Democracy Now! ran a show on worker buyouts w/Naomi Klein & Avi Lewis

[clear eye]

I was reminded that Tom Crofts of the Steel Valley Authority has helped broker a few deals like that for plants in PA and OH when all else failed. It's risky for the workers, so other options are tried first. All but one of the Argentinian worker buyouts, product of Argentina's economic collapse in the late 1990's, unfortunately ended up failing.

An offshoot of an SVA/labor collaboration (and Crofts' determination to increase employment) is The Heartland Fund. Its purpose is to use union pension money to invest in or help promising, job-creating enterprises.

The Heartland Labor Capital Network, has proposed national capital pools for the U.S., financed by multi-employer pension funds, selected union affiliates and other financial entities. These national 'Heartland Funds' would make direct investments in smaller manufacturing and related enterprises that are worker-friendly. This fund coalition would also provide an 'umbrella' for shared marketing, due diligence, deal flow, and pre- and post-investment and monitoring activities in cooperation with a regional labor capital network in the U.S. focused on reinvesting in America's high road workplaces, to build sustainable regional economies.

Tom Crofts is an unsung hero who began his career at local governmental agencies finding and strengthening social services for unemployed workers, then sought employment in economic development agencies when he saw that what these people needed most was jobs. At some point he was recruited into Robert Reich's Labor Dept. under Pres. Clinton, and began developing a program for local gov't economic development groups to follow on strategies for job retention. He stayed for a while under Bush, but when the planned publication of his program manual was scuttled he left to direct the SVA. The Bush Labor Dept., true to form for the Bush administration, told him that the manual was their property, and if he published it outside the agency, terrible things would happen to him. He published it anyway.

In the SVA he implemented all his strategies and devised new ones to prevent employers from shutting their doors, whether it was helping the owners find subsidies, or finding a buyer when the owner was bailing out, or finding profitable new directions the company could go in. And, as I said above, a few times he was involved in worker buyouts. He always worked in concert with the unions, and never thought of cutting workers or going below a living wage as an answer. The reputation of the SVA grew outside of its traditional area, and he was in demand throughout the Rust Belt and beyond. In the last couple of years he's emphasized energy-smart and sustainable choices. I don't know how much of what he did survived the banking crisis, but the website seems to indicate that he's still directing the SVA. Hopefully Solis will discover his work and help support and enlarge it. I do know that large numbers of people have owed their livelihood to his work.