Naomi Klein speaking at the Vio-me factory in Thessaloniki, Greece - Part 1 (in English and Greek)

[midnight]

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She show us the factory that was abandoned by the owners, but brought back by the workers... and an interesting fact of this change was a board that was created for the workers by the workers who over see the running of the factory....




"Naomi Klein (Photo: Jonathan Dy/cc/flickr)
Speaking this week at the Vio.Me worker-run factory in Thessaloniki, Greece, Klein, who is in the country doing research for a book and film, said the building materials factory was the perfect place to be speaking as it is "known in resistance movements around the world" and provides an example of what she said is "the anti-Shock doctrine"—a situation where rather than bowing down to the forces at hand, the crisis has put a fast-forward on coming up with creative alternatives, where workers "refused to have their lives and livelihoods sacrificed on the altar of economic crisis, and instead found reserves of power and ingenuity."

Describing Vio.Me, economist Marjolein van der Veen explained:

In May 2011 when the owners could no longer pay their bills and walked away, the workers decided to occupy the factory. By February 2013, after raising enough funds and community support, the workers started democratically running the company on their own. (They do not intend to buy out the owners, since the company owed the workers a significant amount of money when it abandoned the factory.) They established a worker board, controlled by workers’ general assemblies and subject to recall, to manage the factory. They also changed the business model, shifting to different suppliers, improving environmental practices, and finding new markets. Greek law currently does not allow factory occupations, so the workers are seeking the creation of a legal framework for the recuperated factory, which may enable more such efforts in the future. Vio.Me has received support from SYRIZA and the Greek Green party, from workers at recuperated factories in Argentina, as well as from academics and political activists worldwide.
In Greece, Klein said, "alternatives to austerity are presented by media as apocalypse."

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/06/06-4

Alternatives do exist....

[arcane1]

1. Kicking to watch later!

I love Naomi Klein

[chervilant]

2. Alternatives exist,

and these alternatives may be the key to stopping the corporate megalomaniacs who've usurped our media, our politics, AND our global economy.

[midnight]

3. We have to start here and move forward.