Conversations at ECWD: Michael Johnson from Grassroots Economic Organizing

Story by: Corey Reidy / Transcription by: Isabel Antreasian

The weekend of July 8th- July 10th, The Eastern Conference on Workplace Democracy (ECWD) came to Baltimore to discuss "the continous growth of the workplace democracy movement." ECWD holds a conference every two years that aims to engage with national and regional worker-owned endeavors. 

The conference was filled with lectures, workshops, tours, and gatherings. Those defining a world without bosses - with innovative, with creative - with practical and utopic organizational structures and processes; people, from all around the region, participated in discussing their own cooperatives and learning from others.

Grassroots Economic Organizing (GEO)

At the conference, Indyreader caught up with Michael Johnson from Grassroots Economic Organizing (GEO).

Grassroots Economic Organizing (GEO) is a decentralized collective of educators, researchers and grassroots activists working to promote an economy based on democratic participation, worker and community ownership, social and economic justice, and ecological sustainability--a "solidarity economy"--through grassroots journalism, organizing support, cross-sector networking and movement-building and the publication of educational and organizational resources.

Below is audio from/ and a transcription of that interview.

Listen

Michael: My name is Michael Johnson. I'm involved with a Grassroots Economic Organizing Newsletter, GEO, and we cover the worker co-op movement, the solidarity economy movement, and we put on a very special project yesterday - in which we gathered worker co-op developers from across the country to come together and to talk directly with each other about the issues, the problems, how to coordinate better, and how to advance the development of worker cooperatives. It was a whole one day interactive conference.

Indyreader: How do you think that went?

Michael: It went very well. It really really went very well. People really talked to each other. And it was a situation where different perspectives were finally interacting and engaging with each other - and people hearing you know a whole variety of approaches to developing worker cooperatives. Down-sides, up-sides, conflicts, and it's going to continue the project.

They're going to carry the project forward with other conferences.

The Western Worker Co-op Conference, in September. And then there's a national one next summer. And they're going to carry the whole conversation on. So it was 89% successful.

Indyreader: That's a pretty high percentage!

Michael: I'm being conservative.

Indyreader: When you were discussing what your newsletter does, you mentioned two different movements – the worker co-op movement and the solidarity economic movement – could you explain what those two movements are?

Michael: The worker co-op movement is very established and tangible, in the sense that it's got national federations and regional federations - and it is one form of economic organization. It's very different from the capitalists, in the sense that the owners own the worker cooperative. No employer and no employee, you're worker-owner, and it's radically democratic because of that.

And then there's a whole variety of other alternative economic ways of organizing. Food co-ops and all kinds of other consumer co-ops. Producer co-ops is another one. Credit unions, barter economies, and local currency - and you could go on and on and on with the list.

And there is an effort to tie these together. Not in the sense of joining them into one organization, but to create a network - because they share a lot in common in the sense that they're providing alternative economic options for how to do business and how to sell. And all of them are committed to planet, people, and profits. And you work it out in balance, in as much harmony as possible. The networking of all of these together is going to help to promote alternative forms. They can support each other. And in coming together as a solidarity, they're in a position to work for different kinds of legislation that will help and look at other kinds of opportunities together.

Indyreader: What do you think the reality is of having a completely worker-run and operated economy?

Michael: I don't think that's anything within the scope of this century. I think that we live in a culture -  which means the culture's inside of us -  because that's how we've been raised and it creates a lot of obstacles.

The whole cooperative movement, producer, consumer, have been struggling a lot to develop the foundation and traction within this culture. I think that there's a lot of development along those lines, particularly with food co-ops because there's such a huge increase in interest in the quality of food, and there's a lot more organizing energy going into that. And so that's going to move the whole possibility of a cooperative economy expanding and developing. But that's why I have a lot of interest in the solidarity economy, in the sense that it can engage a lot more.

Indyreader: What do you think the importance is of having conferences like this?

Michael: Oh, they're vital. You come here and you know you're part of something that's far larger than what you keep thinking about. You see the different people, from the different parts of the country, and you see the projects that they're doing, the different approaches, and how much passion there is behind what they're doing. Now there's a lot of benefit that people get from being involved in the movement, but having that kind of passion for something you really care about is one of the major benefits. And so, the conference gives you a way to sustain that passion, as well as get a lot of different information.

Indyreader: What are you excited  most about this weekend?

Michael: Oh, yesterday's conference. We spent six months working on that, organizing it, all through the internet.

Indyreader: Do you have any final thoughts?

Michael: Grassroots Economic Organizing Newsletter, GEO co-op, is in a major expansion so that we can be a major news outlet for worker cooperatives and all kinds of other cooperatives and the whole solidarity movement, and we're in a big campaign drive so that we can get the money to redesign our website and really make it 2012, rather than 2006. And it's going to expand our capacity to deliver information and to involve readers. So, we would love for people to check it out. And they have opportunities to make donations on top all of that.