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Empowering Worker Cooperatives
Many of my previous policy proposals have detailed steps which I would take toward empowering workers. Ideas such as universal healthcare go a long way in this regard. Endorsing a national union also goes a long way in empowering all Americans.
Yet none of that is enough. Allowing decisions regarding wages, employment and benefits to remain in the hands of corporations as they are currently structured still leave workers with less power than investors. Corporate executives and outside investors who hold the majority of stock detract from profits which would otherwise go into worker wages and benefits. These same people make decisions which are, more often than not, detrimental to workers.
If we do not have democracy in the workplace, we do not have democracy.
Consider that if a company is offered tax breaks in various forms if they move their facilities to another geographic location, the company will frequently take that offer. The concerns of the workers at the previous location are not taken into account. If the company decides to move operations to another country or outsource production to another country, it is the workers who have no voice in that decision. In many cases, it is not only the direct workers for a facility who suffer but the…
