29th, 2009 at 12:36 pm
Share your insights…also in the ready-mix; excavator (logging) industries – contact fredw@hydrostaticsupply.com.
By Marinated on December 29th, 2009 at 1:57 pm
So so right the outcomes here. The issue here is Management don’t have the ideas, the PE guys want to cut their losses, and the Bailout Banks want to pull the plug. The issue is Management who can’t navigate a new business environment, new markets, new unmet demand, new social trends and conditions. This is market failure. Capital not forming around the right things. Forming too much around the wrong Mgmt and PE teams. And BODs, banks etc not betting on the right Mgmt horses.
This is also true why Toyota went first into fuel cells and will own that, and also why they’re into robotics now for household use! They spot the social trends, and respond. Even though our Fed Govt spent $millions on R&D for robotics in universities, US corporate executives, BODs, and shareholders failed to commercialize any of that tax-payer paid for R&D for what is clearly a social trend with legs for personal robots, people living longer, in their own homes in aging populations in affluent countries.
While we can blame Unions too for Big Auto fail, the truth is, all these highly paid types, whether Company or Union Execs, never called the Mgmt and the BODs on strategy, new products, innovation that would make a sustainable, transformed business model to keep today’s jobs, and build for the future. Blame all the egomaniacs in suits, Company and Union alike.
By AlbyFlugzeug on December 30th, 2009 at 6:45 pm