PERMANENTLY TEMPORARY?

[D: Below is something from a temp in Montreal, pondering how to deal with the problem of temporary workers. If you have any ideas, send'em along, and I'll post them, so we can figure some way out of the temporary workforce problem. As I see it, the "problem" isn't temporary workers, so much as it is a massive, disempowered workforce at the mercy of Big Business and capitalism.]

I've been thinking about how one could start a Co-op. A lot on the left see co-ops as still being within the system, forgeting the original vision of the first co-ops. The crucial thing is the set-up. If the mission statement, and of course the founders, were clear that the co-op's raison d'etre was an alternative to capitalism, then the big thing would be to stick to this when and if it grows. I still think that if Mondragon would have gone in a different direction, it would be interesting to see what became of it.

Take things like community banks, credit unions (like Mondragon's Caja, before it got too big for it's britches), community loan funds, community land trusts. The more community ownership was tied into the vision of the thing, the more it could move (and the more people in the community it could move) away from capitalism.

This is a very slow process, and by it's local nature, may seem too utopian. But I still believe that any positive example of an alternative to capitalism that is bottom-up, is worth it.

So the big thing for a temp co-op would be to get at least 3 people who came from this viewpoint, and do the marketing needed to get a few "clients". You could charge a couple bucks less than the Manpowers out there, take wages that were higher, and still have money going into the co-op - not much, of course, but you'd have a few people keeping their heads above water long enough to get other projects going. With even this litle track record, you could more easily get money from a community loan fund - or start one, if there isn't one in the area. (Here in Montreal, there's a CLF that gives money to disadvantaged people to be self-employed, and helps them with start-up. If that money could be going to real alternatives, so much the better.) So you could have the temp thing happening, but getting other stuff off the ground - for those temps not into the underlying vision of the thing, well they would be better off there than at Manpower, etc, and they would be getting involved and seeing the alternative in action. What better propaganda is there?

This is a really general sketch - and maybe not a very good one at that - but does it make any sense at all?

derek