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The machines of self-management have been switched on!

Wed, 02/13/2013 - 10:15 -- worker

From Viome

After 3 days of intense mobilization, the factory of Vio.Me. has started production under workers' control earlier today! It is the first experiment in industrial self-management in crisis-striken Greece, and the workers of Vio.Me. are confident this is going to be only the first in a series of such endeavors.

The march was massive and vibrant.

The mobilization kicked off with a big
assembly of the workers and solidary organizations and individuals in
a central downtown theater on Sunday evening. Here the course of
action of the solidarity movement was discussed, and everyone had the chance to take the microphone and to express their opinion on the workers' struggle.

Really talented artists played in support of the Vio.Me struggle.

On Monday evening there was a march in
the city center followed by a huge benefit concert with several well
known folk bands and singers. Among them Thanassis Papakonstantinou,
one of the most important contemporary Greek songwriters who is in a
sense “part of the movement” since he always supports with word
and deed the efforts of society for self-determination. The
attendance exceeded everyone's expectations. Unfortunately about a
thousand people didn't manage to get in, as the stadium was packed.
The stellar moment of the night was when the workers took the
microphone and explained their vision of another society, based on
social justice, solidarity and self-management. Five thousand people
were applauding, shouting and chanting songs of support. It was then
that everyone realized that this endeavor is bound to succeed!

One of the Vio.Me. workers addresses the people.

Early next morning the mobilization went on with a vibrant march towards the factory. The workers were
already in their positions and the production was triumphantly
kick-started in front of the cameras of national, local and
alternative media. The workers organized a guided tour of the factory
and explained all the details of the production process to journalists
and participants in the solidarity movement. 

 The first batch of products produced under worker's control!

There is still a long
road ahead: The costs of production are high, access to credit is impossible and getting a part of the market in
times of recession is uncertain. The workers are however optimistic:
The proceeds from the benefit gig and the donations of supportive
groups and individuals collected through viome.org should be
enough to keep the company afloat in the first few months. And the
support of the social movements means many of the products will be
distributed through the existing structures of social and solidary
economy. The workers of Vio.Me. are already researching new cleaning
products, based on non-toxic ecological ingredients, apt for home
use. The factory makes quality building materials (mortars, plasters,
tile adhesive paste and jointing materials, waterproof grouts, etc.)
and the workers know very well how to improve the quality even more
while lowering the production costs and hence the price. The
challenge is now to find a market for these materials, which
unfortunately are too voluminous to be transported across long
distances, and should be sold within Greece or the surrounding Balkan
countries.

The 40 workers of Vio.Me. and hundreds
of participants in the solidarity movement have for three days
lived an unforgettable experience, which however is only the start of a
long and difficult road. Now more than ever we need to be united and
strong, determined to build a new world based on solidarity, justice
and self-management!
Category: 

Comments

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

lol

Right, furher! (or Stalin!)

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

Fuck your anti-work booj bullshit, that it awesome. Good on 'em.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

fuck you, boss

Submitted by Getreal (not verified) on

Close this window and get back to paying attention to the lecture.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

Capitalism =/= system of management
Capitalism = mode of production

Must destroy exchange value.
Must break labor-capital relationship.

Economist/syndicalist reformism is one of the biggest mistakes in the anarchist tradition because...it's not anticapitalist :(

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

Many anarcho-syndicalists (including myself) are critical of efforts at "self management" within capitalism as reformist and social democratic. This whole notion that syndicalism = self managed capitalism, is a dishonest strawman, that ignores the bulk of anarcho-syndicalist and left communist theory which explicitly rejects that idea. Primmies, post-leftists, and other assorted blow hards should actually read some syndicalist/left communist theory, then maybe we could have an actual conversation.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

Where is all this theory? Because LibCom, hub of syndicalist theory, is all about worker self-management.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

tl;dr

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

"determined to build a new world based on solidarity, justice
and self-management"

Jesus fucking christ.

I mean, yes, having the means to mass-produce certain objects might expand the general capacity for revolt, but this just sounds like a brochure for a co-op.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

It's not necessarily revolutionary but sounds like a better place to work than the not getting paid situation they were in before. People support workers in all kinds of reformist efforts. This seems no worse. And the bonus is I don't know any of these people so can imagine they aren't as bad as IWW types.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

What the fuck does this factory actually produce though?

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

Yeah, I was wondering that myself. Factories tend to be pretty specialized toward producing one particular thing.

Submitted by Captain Booshit (not verified) on

Near the end of the article: "The factory makes quality building materials (mortars, plasters,
tile adhesive paste and jointing materials, waterproof grouts, etc.)."

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

I'm gonna laugh when the anti-workerists need to patch holes in their walls.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

Er, couldn't they just loot a Home Depot or a construction site or something?

And shit, even The Coming Insurrection mentions expanding our capacity for revolt by finding ways of directly accessing the materials we need to exist.

Self-manage all you want, just don't pretend that act in itself is revolutionary.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

I guess indigenous have to work in factories in order to fix their dwellings.

Labor means suffer.

Fuck colonialism and its sky gods that divide

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

Well my grand father was native and worked in a factory to provide for his family. Just sayin...

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

Also isn't "fixing" something a form of labor? I understand being opposed to work (although I think we are probably operating off of different definitions of the word), but to be opposed to "labor". That's fucking delusional.

Submitted by Getreal (not verified) on

What's sad is that most of the white anarchists on this site that like to use native people, frozen in history, as poetic centerpieces to shitty neo-situationist rants are totally going to ignore what you just said. It sucks...

<:-/

Submitted by Getreal (not verified) on

And salvage materials from capitalist corporations all you want, don't pretend that's revolutionary.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

jesus, anarchists should be around to relentlessly expose the ways in which capital inevitably reestablishes itself within defensive self-managed production, not just piss on it from the beginning. HEIGHTENING the contradictions means engaging, probing, voicing doubts, and breaking in a principled fashion when the project is inevitably recuperated, not abstaining from the 99.5% of struggle that isn't premised purely on negation from the getgo. greece is sitting on a global faultline, every experiment there that isn't pushing either fascism or austerity should get a pat on the back and a good luck at least, no matter how doomed or garbled.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

how does anyone benefit from americans on the internet giving them verbal pats on the back.

Submitted by Anarcho-Asshole (not verified) on

Really Talented Artists is an amazing band. Their song "In Support of the Vio.Me Struggle" is one of their best jams. Its from their album "Black Flame " with their hit song "Big Bill Haywood was an Anarchist and Max Stirner Wasn't" with guest vocals by Michael Schmidt and Lucien Van Der Walt

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

haha

Submitted by Red Radish (not verified) on

The actual Bill Haywood had nothing but contempt for the anarchists clinging to the coattails of the IWW. He called them "circus freaks", and eventually left the IWW to join Eugene debs Socialist Party, and later, the Communist Party. Read Elizabeth Gurley Flynn's "Rebel Girl".

Submitted by Michael Albert (not verified) on

I am Michael Albert and I approve this message.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

pareCON !!!!

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

That article is sooo laughable, just as the rollover.

And what about self-managing some stupid sub-contracting call center, or even better, some tar sands mine? I suppose when it's self-managed it all becomes A-ok for the Revolution TM...

So the all polluted, dead toxic rivers will suddenly have a better taste... the cut-down forest and the plastic suburbia built in its place will turn all pinky and green... flowers will grow out of the highways, that will emit some nice baroque music. And DARPA will produce delicious non-GMO ice cream sandwiches for the kids in all poor neighborhoods. Awesome.

But everything for free, too? Not yet, comrades! We gotta wait for the Great Evening to come, then we'll abolish the monetary system and private property altogether. So before that happens, you must go back to work, pay your rent, eat shit and die.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

pro-work and anti-work debates are the dumbest shit ever. as if people who (have no other option but to) work necessarily are "pro" work. lots of people who work are also anti-work. this is not a real dichotomy. ya'll are dumb. i mean, ya'll are intellectuals.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

Just as if you were forced to work... A workerist is someone who assumes that there is no other way than wage slavery, not somebody who hates working.

Most people actually hate working, but still they get up in the morning to serve the system like good sheep.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

y'all, not "ya'll"
For fucks sake.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on

All y'all yankees don't get that shit. Get you some culture.

And fuck Michael Schmidt and Lucien Van Der Walt x1,000,000.

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