Factories across the United States have been closing up shops for decades. Less common, however, is worker initiated factory takeovers. Today’s show will span from Argentina where workers occupied factories and established cooperative control all the way to Massachusetts where a union is fighting the closure of a plant and wants to reopen as an employee-run operation.
Our guests are:
Peter Knowlton, President of the UE's Northeast Region who has been the union rep at Haskon Factory in Tauton, Massachusetts for 22 years. Check out the "Keep Haskon Jobs in Tauton" facebook page here.
Sean Abbott-Klafter, soon to be teacher who studied the factory takeover movement in Argentina and lived there for 6 months. You may check out his musings studying factory cooperatives here.
- KBOO