Recuperated Companies

After factory shutdown, Italian workers ‘recycle’ jobs

A group of Italian unemployed factory workers take over their disused factory near Milan and plan to set up a recycling business.

A group of Italian factory workers who lost their jobs at an auto component maker due to the recession, have taken over their disused factory near Milan and are planning to set up a recycling business as they struggle for dignity.
“We were considered rejects in society and we recycled ourselves,” said Gigi Malabarba, an unemployed man who has joined the initiative. read more »

When Workers Takeover: From Redundancy to Ri-Maflow

Italian workers occupy the factory where they used to work and run it as a cooperative recycling electronic components.

Have you heard the story about the Italian workers who took over the bankrupt company that previously employed them and started a new cooperative, all while doing something for the environment? read more »

RIMAFLOW WANTS TO EXIST!

An appeal of support to the self-managed factory Ri-Maflow in Milan, Italy.

This appeal in support of the self-managed factory Ri-Maflow in Milan, Italy has already received international support. Collective and individual support can be sent to : rimaflowvuolevivere@gmail.com. All donations to help the factory continue are most welcome. read more »

Vio.Me, Self-Organization in Greece

This short documentary tells the story of how the VIOME workers re-opened the factory under self-management and looks to where the factory is headed now.

The workers at the Vio.Me. Factory in Thessaloniki, Greece have quickly grown into a symbol of self-management internationally. After going on strike and occupying their factory, on February 12, 2013 they re-opened the factory and started production under worker's control. For many, the factory represents a new potential way forward for unemployed workers in Greece – seizing the means of production, running factories without bosses, producing only goods that are needed, and distributing them through solidarity networks. read more »

 New Era Windows Opens for Business in Chicago

Tired of their lives in other people’s hands, window makers started a co-op.

Meet the takers: They took over their factory, they took on their bosses, they took the initiative to form a worker cooperative and today they’re taking the wraps off a brand-new worker-owned company: New Era Windows. It opened May 9 in Chicago. read more »

Greek Workers Take Over Factory

An interview direct from Thessaloniki, Greece, where workers have gone into production at a building materials factory abandoned two years ago by its owners.

Tuesday February 12, was the first day of production under worker control at Viomichaniki Metalleutiki (Vio.Me), a building materials factory in Thessaloniki, Greece, which was abandoned by its bankrupt owners two years ago. Facing 30% unemployment and a dismal future for their community, workers in a series of mass assemblies decided to occupy the factory and operate it under direct democratic workers’ control.

As part of a letter being circulated by the Thessaloniki Solidarity Initiative explains:
read more »

Occupied Greek Factory Begins Production Under Workers Control. Occupy, Resist, Produce!

“We see this as the only future for worker’s struggles.”
Makis Anagnostou, Vio.Me workers’ union spokesman

Tuesday, February 12, 2013 is the official first day of production under workers control in the factory of Viomichaniki Metalleutiki (Vio.Me) in Thessaloniki, Greece. This means production organized without bosses and hierarchy, and instead planned with directly democratic assemblies of the workers. The workers assemblies have declared an end to unequal division of resources, and will have equal and fair remuneration, decided collectively. The factory produces building materials, and they have declared that they plan to move towards a production of these goods that is not harmful for the environment, and in a way that is not toxic or damaging.
read more »

Book Review: "Ours to Master and to Own: Workers’ Control from the Commune to the Present"

Immanuel Ness and Dario Azzellini, eds., Ours to Master and to Own: Workers’ Control from the Commune to the Present - Chicago: Haymarket, 2011

Ours to Master and to Own is a compilation of articles offering a historical and global overview of workers’ efforts to gain control over their workplaces, the economy, and governance. It is wonderfully organized in both a chronological and thematic logic, from the nineteenth century through the early twenty-first century, while also moving from a general historical overview toward more specific explanations of how worker democracy was implemented and fought in particular cases. read more »

Book Review: "Ours to Master and to Own: Workers’ Control from the Commune to the Present"

Immanuel Ness and Dario Azzellini, eds., Ours to Master and to Own: Workers’ Control from the Commune to the Present - Chicago: Haymarket, 2011

The fact that the publisher is Haymarket Publishers indicates that the book under examination is concerned with labor studies. This particular book is an anthology of twenty-two articles by various authors, who specialize in labor movements or the history of workers’ organizations. read more »

A New Era of Worker Ownership?

All over the country, people—like the workers of Chicago’s New Era Windows—are building worker-owned cooperatives that root jobs in the communities that need them.

The workers of the just-formed New Era Windows cooperative in read more »

Syndicate content