Post by Flash on Jul 23, 2007 5:02:24 GMT -5
Ford's decision to close its Geelong engine plant will result in the direct loss of 600 jobs and the indirect loss of almost 3000 jobs in the Geelong region. Faced with this crisis, the Federal and Victorian governments have earmarked $24 million to help fund private investment in greater Geelong. This decision highlights the narrow ideological parameters governments work under when faced with the dilemma of creating new jobs in local communities as transnational corporations reposition themselves globally.
Wealth is not created just by privately owned corporations and small businesses; wealth can be created by businesses owned by worker co-operatives. It is ironic that industry-owned superannuation funds, which are among the most successful funds in Australia, pour money into the economic system that exploits the labour of the very workers they are attempting to secure a future for. It is also ironic that governments continue to pour taxes into the coffers of private businesses that use these funds to shore up their bottom line, not employ new labour.
Worker co-operatives provide advantages for their workers that private and public sector workers could never enjoy. Profits are shared among the co-operative members, not sent offshore or used to pay enormous salaries to owners and management. Worker co-operatives are not bound by John Howard's draconian workplace laws that govern the unequal relationship that exists between employer and employees.
Worker co-operatives give members the opportunity to successfully address the life-work equation that has become a significant issue in the workplace today. A federation of worker co-operatives could in time act as direct competition to the hold a few dozen transnational corporations now exercise over the people of Australia.
The main problem facing people who want to form worker co-operatives is access to capital from private lending institutions. They have to rely on governments that are ideologically averse to investing taxation revenue in worker-owned co-operatives, preferring to pour tax benefits and direct grants into the private sector.
Unfortunately, industry-owned superannuation funds do not seem to have the vision to provide seeding capital to worker-owned economic models. With the right management, worker co-operatives can provide safe, secure employment, a healthy work-life balance, a healthy return to the community and real competition to the transnational corporations that now dominate economic activity in Australia.