During the first decade of the current century, workplace recuperations and production under workers’ control seemed to be limited mainly to South America. It was beyond the imagination of most workers and scholars in industrialized countries that workers would or could occupy their workplaces and run them on their own. Nevertheless, the crisis that started in 2008 put workers’ control back on the agenda in the northern hemisphere where several companies from Greece to Italy and the US have been taken over by workers.
This presentation is grounded on the research published in the book Capital and the Debt Trap - learning from cooperatives in the global crisis by Sanchez Bajo & Roelants.
The book provides an explanation of the global crisis since 2007 and why cooperatives have been showing a relatively higher degree of resilience compared to other types of enterprises, generating genuine value and general wealth in a sustainable manner.
In this workshop we will explore with the participants the meaning and usefulness of applying solidarity economy principles and strategies to build up IT services and infrastructure for communities.
Current work and projects of Ecobytes e.V. in providing membership-based IT services to movements and communities of degrowth, transition or community-supported agriculture will be presented, together with discussion on stories of success and their associated challenges.
The aim of this workshop is to share some tools to be used in contexts/ working groups/ communities of a great cultural diversity, in order to enable the development of communication and intercultural dialogue.
The following concepts will be explored: multiculturalism, otherness and equality, communication and intercultural dialogue.
Non-formal education dynamics will be used, promoting individual and group expression.
The last 4 years networks, activists, trade unions and initiatives all over Europe have contribute to the political and social struggle in Greece. The political support played a major role in order to internationalize the causes of the greek crisis and the same time groups and activists supported practically the self- organized solidarity movement in Greece. This is the only viable plan to reconstruct the societies based in solidarity bonds , especially between countries that mass media and the political system creates hostile environment.
We'll play the board game "Currency Lab" to interactively learn about alternative currencies and how they can bring much needed diversity and resilience to the money system we have today - a vast "money monoculture" bad for both the global economy and the planet.
The game rules encourage engagement, providing challenges which must be counterpointed by choosing and creating strategies. The efficacy of the strategies is not predefined, but instead negotiated among the players, who pose and answer questions and refine their plans together.
