Why Our Worker Co-op Is a Union Shop

Jonathan Kissam

Democracy. A little over ten years ago, I had come to New York City with a van-full of my fellow union members, to join tens or hundreds of thousands of people who had come to protest the impending war against Iraq. A young white man on a subway car, berating us, explained how democracy works: "People voted for Bush, now he gets to do what he wants. That’s democracy."

I think most of us like to think we have a deeper understanding of "democracy" than this young man did. But the reality is that, in our governments and, truth be told, in most of the organizations we’re part of, we accept that logic. As long as we’re allowed to protest the decisions of those we elect, we don’t really think that deeply about the process of democratic decision-making, about making decisions together.

Read the rest at http://www.webskillet.com/blog/2013/05/why-our-worker-co-op-is-a-union-shop-1-democracy