[Scpg] Labor Day, 2005: Breaking Through--Creating the Foundation for Economic Democracy

[Wesley Roe and Marjorie Lakin Erickson]

Labor Day, 2005: Breaking Through--Creating the Foundation for Economic 
Democracy

My professional life is the Center for Labor and Community Research (CLCR). 
This is my "soft-ware company" that has been in a 20+ development 
phase--working on a product that nobody asked for. Now we have our 
"product" and it seems to have appeal and potential. If that is the case, 
can we manage the competition in the market and survive growth? But at 
least true to our strategic perspective, we are contending.

CLCR has been a catalyst for some new initiatives in Illinois and Chicago 
that represent a breakthrough of a new model for community and economic 
development as well as a foundation for a potentially powerful social 
partnership of labor, business, government, and community. Civic, 
governmental, business, and labor leadership are leading the Race to the 
Top in contrast to watching our communities be destroyed by the powerful 
economic forces taking us on the Race to the Bottom.


In the last month, the top business, labor, governmental, and educational 
leaders in Chicago, at a meeting in City Hall, launched the Chicago 
Manufacturing Renaissance (CMR)—a long-term initiative for Chicago to 
become the world leader in modern, high value-added manufacturing. They 
began the CMR Council and steps are now underway to give life and depth to 
this campaign. CLCR’s vision of a High Road/High Performance manufacturing 
economy is the foundation for this initiative. As Chancellor of the City 
Colleges of Chicago, Wayne Watson commented, “We have to have an 
educational and economic infrastructure that is superior to Germany, 
Denmark, and India, and not be satisfied with out-competing Indiana;”
Superintendent of Chicago Public Schools, Arne Duncan, in joining the CMR 
challenged us to create a public high school that reflects the ambitions 
and partnership of the CMR. CLCR led a team that submitted an application 
to create the Austin Polytechnical Academy—a high school academy in an 
African American West Side Chicago community that has been devastated by 
deindustrialization. This “small school” of 400-500 students will have a 
direct relationship with high performance manufacturing companies in the 
region and be able to provide work exposure, internships, apprenticeships, 
and access to careers in all aspects of manufacturing;
The Department of Planning and Development is exploring a partnership with 
Trinity United Church of Christ on Chicago’s South Side—a church with 
15,000 members in the African American community and with a well-known 
prophetic pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright—to create an Early Warning Business 
Development System based on CLCR’s model. This is the new kind of 
partnership required by the vision of CMR; and
This Chicago initiative is a product of the state-wide partnership between 
the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association representing 4,300 manufacturing 
companies and the Illinois AFL-CIO representing 1 million union members and 
CLCR that has been developing a state-wide campaign over the last 9 months 
that seeks to make Illinois the destination place for global high 
performance manufacturing.

Our approach—developed in the course of our 20+ year history in the 
trenches of the economy and working with specific firms and communities—is 
premised on ending poverty through promoting sustainable economic growth 
based on a High Road stakeholder vision. This is in contrast to the Low 
Road demand for the highest return in the shortest possible time for 
shareholders no matter what the social impact. Defining and creating a High 
Road social partnership of labor, business, government, and community 
around this approach is central to CLCR's mission and experience. We have 
been a leader in:


1. Showing the causal relationship between the growth of poverty and the 
de-industrialization, particularly, of urban areas;


2. Proving that the decline of industry is not inevitable and out of the 
control of local communities. There is a way within reach that can 
dramatically reduce poverty on a significant scale through making good work 
and jobs available particularly in inner-city communities


3. Advancing policy and program that retains and develops the manufacturing 
economy in ways that are both competitive in the market as well as 
consistent with our social and moral values; and


4. Winning over the major institutions in Chicago and some of the key 
powerful state organizations from business, government, labor, and 
community to embrace and apply our approach.

This framework becomes a “barn door” for a social movement with vision and 
the desire to influence the way our society and its economy operates. This 
approach is clearly replicable in other communities.

In the next couple of days, you can find detailed descriptions of these 
initiatives at www.clcr.org