Page 20 RAIN December 1980 WORK Organizing Production Cooperatives: A Strategy for Community Economic Development, by William Alvarado-Greenwood, Steven Haberfeld and Lloyd C. Lee, 1978, $7.50 froin: National Economic Development and Law Center 2150 Shattuck Avenue, Suite 300 Berkeley, CA 94704 Coming from a background in consumer coops, it was interesting to learn more about producer/worker co-ops. Basing their work on the premise that increased economic power is a prerequisite to political power, the authors have created a "how-to" manual for organizing produ,ction co-ops for community economic development. Often judged in comparison to community development corporations (CDC s), co-ops have both advantages and disadvantages • unique to their structure. Beginning with a useful comparison of these two alternatives, the authors cover such nuts and bolts topics as: organizing a feasible business, taxes and securities, and creating a co-op management system. The three appendices provide additional information such as a list of co-op extension service offices and a questionnaire to help members in planning and research. While I feel some reservations about their initial analysis (that money is the key to resolving questions of inequality) Organizing Production Cooperatives is unquestionably a valuable resource for any community group considering production co-ops or CDC s. -LS I • Casting New Molds: First Steps toward Worker Control in a Mozambique Steel Factory, a conversation with Peter Sketchley and Frances Moore Lappe, 1980, $2.25 from: Institute for Food and Development Policy 2588 Mission Street San Francisco, CA 94110 "Our struggle is not just a struggle for production. It's a struggle also for making ourselves more human, for creating among ourselves human relationships of a new kind." -A Mozambiquan factory administrator,. chosen by the workers. Based on the experience of Peter Sketchley, a foreign advisor to Mozambique, Casting New Molds is a unique and personal account of the efforts of a newly independent steel factory to achieve cooperative ownership. Years of exploitation by the Portuguese robbed the Mozambique people not only of their wealth, but of their confidence and pride. In the five years since its liberation, the Mozambique governmem has demonstrated a commitment to a democratic participatory socie~y that goes beyond mere changes in stry.cture. Lappe and Sketchley touch upon heated topics such as the concepts of leadership, planning, and technical assistance. • Contrary to the media's stigmatized and bleak view of socialism, Casting New Molds offers a more realistic and hopeful picture of both its successes and problems in this new country. The process of creating a truly participatory democracy, rather than the presentation of a static concept, is demonstrated in its pages. -LS ·"Microelectronics at Work: Productivity and Jobs in the World Economy," by Colin Norman, Worldwatch Paper #39, October 1980, $2.00 from: Worldwatch Institute 1776 Massachusetts Ave. N.W. Washington, DC 20036 In 1946, ENIAC, the world's first electronic computer, was switched on at the Moore School of Engineering in Pennsylvania. It was a room-sized monster which contained 18,000 vacuum tubes and consumed enough power to drive a locomotive. A p·resent-day computer of.equivalent capability fits into a pocket, costs less than $100, and runs on flashlight baueries. That comparison sums up what a committee of the National Academy of Sciences has called "a second industrial revolution." Advances in microelectronics are already altering our.lives in· countless ways,'btit Worldwatch researcher Colin Norman believes we are just at the beginning: attempting now to assess the social and economic impact of what is happening is "akin to forecasting the impact of the automobile as the first Model Trolled off the assembly line.'' Nevertheless, an assessment must begin immediately if we are to counter the potentially negative impacts of the microelectronic revolution, and Norman's preliminary findings deserve wide attention. Many of the impacts he notes will be in the areas of industrial and office employment. The microelectronics industry itself can he expected to generate additional jobs in the coming years, but already a single microelectronic device can substitute for hundreds of mechanical parts . which previously required human labor to assemble. Increasingly, computerized robots are being used to perform the assembly jobs which remain, and this trend will accelerate as new robots·are perfected vyith a well-developed sense of "sight" and "touch." In the "electronic office" of the near future there will be less call for proofreaders, accountar:its, secretaries, t'elegraph operators and billing clerks. Women in traditional job roles can be expected to bear much of the brunt of this change.
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