Workers' self-management is a form of organizational management based on self-directed work processes on the part of an organization's workforce. Self-management is a defining characteristic of socialism, with proposals for self-management having appeared many times throughout the history of the socialist movement, advocated variously by democratic, libertarian, and market socialists as well as anarchists and communists. An economic system consisting of self-managed enterprises is sometimes referred to as a participatory economy, self-managed economy, or cooperative economy. This economic model is based on the notion that people should be able to participate in making the decisions
… Read more that affect their well-being.
In the economic theory of self-management, workers are no longer employees but partners in the administration of their enterprise. Supporters of self-managed cooperatives cite the importance of autonomy for productivity in the firm and economists in favor of self-management argue that cooperatives are more efficient than centrally-managed firms because every worker receives a portion of the profit, thereby directly tying their productivity to their level of compensation.
The raised fist, or the clenched fist, is a long-standing image of activism, often a symbol of social revolution and political solidarity. It is also a common symbol of anarchism and communism, but can also be used as a salute to express unity, strength, or resistance. The origin of the raised fist as a symbol is unclear. Its use in trade unionism, anarchism, and the labor movement had begun by the 1910s. William "Big Bill" Haywood, a founding member of the Industrial Workers of the World, used the metaphor of a fist as something greater than the sum of its parts during a speech at the 1913 Paterson silk strike. The raised fist logo may represent unity or solidarity, generally with
… Read more oppressed peoples. The black fist is a variation of the logo generally associated with the Black Power movement. Its most widely known usage is by the Black Panther Party, a Black Marxist group in the 1960s.
Syndicalism is a current in the labor movement to establish local, worker-based organizations and advance the demands and rights of workers through strikes. Major syndicalist organizations include the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), the General Confederation of Labor in France, the National Confederation of Labour in Spain, the Italian Syndicalist Union, the Free Workers' Union of Germany, and the Argentine Regional Workers' Federation. A number of syndicalist organizations were and still are to this day linked in the International Workers' Association.
Syndicalists advocate direct action, including working to rule, passive resistance, sabotage, and strikes, particularly
… Read more the general strike, as tactics in the class struggle, as opposed to indirect action such as electoral politics. The final step towards revolution, according to syndicalists, would be a general strike. Labor unions were seen as being the embryo of a new society in addition to being the means of struggle within the old. Syndicalists generally agreed that in a free society production would be managed by workers. The state apparatus would be replaced by the rule of workers' organizations. In such a society individuals would be liberated, both in the economic sphere but also in their private and social lives.