Banded together: Economic democratization in the Brass Valley

Banded Together: Economic Democratization in the Brass Valley

Volumn , Issue , 2011, Pages 1-251

  Brecher, Jeremy ^a  

^a NONE

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EID: 84894734660     PISSN: None     EISSN: None     Source Type: Book    
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References (464)

1. Thomaston children's chant quoted in Agnes O'Brien Crowe, interview. For a slightly different version collected by the Works Progress Administration in the 1930s, see "Seth Thomas Clock Company," manuscript, Record Group 33, WPA Records (CT), box 206, file vi, Connecticut State Library, Hartford.
2. Mary Tycenski, interview.
3. James Wilson, interview.
4. Matthew Monahan, interview;
5. Francis Kane, interview.
6. "Clock Burning Symbolizes Loss of Seth Thomas," Hartford Courant, April 11, 1983.
7. For an account of the Brass Workers History Project, see Lynne Williamson and others, "Using Ethnography to Enhance Public Programming," in Ethnographer's Toolkit, ed. Jean J. Schensul and Margaret D. LeCompte, vol. 7, Using Ethnographic Data (Walnut Creek, Calif.: AltaMira, 1999), 130-50 and references on 177-78. For products of the project, see
8. Jeremy Brecher, Jerry Lombardi, and Jan Stackhouse, comps. and eds., Brass Valley: α e Story of Working People's Lives and Struggles in an American Industrial Region, Brass Workers History Project (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1982);
9. Brass Valley, produced by the Brass Workers History Project and Connecticut Public Television (1982). The project's papers and interview recordings are archived at the Mattatuck Museum in Waterbury, Conn.
10. Ken Galdston, interview, December 18, 1985.
11. Waterbury, Conn.: Naugatuck Valley Project, 2009.
12. See, for example, Jeremy Brecher and Tim Costello, eds., Building Bridges: α e Emerging Grassroots Coalition of Labor and Community (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1990);
13. Jeremy Brecher and Tim Costello, Global Village or Global Pillage: Economic Reconstruction from the Bottom Up (Boston: South End Press, 1994);
14. Jeremy Brecher, Tim Costello, and Brendan Smith, Globalization from Below: α e Power of Solidarity (Cambridge, Mass.: South End Press, 2000).
15. Fred Perella, interview.
16. A Profile of the Central Naugatuck Valley Region, 2002 (Waterbury, Conn.: Council of Government of the Central Naugatuck Valley, 2002), 27.
17. α e State of Working Connecticut, 2001 (New Haven: Connecticut Voices for Children, 2001), 5.
18. Today's economic adversity is generating a new interest in democratic economic alternatives. See, for example, Gar Alperovitz, America beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth, Our Liberty, and Our Democracy (Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley, 2004);
19. Richard D. Wolff, Capitalism Hits the Fan: α e Global Economic Meltdown and What to Do about It (Northhampton, Mass.: Interlink, 2010), which advocate new forms of democratic enterprise to address unemployment and inequality. In the University Circle neighborhood in Cleveland, the employee-owned Evergreen Cooperative Laundry has been opened as the start of the Cleveland Foundation's new strategy to use community-based green enterprises as a vehicle for neighborhood renewal.
20. Theresa Francis, video interview.
21. Principal sources for the history of Waterbury and the Naugatuck Valley include Joseph Anderson, ed., α e Town and City of Waterbury (New Haven: Price and Lee, 1896);
22. William J. Pape, History of Waterbury and the Naugatuck Valley (Chicago: S. J. Clarke, 1918). The Mattatuck Museum and the Silas Bronson Library hold a great deal of additional material in their collections.
23. Anderson, Town and City of Waterbury, 1:149.
24. Timothy Dwight, Travels in New England and New York (Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap, 1969).
25. Principal sources for Waterbury and Naugatuck Valley industrial history include William G. Lathrop, α e Brass Industry in the United States: A Study of the Origin and the Development of the Brass Industry in the Naugatuck Valley and Its Subsequent Extension over the Nation (1926; reprint, Mount Carmel, Conn.: William G. Lathrop, 1980);
26. Cecelia Bucki and the staff of the Mattatuck Historical Society, Metals, Minds, and Machines: Waterbury at Work (Waterbury, Conn.: Mattatuck Historical Society, 1981). Additional background is provided in unpublished research reports prepared by Jeremy Brecher in 2003 as background for the Mattatuck Museum's permanent history exhibit Coming Home: Building Community in a Changing World and available at the museum.
27. Brass Valley, produced by the Brass Workers History Project and Connecticut Public Television (see introduction, n. 1).
28. Pape, History of Waterbury, 1:2.
29. Anderson, Town and City of Waterbury, 1:401-2.
30. A classic discussion of this transformation is Richard L. Bushman, From Puritan to Yankee: Character and the Social Order in Connecticut, 1690-1765 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1967).
31. For the history of workers in the Naugatuck Valley, see Brecher, Lombardi, and Stackhouse, Brass Valley (see introduction, n. 1). For a classic study of the transformation of work and workers in early industrial America, see Herbert Gutman, Work, Culture, and Society in Industrializing America (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1966). For comparisons with other industries and regions, see, for example, Alan Dawley, Class and Community: α e Industrial Revolution in Lynn (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1976).
32. Joseph Anderson, History of the Soldiers' Monument in Waterbury, Connecticut (Waterbury, Conn., 1886).
33. Charles S. Johnson, Director, Department of Research and Investigations, "The Negro Population of Waterbury, Connecticut," Opportunity (National Urban League) 1, nos. 10-11 (1923).
34. Much of this history is documented in the Mattatuck Museum's African-American History Project.
35. Constance McL. Green, History of Naugatuck, Connecticut (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1948), 121, 143.
36. Fibreboard Paper Products Corp. v. NLRB, 379 U.S. 203 (1964).
37. For a contemporaneous interpretation of deindustrialization, see Barry Bluestone and Bennett Harrison, α e Deindustrialization of America: Plant Closings, Community Abandonment, and the Dismantling of Basic Industry (New York: Basic Books, 1982). For an effort to understand economic globalization that was stimulated in part by the experience of industrial decline in the Naugatuck Valley, see Brecher and Costello, Global Village or Global Pillage. For additional perspectives on deindustrialization and the American working class, see, for example, John Hinshaw, Steel and Steelworkers: Race and Class Struggle in Twentieth-Century Pittsburgh (Albany: SUNY Press, 2002);
38. David Bensman and Roberta Lynch, Rusted Dreams: Hard Times in a Steel Community (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1987);
39. Thomas Sugrue, α e Origins of the Urban Crisis (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996);
40. and Thomas Dublin and Walter Licht, α e Face of Decline: α e Pennsylvania Anthracite Region in the Twentieth Century (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2005). For the relation between corporate strategy and the effects of deindustrialization on working-class communities, see Charles Craypo and Bruce Nissen, eds., Grand Designs: α e Impact of Corporate Strategies on Workers, Unions, and Communities (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1993).
41. Frank Santaguida of Century Brass quoted in the Hartford Courant, March 19, 1985.
42. James Wilson, interview.
43. Howard Ploman, interview.
44. Perella, interview.
45. For collections of case studies of such efforts, see Brecher and Costello, Building Bridges (see introduction, n. 4);
46. Bruce Nissen, Fighting for Jobs: Case Studies of Labor-Community Coalitions Confronting Plant Closings (Albany: SUNY Press, 1995).
47. For the Youngstown campaigns, see Staughton Lynd, α e Fight against Shutdowns: Youngstown's Steel Mill Closings (San Pedro, Calif.: Singlejack Books, 1983);
48. Thomas G. Fuechtmann, Steeples and Stacks: Religion and Steel Crisis in Youngstown (New York: Cambridge Univer-sity Press, 1989);
49. Sherry Lee Linkon and John Russo, Steeltown U.S.A.: Work and Memory in Youngstown (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2002);
50. Terry Buss and F. Stevens Redburn, Shutdown at Youngstown: Public Policy for Mass Unemployment (Albany: SUNY Press, 1983);
51. Dale Hathaway, Can Workers Have a Voice? (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1993). Those seeking more information on these efforts will find little recent historical research; they were, however, covered extensively at the time in the Labor Research Review and FIRR News.
52. See Barbara Richards, "The Community-Labor Alliance of New Haven," in Building Bridges, ed. Brecher and Costello.
53. Produced by Jan Stackhouse and Jerry Lombardi, these are now in the archives of the Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
54. Union Leader (March 1983).
55. Jerry Harrington, interview.
56. For a parallel interpretation of power and powerlessness in another industrial region, see John Gaventa, Power and Powerlessness: Quiescence and Rebellion in an Appalachian Valley (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1980).
57. John T. Cumbler, A Social History of Economic Decline: Business, Politics, and Work in Trenton (New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 1989).
58. Fibreboard Paper Products Corp. v. NLRB.
59. Textile Workers Union v. Darlington Manufacturing Co., 380 U.S. 263 (1965). For a valuable discussion, see Terry Collingsworth, "Resurrecting the National Labor Relations Act: Plant Closings and Runaway Shops in a Global Economy," Berkeley Journal of Employment and Labor Law 14, no. 1 (1993).
60. Whether the high-flying speculative managers of the 1980s actually served the interests of their stockholders rather than their own self-aggrandizement would be a worthy topic for investigation. Their behavior often seemed to illustrate Charles Lindblom's concept of "extended authority," in which authority granted for one purpose is used by those who received it for other purposes-generally their own. See Lindblom, Politics and Markets (New York: Basic Books, 1977).
61. Gar Alperovitz, "Memorandum to President-Elect Clinton," Tikkun 7, no. 6 (1992): 16. Inequality has increased substantially since that time.
62. Lathrop, Brass Industry in the United States, 111.
63. The evolution of property ownership forms in early Waterbury, and the conflicts it entailed, is traced in considerable detail in Anderson, Town and City of Waterbury.
64. Under the doctrine of a right to a "fair rate of return," property rights were further extended beyond "doing what I want with what is mine" to a right to profit, in effect a claim on the total social product.
65. This provides another illustration of Lindblom's concept of "extended authority."
66. Campaign for Human Development, Poverty in American Democracy: A Study of Social Power (Washington, D.C.: United States Catholic Conference, 1974).
67. Perella, interview.
68. For other examples of communities attempting to develop responses to plant closings and deindustrialization in the same era, see, for example, Eric Mann, Taking on General Motors: A Case Study of the Campaign to Keep GM Van Nuys Open (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1987);
69. Jeanie Wylie, Poletown: Community Betrayed (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1989);
70. William Serrin, Homestead (New York: Times Books, 1992).
71. Perella, interview.
72. Saul D. Alinsky, Rules for Radicals (New York: Random House, 1971), 12-13.
73. For a full biography of Alinsky, see Sandford D. Horwitt, Let α em Call Me Rebel: Saul Alinsky, His Life and Legacy (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1989).
74. For other interpretations of organizing, see, for example, Frances Fox Piven and Richard Cloward, Poor People's Movements: Why α ey Succeed, How α ey Fail (New York: Random House, 1977);
75. Harry Boyte, Backyard Revolution (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1980);
76. and Rick Fantasia, Cultures of Solidarity: Consciousness, Action, and Contemporary American Workers (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1988).
77. Galdston, interview, November 19, 1985.
78. Perella, interview.
79. Memo to Hank Murray, Fred Perella, and Miles Rapoport from Ken Galdston, October 12, 1982, NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
80. Galdston, interview, November 19, 1985.
81. For additional information on LEAP, see Bruce Shapiro, "Connecticut LEAP: A New Electoral Strategy," in Building Bridges, ed. Brecher and Costello (see introduction, n. 4).
82. Galdston, interview, November 19, 1985.
83. Andrew Walsh, "Peter Rosazza," Hartford Courant, May 15, 1983.
84. Peter Rosazza, video interview.
85. Galdston, interview, November 19, 1985.
86. Rev. Tim Benson, interview.
87. "Naugatuck Valley Project" (handout, October 12, 1982), NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
88. From the substantial literature on the Mondragon cooperatives, a good introduction is William Whyte and Kathleen King Whyte, Making Mondragon: α e Growth and Dynamics of the Worker Cooperative Complex (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1991).
89. Galdston, interview, November 19, 1985.
90. "Ken Galdston: Activity since Last Meeting" (handout, February 10, 1983), NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
91. See "Early Warning Signals" (handout, n.d.), NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
92. Galdston interview, November 19, 1985.
93. Rosazza, video interview.
94. Galdston, interview, November 19, 1985.
95. Campbell Lovett, interview.
96. "Proposed Interview Questionnaire" (handout, June 8, 1983), NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
97. Lovett, interview. This presentation occurred at a somewhat later time but was typical of Galdston's approach.
98. "ICA: Consultant's Statement of Capability" (handout, n.d.), NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
99. Galdston, interview, November 19, 1985.
100. Benson, interview.
101. Galdston, interview, November 19, 1985.
102. The material on Seymour Specialty Wire in this book is based in part on "Upstairs, Downstairs: The Rise and Fall of 'Seymour Specialty Wire: An Employee-Owned Company,'" a study conducted by the author under a grant from the Cooperative Charitable Trust. See the report for additional information on research methodology. See also Jeremy Brecher, "Upstairs, Downstairs: Class Conflict in an Employee-Owned Factory," in Building Bridges, ed. Brecher and Costello (see introduction, n. 4).
103. Pape, History of Waterbury, 1:372-73 (see chap. 1, n. 1); Seymour Manufacturing Company, Facts about Seymour (Seymour, Conn.: Seymour Manufacturing, n.d.).
104. Ed Labacz, interview.
105. Brecher, Lombardi, and Stackhouse, Brass Valley, 106 (see introduction, n.1).
106. Ken Galdston, Worker Ownership: Presentations from Chicago Innovative Enterprises Conference (Chicago: Midwest Center for Labor Research, n.d.), 11.
107. Galdston, interview, December 18, 1985.
108. Mike Kearney, video interview.
109. Kearney, interview, May 12, 1986.
110. Galdston, interview, December 18, 1985.
111. Kearney, video interview.
112. Galdston, interview, December 18, 1985.
113. Benson, interview.
114. Galdston, interview, December 18, 1985.
115. Benson, interview.
116. Galdston, interview, December 18, 1985.
117. Galdston, Worker Ownership, 13.
118. Benson, interview.
119. Roland Cline, interview, May 20, 1986.
120. Galdston, interview, December 18, 1985.
121. Cline, interview, May 20, 1986.
122. Jan Stackhouse, "Seymour Specialty Wire: An Experiment in Industrial Democracy" (New York University Graduate School of Business Administration paper, 1987), 26.
123. Galdston, interview, December 18, 1985; anonymous office worker, interview.
124. Ken Galdston, "Organizing Report for Sponsoring Committee Meeting," July 5, 1984.
125. Kearney interview, May 12, 1986; anonymous office worker, interview.
126. Galdston, interview, December 18, 1985.
127. Stackhouse, "Seymour Specialty Wire," 27.
128. There is a large literature on employee ownership and ESOPs. See, for example, John Logue, Jacquelyn Yates, and William Greider, α e Real World of Employee Ownership (Ithaca: ILR Press, 2002).
129. Stackhouse, "Seymour Specialty Wire," 2-3.
130. "Popular ESOPs Get Tax Aid," New York Times, March 21, 1987.
131. Cline, interview, May 20, 1986.
132. Cline, interview, May 12, 1986.
133. Kearney, interview, May 12, 1986.
134. Carl Drescher Jr., interview.
135. Cline, interview, May 12, 1986.
136. Rosazza, video interview.
137. Chapter 6 recounts the subsequent history of Seymour Specialty Wire as an employee-owned company.
138. Benson, interview.
139. There is an extensive literature on community organizing. See, for example, Robert Fisher and Peter Romanofsky, Community Organizing for Urban Social Change: A Historical Perspective (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981);
140. Robert Fisher, Let the People Decide: Neighborhood Organizing in America (Woodbridge, Conn.: Twayne, 1997);
141. Heidi Swarts, Organizing Urban America: Secular and Faith Based Progressive Movements (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008). The account given here also draws heavily on extended discussions with Ken Galdston, many of which were recorded and are available in the Naugatuck Valley Project collection at the Mattatuck Museum.
142. Galdston, interview, March 23, 1988;
143. Peter Rosazza, interview, March 21, 1986.
144. Rosazza, video interview.
145. For Ken Galdston's reflections in choices about levels of militancy, see his interview of April 14, 1986.
146. Rosazza, video interview.
147. Galdston, interview, March 23, 1988.
148. Benson, interview.
149. Galdston, interview, March 23, 1988.
150. Frederick J. Perella Jr. to Archbishop John F. Whealon, July 1, 1983.
151. Galdston, interview, November 19, 1985.
152. Benson, interview.
153. Galdston, interview, November 19, 1985.
154. Benson, interview.
155. Perella to Whealon, July 1, 1983.
156. Benson, interview.
157. Galdston, interview, March 23, 1988.
158. Benson, interview.
159. Galdston, interview, November 19, 1985.
160. Carol Burkhart, interview.
161. Galdston, interview, April 14, 1986.
162. Burkhart, interview.
163. Galdston, interview, April 14, 1986.
164. "Long-Range Goals" marked "Draft" (November 7, 1986), NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
165. Galdston, interview, April 14, 1986.
166. Benson, interview.
167. Brecher, Lombardi, and Stackhouse, Brass Valley, 232-42 (see introduction, n. 1).
168. Theresa Francis, interview, May 19, 1986.
169. Galdston, interview, December 18, 1985.
170. Mark Pazniokas and G. Philip Morago, "Brass Union Rallies behind Fiery Chief," Hartford Courant, undated clipping.
171. Galdston, interview, December 18, 1985.
172. Francis, interview, May 19, 1986;
173. Galdston, interview, December 18, 1985.
174. Carol Burkhart-Lyons, memorial service for Theresa Francis.
175. Francis, video interview. See also Galdston, interview, February 24, 1988.
176. Galdston, memorial service for Theresa Francis.
177. Francis, interview, May 19, 1986.
178. Jeremy Brecher, "Century Brass Closing," 15, NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
179. Francis, interview, May 19, 1986.
180. See also Industrial Cooperative Association, "Century Brass General Products Division: Phase 1 Feasibility Study" (November 1985), NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn., which identifies the same difficulties.
181. Galdston, interview, February 24, 1988.
182. Jeremy Brecher, note on discussion with Ken Galdston, early June 1989, and discussion with CCAG staff.
183. Lovett, interview.
184. Francis, video interview.
185. Lovett, interview.
186. Francis, interview, May 19, 1986; Francis, video interview; Lovett, interview.
187. Galdston, interview, October 16, 1987.
188. "Century: Clergy in Dark about Us," Waterbury Republican-American, May 12, 1986.
189. Campbell Lovett to Jeremy Brecher, March 25, 2006.
190. Lovett, interview; Francis, interview, May 19, 1986.
191. Lovett, interview; Lovett to Brecher, March 25, 2006; Lovett, interview.
192. Francis, interview, May 19, 1986.
193. Lovett, interview.
194. Galdston, interview, April 14, 1986.
195. Galdston, interview, February 24, 1988.
196. See, for example, letter from Attilio D'Agostino to Theresa Francis, October 16, 1987, expressing shock at an alleged mishandling of money, and Francis's reply of January 28, 1988, NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
197. Galdston, interview, February 24, 1988.
198. Attilio D'Agostino, video interview.
199. "Century Workers Say No to Buyout," Waterbury Republican-American, May 30, 1987;
200. Galdston, interview, February 24, 1988.
201. Galdston, interview, February 24, 1988; Lovett, interview.
202. Francis, video, interview.
203. Lovett, interview.
204. Galdston, interview, February 24, 1988.
205. Lovett, interview; Galdston, interview, February 24, 1988.
206. Galdston, memorial service for Francis.
207. Francis, interview, May 19, 1986.
208. Brecher, Lombardi, and Stackhouse, Brass Valley, 129 (see introduction, n. 1).
209. Sam Kwochka, interview.
210. Brecher, Lombardi, and Stackhouse, Brass Valley, 133; Kwochka, interview.
211. With the authority often went the power to compel favors from workers unrelated to work functions. Such abuse was a major motive for unionization in the brass mills.
212. Kearney, interview, June 1, 1990. These reflections came in the midst of a discussion of the resistance to Universal Scheduling.
213. Anonymous Seymour worker, interview.
214. Tom Stundza, "Watch for Supply Volatility in 1991," Purchasing, March 7, 1991, 72B1-72B6.
215. Tom Stundza, "Purchasing Deluge Will Ebb Slightly in '93," Purchasing, March 4, 1993, 34B6-34B7.
216. "Transplant Brass Mill Comes to Iowa," Purchasing, May 17, 1990, 31.
217. "Metal Chips," Purchasing, undated clipping.
218. Purchasing, March 7, 1991.
219. Purchasing, April 5, 1990.
220. Purchasing, March 7, 1991.
221. Figures in this paragraph from "Business Plan," 5, NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
222. Anonymous Seymour worker, interview.
223. Kearney, interview, June 1, 1990. I conducted interviews with Michael Kearney approximately once a year over the entire life of Seymour Specialty Wire. These interviews cover many aspects of each period in detail. Kearney was well situated to observe various aspects of the company: he was a board member for all but one brief period; he was first a worker in the mill and president of the union, then a salaried manager working in the mill; and throughout, he played a role in NVP jobs programs and national networks concerned with employee ownership.
224. Personal communication from participant.
225. Harrington, interview.
226. Drescher, interview.
227. Kearney, interview, June 1, 1990.
228. Drescher, interview; anonymous Seymour worker, interview.
229. Kearney, interview, June 1, 1990.
230. Prior to Universal, there were no computers in the mill (Kearney, interview, September 27, 1991).
231. Drescher, interview.
232. Kearney, interview, June 1, 1990.
233. Kearney, interview, November 16, 1987.
234. Kearney, interview, June 1, 1990.
235. The election was in February 1989 (Kearney, interview, June 1, 1990).
236. Purchasing, March 4, 1993; Purchasing, April 5, 1990.
237. Kearney, interview, June 1, 1990; Kearney, interview, September 27, 1991.
238. Kearney, interview, June 1, 1990.
239. Jerry Harrington to Pauline Lounsbury, December 7, 1992, NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
240. Kearney, interview, June 1, 1990.
241. Harrington, interview.
242. Kearney, interview, September 27, 1991.
243. Kearney, interview, June 1, 1990. Layoffs took place December 25, 1989.
244. Kearney, interview, September 27, 1991.
245. Kearney, interview, June 1, 1990.
246. Resolution of February 20, 1990. See also Harrington to Lounsbury.
247. Harrington to Lounsbury.
248. Purchasing, November 22, 1990. Complaint letters from customers in the company papers indicate that quality and on-time delivery remained serious problems. A February 20, 1991, memo to Jerry Harrington from Frank Lang, head of sales, says, "We cannot continue to have an on time delivery performance of less than 50%, accept approximately $100,000 per month of returned material and measure our customer response time in half days or days and still obtain business" (NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.).
249. Kearney, interview, June 1, 1990.
250. Kearney, interview, September 27, 1991.
251. Kearney, interview, September 27, 1991.
252. Harrington, interview.
253. Harrington to Lounsbury. Kearney maintains that these claims are "blown way out of proportion" (Kearney, letter to Waterbury Republican-American, December 28, 1992).
254. In late 1990, Larry Motel was elected union president. At the February 1991 board election: Harrington and Motel, automatic. Don Colson, Mike Kearney, Paul Wojahowski, Linda Baldino, Jimmy Lewis, elected. John Harlor, retired director of human resources for Polaroid, added as outside director and made chairman. Joe Lombardo, outside director. In other words, two hourly workers were elected. See Kearney, interview, September 27, 1991.
255. Harrington, interview.
256. Kearney, letter to Waterbury Republican-American.
257. Minutes of January 22, 1991, board meeting, NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
258. Harrington to Lounsbury; Kearney, letter to Waterbury Republican-American.
259. Meeting of the Trustees of the Seymour Specialty Wire Co. E.S.O.P. Trust, February 21, 1991, NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.; Mark Rosenbaum, Foothill Capital Corporation, to Jerry Harrington, May 21, 1991, NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
260. Kearney, interview, September 27, 1991.
261. "Seymour Specialty Wire Company Presentation to State of Connecticut Department of Economic Development, May 31, 1991," 16, NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
262. Kearney, interview, September 27, 1991.
263. Jeremiah Harrington to Employees, September 13, 1991. There were charges that layoffs involved favoritism and discrimination against "troublemakers" (Kearney, interview, December 6, 1991).
264. Kearney, interview, December 6, 1991.
265. A UAW international representative servicing the SSW local was among those propounding this view.
266. Purchasing, March 4, 1993.
267. Kearney, interview, December 29, 1992. Such charges would be difficult to prove or disprove definitively. In the event, no such purchase occurred.
268. Later, the ESOP was reconvened and a new board elected.
269. David Duke, interview.
270. Ken Galdston, "Organizing Report for Sponsoring Committee Meeting" (March 14, 1984), NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
271. Chapters 7, 8, and 9 on the history of ValleyCare are based in part on Valley Care Cooperative: A Retrospective, prepared by Jeremy Brecher and Ruth Glasser for the Cooperative Charitable Trust. Ruth Glasser conducted many of the interviews and contributed to the analysis. For an interesting comparison, see Annelise Orleck, Storming Caesars Palace: How Black Mothers Fought ά eir Own War on Poverty (Boston: Beacon Press, 2005).
272. Doreen Filipiak, interview.
273. Carol Burkhart, "Home Health Care Outline" (November 16, 1987), NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
274. "Naugatuck Valley Project Home Health Care Prefeasibility Workplan" (March 16, 1988), NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
275. Information in this and preceding paragraph is from the VCC generic grant proposal, NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
276. "Preliminary Research on Homemaker/Home Health Aide Market" (March 28, 1989), NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
277. "Preliminary Research," 9; VCC generic grant proposal.
278. "Valley Care Cooperative, Inc., Revised Business Plan" (June 21, 1990), 19, NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
279. Rosati, interview.
280. Filipiak, interview.
281. "Lilly Progress Report" (October 31, 1990-June 30, 1991), NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
282. Rosati, interview.
283. Waterbury Republican-American, April 25, 1991.
284. The VCC also expected additional funding from the Mott Foundation pending its March 1992 CHCA review.
285. Pat Diorio, interview, August 4, 1999.
286. "Lilly Progress Report." 22. Diorio, interview, August 4, 1999.
287. "VCC Program Report for Lilly Endowment" (January 1, 1992-June 30, 1992, dated August 19, 1992), NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
288. Susan Wefald, Staff Director of the NVP, to Mark Weinheimer at Lilly Endowment, April 30, 1993, NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
289. David Scheie, "Rainbow Research Report" (January 25, 1993), 2, NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
290. Annual report (year ending June 30, 1995), NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
291. Valley Care Mission Statement excerpt, annual report (1992), NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
292. "Lilly Progress Report." 30. "VCC Self-Assessment" (November 1991), NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
293. Rosati, interview.
294. "Worker Ownership and Participation Plan for VCC" (May 9, 1991), NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
295. "Draft Replication Group/VCC Assessment: Worker Ownership" (September 17, 1991), NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
296. Plan outlined in "Worker Ownership and Participation Plan for VCC." 35. From "Lilly Report" (January 1992-June 1992, sent August 19, 1999), NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
297. Rosati, interview; Lillian González, interview; quote from inside cover, 1992 annual report, NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
298. Rosati, interview.
299. González, interview; Rosati, interview.
300. Rosati, interview.
301. Scheie, "Rainbow Research Report," 3.
302. "Lilly Report" (submitted April 30, 1993), NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.; Valley Care Cooperative Second Annual Meeting Minutes, NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
303. "Lilly Report" (submitted April 30, 1993).
304. Rosati, interview.
305. Valley Care Cooperative, Second Annual Meeting Minutes, NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
306. President's letter, in annual report for 1994, NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
307. As per report submitted January 30, 1995, for the period June 1 to December 31, 1994, NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
308. "Lilly Report" (January 30, 1995, to reflect second half of 1994), NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
309. Diorio, interview, August 4, 1999.
310. González, interview; Norman, interview.
311. Maria Gerard, interview.
312. Rosati, interview.
313. Diorio, interview, August 4, 1999.
314. Filipiak, interview.
315. Rosati, interview. Chapter 8: Taking Care of Business 1. Filipiak, interview.
316. ICA, "Taking Care of Business" (1991), NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
317. For more on the character of home-care work, see Ruth Glasser and Jeremy Brecher, We Are the Roots: ά e Organizational Culture of a Home Care Cooperative (Davis: University of California Center for Cooperatives, 2002).
318. Francis, VCC slide-show script; note from NVP to Karen Jacobson, Adrian Dominican Fund, September 22, 1990, NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
319. Letter from David M. Scheie, project associate of Rainbow Research, Inc., to Carol Burkhart-Lyons, October 25, 1990, NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
320. Rosati, interview.
321. See Lilly quarterly reports, NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
322. VCC slide-show script.
323. "VCC Self-Assessment" (November 1991), NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
324. See Brecher and Glasser, We Are the Roots, for extensive discussion of CHCA training.
325. Rosati, interview. Willow Street is the main thoroughfare of Waterbury's Willow/ Plaza neighborhood, an area in the city's North End that is plagued by drugs and prostitution.
326. Up until 1993, as will be explained later.
327. "VCC Self-Assessment"; Rosati, interview.
328. Rosati, interview.
329. Diorio, interview, August 4, 1999.
330. Gerard, interview.
331. Anonymous home health aide, quoted in "ValleyCare Annual Report, 1992," NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
332. Henrietta Norman, interview.
333. González, interview.
334. Norman, interview.
335. C-Town is a Hispanic supermarket chain.
336. Rosati, interview.
337. Norman, interview.
338. Gerard, interview.
339. Rosati, interview.
340. Faith Muller, VCC slide-show script.
341. Rosati, interview.
342. Diorio, interview, August 4, 1999.
343. Norman, interview.
344. Gerard, interview.
345. ICA, "Taking Care of Business"; Norman, interview.
346. Diorio, interview, August 4, 1999.
347. Diorio, interview, April 14, 1999.
348. ValleyCare Cooperative Board Meeting Minutes, May 3, June 18, 1996, NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
349. VCC Board Meeting Minutes, January 30, 1998, NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
350. Diorio, interview, August 4, 1999.
351. Rosati, interview; Norman, interview.
352. Diorio, interview, August 4, 1999; Rosati, interview.
353. Norman, interview.
354. Rosati, interview.
355. Diorio, interview, August 4, 1999.
356. González, interview; Diorio, interview, August 4, 1999.
357. "Lilly Report" (January 30, 1995, for the period June 1 to December 31, 1994), NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
358. Diorio, interview, August 4, 1999.
359. Gerard, interview.
360. Diorio, interview, August 4, 1999.
361. Diorio, interview, April 14, 1999.
362. Diorio, interview, August 4, 1999.
363. Filipiak, interview.
364. Gerard, interview.
365. Diorio, interview, August 4, 1999.
366. Gerard, interview.
367. PHI (Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute) is a policy organization affiliated with Cooperative Home Care Associates.
368. Diorio, interview, August 4, 1999.
369. "Lilly Report" (January 30, 1995, for the period June 1 to December 31, 1994), NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
370. Diorio, interview, August 4, 1999.
371. Rosati, interview.
372. Diorio, interview, August 4, 1999.
373. "VCC Mission Statement," NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
374. Diorio, interview, August 4, 1999.
375. For public policy options supportive to such efforts in the health care industry, visit the Paraprofessional Healthcare Institute, a policy center affiliated with Cooperative Home Care Associates, at http://phinational.org/.
376. Rosati, interview; Filipiak, interview.
377. Greg Mizera, "2 of 3 Unsure of View on Forming Rent Panel," Waterbury Republican-American, October 31, 1989.
378. Waterbury Republican-American, February 16, 1989.
379. Galdston, interview, May 25, 1988.
380. Greg Mizera, "Shamrock Ridge Tenants Seek Help," Waterbury Republican-American, June 10, 1987.
381. Naugatuck Valley Project, Request for Proposal, "Training for Residents of Brookside Cooperatives Located in Waterbury, Connecticut" (n.d.), NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
382. Galdston, interview, October 26, 1989. For historical background on ICE and community land trusts, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Community_land_trust. For a review of the academic literature pertaining to limited equity co-ops in the early 2000s, see Susan Saegert and Lymari Benitez, "Limited Equity Housing Cooperatives: Defining a Niche in the Low-Income Housing Market," Journal of Planning Literature (May 2005).
383. Greg Mizera, "Coalition Hopes to Use Land Trusts to Create Housing," Waterbury Sunday Republican, June 5, 1988.
384. Galdston, interview, October 26, 1989.
385. Mizera, "Shamrock Ridge Tenants Seek Help." 12. Amy LaRoche, "Coalition to Focus on Housing," Waterbury Republican-American, October 26, 1987.
386. Greg Mizera, "Shamrock Ridge Tenants Get Judge to Halt Rent Hike," Waterbury Republican-American, January 28, 1988.
387. Jane Lerner, "Agreement Allows Tenants to Stay at Shamrock Ridge," Waterbury Republican-American, May 24, 1988.
388. Kevin Bean, interview, April 9, 1990.
389. Roberta Baker, "Tenants Unveil Alternative Housing Plan," Waterbury Republican-American, July 20, 1988.
390. Merrill Gay, interview.
391. Bob Perry, "Waterville Group Supports Plan to Build Duplexes," Waterbury Republican-American, August 5, 1998.
392. Greg Mizera, "$80,000 Needed for Housing Venture," Waterbury Republican-American, September 14, 1988.
393. State support was part of a new Department of Housing Land Trust/Land Bank program and a Limited Equity Cooperatives/Mutual Housing Association program approved by the legislature in 1987. See Andrew Baker, "Community Land Trusts Are Keeping Some Housing 'Forever Affordable,'" Hartford Commercial Record, May 31, 1991.
394. "Petitioners Seek Financing for Waterbury Housing," Hartford Courant, November 3, 1988.
395. Bill Leukhardt, "Fort Hill Housing Supported," Waterbury Republican-American, February 8, 1989.
396. John Pirro, "Funding Endorsed for Fort Hill Project," Waterbury Republican-American, February 24, 1989.
397. "Supporters Hail State Funding of Fort Hill Project," Waterbury Republican-American, February 26, 1989.
398. Jacqueline A. Viggiano, "Valleyites Are Eligible to Apply for Area Co-op," Ansonia Evening Sentinel, March 25, 1989.
399. Greg Mizera, "Sponsors Pledge $25,000 toward Affordable Housing," Waterbury Republican-American, June 6, 1989.
400. Frank Juliano, "Fort Hill Project Right on Target," Waterbury Republican-American, July 24, 1989.
401. Greg Mizera, "Housing Plan's Supporters Blame City for Delays," Waterbury Republican-American, September 29, 1989.
402. "Santopietro Lauded for Fort Hill Support," Waterbury Sunday Republican, October 1, 1989. See also letter to the editor, "Support Proposed Subdivision," from Stanley Fox of the Shamrock Ridge Tenants, to the Waterbury Republican-American, October 4, 1989.
403. Greg Mizera, "Police Commission Gets Request to Aid Fort Hill," Waterbury Republican-American, October 6, 1989.
404. Mizera, "2 of 3 Unsure." 33. Bill Leukhardt, "Tenants Cheer, Landlords Pan Proposal for Fair Rent Board," Waterbury Republican-American, December 1, 1989;
405. Robyn Adams, "Sleep-in at City Hall Vowed If Fair Rent Agency Fizzles," Waterbury Republican-American, December 2, 1989.
406. Brian Stuart, "Fort Hill Developers Worried," Waterbury Republican-American, October 12, 1989.
407. Joe Unfried, "Meeting between City, Housing Officials Private," Waterbury Republican-American, October 17, 1989.
408. Bean, interview, April 9, 1990.
409. Robyn Adams, "Fort Hill Housing Project Is Scrapped," Waterbury Republican-American, November 1, 1989;
410. Robyn Adams and Greg Mizera, "Fort Hill Housing Proj- ect Scrapped; State Seeks Another Site," Waterbury Republican-American, November 2, 1989.
411. Frank Juliano, "Affordable Housing Plan Gets Second Look," Waterbury Republican-American, January 9, 1990.
412. Greg Mizera, "Groups Plan to Build Affordable Housing," Waterbury Republican-American, January 24, 1990.
413. Greg Mizera, "Affordable Housing Planned by Groups," Waterbury Republican-American, January 26, 1990.
414. Bob Perry, "Low-Cost Housing Bids Sought," Waterbury Republican-American, March 19, 1990.
415. Greg Mizera, "Housing Complex Expected to Get State Funds," Waterbury Republican-American, April 26, 1990.
416. Greg Mizera, "State Approves Housing Bond," Waterbury Republican-American, May 1, 1990; Gay, interview.
417. Gay, interview.
418. Robyn Adams, "Ground Broken for Cooperative Housing," unidentified clipping in NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
419. Robyn Adams, "'Sweat Equity' Pays for City Residents," Waterbury Republican-American, June 25, 1991.
420. Robyn Adams, "Home at Last," Waterbury Republican-American, September 26, 1991.
421. Mike McIntire, "State Money, Public Housing, Waterbury Politics," Waterbury Sunday Republican, July 14, 1991.
422. George Judson, "Waterbury Mayor Charged with Corruption," New York Times, September 26, 1991.
423. Bean, interview, May 11, 1990.
424. Naugatuck Valley Project, Request for Proposal, "Training for Residents." 52. James Beck, interview by Lucien Lafreniere and Jeremy Brecher.
425. Derricia Parker, interview by Lucien Lafreniere and Jeremy Brecher.
426. Bean, interview, April 9, 1990.
427. Perella, video interview.
428. See chapter 1.
429. For an extended analysis of the role of structured networks in social movements, see North American Alliance for Fair Employment, "Making Networks Work," http://www .fairjobs.org, and references cited there.
430. This was also the case for trade unions prior to the National Labor Relations Act (Wagner Act).
431. A few unions, such as printers, retained a place for cooperatives within their structure.
432. Exceptions include the IWW and at some points part of the UMW, calling for "the mines to the miners." See Jeremy Brecher, Strike! (Boston: South End Press, 1997).
433. This approach to property as a "bundle of rights" that can be distributed among vari- ous actors was classically formulated by Adolph Berle and Gardiner Means in ά e Modern Corporation and Private Property (New York: Macmillan, 1933). That such property rights are a product of and dependent upon authority relations, rather than somehow originating in the market, is forcefully brought out by Charles Lindblom in Politics and Markets (see chap. 1, n. 30).
434. The theoretical significance of leases as a vehicle for disaggregating and assigning various sorts of use and usufruct rights has been explored by Roberto Unger. Shortly before his political demise, Mikhail Gorbachev was advocating the leasehold as a form for combining the benefits of social ownership with those of decentralized economic initiative.
435. Combining control of an enterprise's day-to-day life by participants with control of its core decisions by a wider community organization was a theme in Dan Swinney, Miguel Vasquez, and Howard Engelskirchen, "Towards a New Vision of Community Economic Development," distributed by the Federation for Industrial Retention and Renewal. (A more recent paper developing some of the same themes is Dan Swinney, "Building the Bridge to the High Road," available at http://www.clcr.org/publications/btb/contents .html.) Staughton Lynd has suggested that alternative enterprises should be owned by nonprofit organizations with the public purpose of providing jobs and needed goods and services (see Lynd in Building Bridges, ed. Brecher and Costello [see introduction, n. 4]). This is essentially the model of Brookside and of the initial phase of VCC. What would happen if this model were applied to industrial enterprises like SSW remains to be seen.
436. Michael Albert and Robin Hahnel, Looking Forward: Participatory Economics for the Twenty-first Century (Boston: South End Press, 1991).
437. The Amalgamated Bank became a prime source of loans for clothing manufacturing and used that role for such purposes as stabilizing employment by reducing seasonal variations in the industry.
438. Jeremy Brecher, "Connecticut Community Economic Development Program," in Jobs and the Economy: A Survey of 1993 New England Legislation (Cambridge, Mass.:Progressive Policy Initiative, 1994).
439. Such programs provide a mechanism for redistribution of investment flows that partially counter the necessity to maximize enterprise growth while continuing to utilize the price system as a vehicle for rational choice. In effect, such approaches adjust the supply or price of capital (or both) to correct for market failures at the point in the reproduction cycle where investments are determined.
440. It should be recalled that this was also the original purpose of the savings and loan system.
441. Filipiak, interview. For the history and current implementations of the service credit idea, see http://www.timedollar.org.
442. These are extensively documented in Clark Kerr, "Productive Enterprises of the Unemployed, 1931-38" (Ph.D. diss., University of California, 1939).
443. Arthur M. Schlesinger, ά e Coming of the New Deal (Boston: Houghton-Mifflin, 2003), 279.
444. These approaches create capital whose ownership is social but whose control is decentralized. Such an approach can be promoted by public policy. The Italian law for cooperatives, for example, provides a significant tax benefit for profits put in an "indivisible reserve." These funds in effect create capital that can be used for the co-op's investment but cannot be used for any other purpose. If a co-op is liquidated, any remaining funds must be donated to other co-ops or co-op federations.
445. This is known as the "isolation problem" in economics and as the "fetishism of commodities" in Marxist theory.
446. Whyte and Whyte's Making Mondragon (see chap. 2, n. 18) makes clear the extent to which the Mondragon cooperative movement is less a collection of individual co-ops than a central entrepreneurial structure generating self-managing but still dependent subsidiary units. This was not always clear to American advocates of the Mondragon model, however.
447. See Glasser and Brecher, We Are the Roots (see chap. 8, n. 3).
448. The NVP's more recent anti-predatory-lending campaign, described in the next chapter, represents another approach to reforming the housing market.
449. See John Logue, "Economics, Cooperation, and Employee Ownership: The Emilia-Romagna Model," http://www.kent.edu/oeoc/OEOCLibrary/EmiliaRomagnaLong.htm;
450. and Matt Hancock, Compete to Cooperate: ά e Cooperative District of Imola (Imola, Italy:Bacchilega Editore, 2007).
451. See Diane Elson, "Market Socialism or Socialization of Markets," New Left Review 1, no. 172 (1988), for a discussion of the need for open access to information if markets are to serve as effective vehicles for coordinating self-managed firms.
452. Juan Forero, "Chavez Restyles Venezuela with '21st-Century Socialism,'" New York Times, October 30, 2005.
453. This section draws on extensive research conducted by the author for the Mattatuck Museum during 2002-5 and compiled in the unpublished report "Brass Roots, New Shoots: Research for Revision of the Brass Roots Exhibit," on file at the Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
454. "CNV Regional Plan, 1998," 21, NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn.
455. Historical data used in this section are not always consistent because of differences between the data-processing techniques of different agencies, such as the Connecticut Department of Labor and the U.S. Census, and due to repeated changes in data definitions and processing over time.
456. "Waterbury among Worst Cities for Jobs," Waterbury Republican-American, May 1, 2010.
457. The course was cotaught with longtime Waterbury resident and Columbia University professor of urban studies Peter Marcuse.
458. Robyn Adams, "Coalition Serves Pancakes by Candlelight," Waterbury Republican-American, October 9, 2005.
459. Ben Conery, "State Settles Suit against 'Predatory' Home Brokers," Waterbury Republican-American, April 25, 2006.
460. Naugatuck Valley Project, Naugatuck Valley Project: History Project Exhibit (Water- bury, Conn.: NVP, 2010), includes material from the exhibit and reunion. Visit http:// www.brassvalley.org for additional material from the exhibit.
461. For more on the Merrimack Valley Project, see Allen N. Fairfax, "Challenging the Rules: The Merrimack Valley Project and the Construction of Public Space" (Ph.D. diss., Boston College, 2006).
462. For comparative information on the problems of New England cities, see New England Futures at http://www.newenglandfutures.org, especially material there by journalists Neil Peirce and Curtis Johnson.
463. Memorial service for Theresa Francis, May 20, 1994, transcript in NVP Collection, Mattatuck Museum, Waterbury, Conn. The following quotes also come from this source.
464. ICA, "Taking Care of Business" (see chap. 8, n. 2).