"Labour, Globalisation and The New Economy" - rldwl

closing; provide assistance to companies in need of resources or skills; identify opportunities for increasing
corporations’ performance and stability; and identify opportunities for labor and community to increase their
control over the local economy. Early Warning Networks have provided assistance to local companies
including financial, technology, and management assistance. Early Warning Networks have also helped
arrange the purchase of companies by workers and have led to mass activist campaigns against a corporate
decision to close a company. A few campaigns have led to the use of “eminent domain” to force a change in
ownership of a company. Early Warning Networks can provide traditional services to local businesses but
also initiate new, cutting-edge, and sometimes militant popular campaigns against corporate decisions.
CLCR has set up such networks in Chicago and New York. Similar networks have been established in
Pennsylvania and by the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union (IAM) on a
national basis.
Such a Network is a key tool in retaining jobs and companies, but it is also an effective entry point for labor
and community organizations into local economic development. But most important is the kind of changes
that take place in a workers consciousness when they and their organization begin to define a broader level
of power and influence in the company. This work is the foundation for local economic democracy.
Discussing Early Warning Networks is a starting point for discussions including:
Building coalitions between labor, community organizations, local businesses, and governments;
Labor union involvement in issues of production, finance, management, and other issues linked to wealth
creation;
Innovative services and assistance to local businesses;
Various approaches to networking in the economy;
High Road and Low Road trends in business and the implications for the local economy;
Tools for blocking Low Road business strategies;
Local strategies for industrial retention;
Employee-ownership of companies and labor “capital strategies;”
Business relations with stakeholders as well as shareholders; and
Innovative and entrepreneurial approaches by local government.
Programme:
Michel de Bernardy, University of
Grenoble/France: Institutions and business
activities at the local level - Virtuous versus
vicious cycles and vice versa
Luis Paolo Bresciani, Nadia Somekh, Jeroen
Klink, Jorge Gouvea, Santo Andr,e Brazil:
Economic Development, Jobs and income
creation - The Ppublic Policies in Santo Andre,
Brazil.
Liana Carleial, Maria Lucia Figueiredo Gomes
Filha, Lafaiete Santos Neves, Faculdades Santa
Cruz e PPGDE/UFPR-Brasil: The role of
institutions in preparing industrial workforce in
the automotive sector in Paraná (Brazil): limits
and possibilities
Anup Kumar Dash, Utkal University, India: The
Social Economy of Self-Help Groups
Werner Fricke, Institute for Regional
Cooperation, Wieren/Germany: A Process of
Institutional Dialogue for Labour Market
Integration of Migrants within Regional
Development
Rainer Greca, Catholic University of
Eichstätt/Germany: Institutions and Isomorphism
in Regional Development
Francesca Odella, University of Trento/Italy:
Training for the next future chance. The diffusion
and social effects of public funded training
projects on Italian SMEs.
Andreas Drinkuth (Zukunftswerkstatt Mensch
Umwelt Technik e.V., Frankfurt/Germany) &
Claudius H. Riegler (DLR Projektträger des
BMBF, Arbeitsgestaltung und Dienstleistung,
Bonn/Germany): Labour unions as learning
organisations and agents of organisational
learning
Fabio Zamberlan & Carmen Perrotta,
Universidade Federal de Rio de Janeiro/Brazil:
The role of University in projects of vocational
training in the perspective of qualified
intervention of workers in local and regional
development
10 - 14 May 2002