I want to take a few days to continue the thought of what life without Magna Carta would look like under Trans Pacific Trade Pact------by talking about our Democratic base of labor unions-----THE TRADES. When Clinton/Obama neo-liberals use the term MOVING FORWARD and 21st Century Economy they are pulling our leg again! Neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism is taking America back to the Dark Ages of Medieval Europe before Magna Carte. Church controls society headed by a family member of the rich----the rich are rich from global corporations.
WHY DO YOU THINK NEO-LIBERALS AND NEO-CONS ARE NOT HOLDING WALL STREET OR CORPORATIONS ACCOUNTABLE FOR FRAUDS AND NOW ARE NOT TAXING THEM? MAGNA CARTA ENFOLDED INTO THE US CONSTITUTION MAKES EVERYONE ACCOUNTABLE TO RULE OF LAW.....EVEN THE RICH AND CORPORATIONS.
Now, I want my labor union friends to think what International labor union leaders like Trumka supporting Clinton neoliberals like Hillary are working towards. Remember, global pols are heading for a far-right Marxist Stalinist Libertarianism.
Maryland leads the way towards this with its state sport being Medieval Times and Jousting. Neo-conservative Baltimore is now installing what is a corporate education reform consisting of vocational apprenticeship K-career college with the churches taking the lead in these K-12 privatization reforms.
Meanwhile, trade unions are working for global corporations and the rich when they support Clinton neo-liberals. Think about today's American labor union structure under social Democracy----and what trade guilds (unions) looked like in the Middle-Ages----and you have where far-right Marxist Stalinist Libertarianism wants American labor to go. As it says below----these guilds worked against anyone not a member of a guild---and it was the only way to advance an economic ladder----only a few became master craftsmen----and only men did.
Middle Ages
Guilds
Back to Middle Ages for kids
Guilds in the Middle Ages were associations or groups of craftsmen. Each guild focused on a specific trade such as the candlemaker's guild or the tanner's guild.
Why were guilds important?
Guilds in the Middle Ages played an important role in society. They provided a way for trade skills to be learned and passed down from generation to generation. Members of a guild had the opportunity to rise in society through hard work.
The guild protected members in many ways. Members were supported by the guild if they came onto hard times or were sick. They controlled working conditions and hours of work. The guild also prevented non-guild members from selling competitive products. Some guild members were even exempt from paying high taxes from the lords and kings.
Guilds helped more than just their members. They had numerous rules that helped to keep the quality of work and pricing consistent. This helped consumers to know they were getting a good product at the correct price.
Guild Positions
In each guild in the Middle Ages there were very well defined positions of Apprentice, Journeyman, and Master. Apprentices usually were boys in their teens who signed up with a master for around 7 years. They would work hard for the master during this time in exchange for learning the craft plus food, clothing, and shelter.
Once the apprenticeship was complete, he became a Journeyman. As a Journeyman, he would still work for a master, but would earn wages for his work.
The highest position of the craft was the Master. To become a Master, a Journeyman would need the approval of the guild. He would have to prove his skill, plus play the politics needed to get approval. Once a Master, he could open his own shop and train apprentices.
Types of Guilds
In a major city during the Middle Ages, there could be as many as 100 different guilds. Examples include weavers, dyers, armorers, bookbinders, painters, masons, bakers, leatherworkers, embroiderers, cobblers (shoemakers), and candlemakers. These were called craft guilds.
There also were merchant guilds. Merchant guilds controlled the way trade was handled in the town. They could become very powerful and controlled much of the local economy.
Guild sign outside a shop
Fun Facts about the Guilds
Powerful guilds had their own hall in town where they would hold courts to settle member disputes and hand out punishment to those who broke the rules.
Even though many women during the Middle Ages learned skilled crafts, they were not allowed to join a guild or form their own guild.
The word "guild" comes from the words tribute or payment, which the members had to pay to guild.
A Journeyman had to produce a "masterpiece" to be approved by the guild masters.
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Baltimore is ground zero for all these policies. It has always kept its connection to aristocracy---that is what makes Baltimore completely separated from Rule of Law and US Constitutional rights. Now all we hear in Baltimore is returning to apprenticeship and guilds-----the Freemasonry is now alive in Baltimore------and we are watching as our Baltimore City pols-----Baltimore City Hall and Maryland Assembly do nothing but work for Johns Hopkins and this small group of rich in the city. This has been the history of Baltimore----but it is now being exported around the nation under neo-liberalism and neo-conservatism. Now, if you are a contemporary labor union member in the US---or a woman ----you should read up on what Middle-Ages guilds and freemasonry look like. Only a few reach master craftsman while most toil as basically free labor for these master craftsmen and the rich who hire them. It is not a pretty sight and not a woman in sight.
Now, what you don't see in this article----the funding and control of these 'grass root' manufacturing co-ops and organizations like the Baltimore Art Realty Corporation is Wall Street and Baltimore Development creating this trade guild and apprenticeship model that will be connected to global corporations like UnderArmour. They are trying to make this sound grass roots and small business when all of it is tied to startups that fold into these global corporations all while citizens toil away doing the hardest work of building a business.
MAKERSPACE----COMMUNAL OWNERSHIP OF TOOLS AND EQUIPMENT----WITH STATE AND CITY REVENUE THAT USED TO FUND PRIVATELY-OWNED SMALL BUSINESS OWNERS BEING SENT TO FUND THESE TRADE GUILD STRUCTURES.
We must have real local economies built separate from these global corporations and financiers-----these are not grassroots economic structures.
Carl and Roberta Deutsch Foundation
Physical Address:Santa Monica, CA 90403
EIN:95-4610378
NTEE Category:T Philanthropy, Voluntarism, and Grantmaking
T22 (Private Independent Foundations)
Ruling Year:1997
Construction to begin on city's newest 'makerspace'A rendering of the Open Works, a makerspace that Baltimore Arts Realty Co. will begin developing in a Greemount Avenue warehouse with the goal of filling the building with the hum of craftsmen, artists and other small manufacturers.
(Cho Benn Holbck & Associates / Baltimore Sun)
Natalie ShermanContact ReporterBaltimore Sun
"The way we're going to rebuild manufacturing in the city is from the grassroots up."Baltimore Arts Realty Corp. will begin a major renovation Tuesday on a Greenmount Avenue warehouse with the goal of filling the building with the hum of craftsmen, artists and other small manufacturers.
The $11 million Open Works project would transform the 34,000-square-foot building in Greenmount West with a cafe, computer classrooms, textile, metal and wood workrooms and state-of-the-art 3-D printers and laser machines. BARCO, a nonprofit developer, also hopes to offer space to job training groups, host networking events and partner with nearby schools and universities.
"We really think we can see a lot of small businesses coming out of here," said Will Holman, general manager for Open Works. "The way we're going to rebuild manufacturing in the city is from the grass roots up."
The project is the city's latest so-called "makerspace" — a new buzzword for what is basically a communal workshop where users share tools and real estate they couldn't afford individually.
The concept is not new. The Baltimore Clayworks pottery center, for instance, dates to 1980.
But new technology, bigger markets made accessible by the Internet and the rise of a do-it-yourself culture have brought new attention to the idea. For-profit and nonprofit models have popped up across the country, including in Baltimore.
Their focus ranges from jewelry making to welding and they include organizations like the Station North Tool Library, which lends out about 2,000 tools, offers classes in skateboard making and homecare, and has grown to 1,000 members since opening less than three years ago.
The scale of BARCO's $11 million Open Works project, which is backed with $800,000 in state funding and grants from some of the city's largest philanthropic groups, and its focus on job training and business incubation suggests the movement is pushing into a new arena.
"It's broadening the conversation," said Sarah McCann, Baltimore Clayworks executive director.
Started by the Robert W. Deutsch Foundation, BARCO got interested in building a makerspace because it saw an opportunity to create an amenity catering to recent graduates and other members of the creative class, keeping them from fleeing to bigger arts hubs like New York or Los Angeles and staunching the flow of people from the city, said Laurens "Mac" MacLure, BARCO's managing director.
At a basic level, bringing down real estate and equipment costs — what MacLure called "democratizing the forces of production" — also supports small businesses, boosting economic development.
The group chose the 1400 Greenmount Avenue building because it wanted to extend the development happening in Station North — the group is also working on the Motor House on North Avenue — as well as to allow tenants to tap into the tax credits available to businesses in the district.
BARCO staff said they want Open Works to be a civic institution — like a recreation center or a library — and compare it to the YMCA. They hope to open next year and have between 400 and 500 regular users and as many as 50 people teaching classes.
"We're also looking at this as a community asset," MacLure said.
The founders of other makerspaces, such as the Tool Library and Clayworks, said they believe there is enough room in Baltimore to support all the new spaces. Under Armour CEO Kevin Plank, for example, is renovating a roughly 130,000-square-foot former city garage in Port Covington as a makerspace.
But enthusiasm for manufacturing as a source of business growth and employment flies runs counter to some trends. In Baltimore City, the number of people employed by manufacturers dropped nearly in half between 2002 and 2012, from just over 21,000 to about 11,750, according to Census data.
And while the number of one-person manufacturing shops shot up from about 240 in 2004 to 433 in 2013, revenue during that time actually declined.
Proponents maintain that advanced manufacturing — a term that includes industries such as aerospace, motor vehicle parts and pharmaceuticals — represents a bright spot within the sector and other trends, like buy-local movements, cheaper technology and rising overseas costs may be changing the dynamic, at least for producers working at a small to medium scale.
"Baltimore could stand to pay more attention to this," said Andy Cook, one of the organizers of the Industrial Arts Collective's Made in Baltimore pop-up shop and a sustainable economic development coordinator in the city's Planning Department. "The city needs to shift its perspective from thinking about manufacturing being just a thing for big guys like Bethlehem Steel and think about smaller companies that are producing for the local market."
Amateurs, fine craftsmen and artists supported the first iteration of the makerspaces, but commercial opportunity and a chance for job creation are out there, said Jason Hardebeck, who in 2013 co-founded the Baltimore Foundery, which offers welding classes and other services from a 2,000-square-foot building on Central Avenue and is about to move into a second, larger location.
"A lot of this is speculative but it's analogous to incubators in that we recognize that there are a lot of people that are entrepreneurs doing startups and how can we support that," he said. "What we found is there's never any room … They always seem to be at capacity. … Once you have the resources, the needs emerge."
Some people who have participated in makerspaces are already starting to see business result.
Steve Iannelli, a 28-year-old chemical engineer, went to his first class at the Station North Tool Library for an OkCupid date. The relationship didn't pan out, but the Canton resident now volunteers and teaches there and his woodworking hobby has turned into a $1,000-a-month sideline.
Iannelli said the tool library was critical, giving him access to the materials — as well as knowledge — to take it to the next level.
Now the Johns Hopkins University alumnus sometimes flirts with the idea of relying on his Bmore CreateMore furniture-making business as his primary job.
"You know what they say: 'If you do something that you love, you don't work a day in your life,' " he joked. "We'll see how profitable it becomes."
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These Middle-Ages trade guild apprentices and journeymen would go all their lives never owning anything in these guild spaces. They were the worst of impoverished.
There's nothing more neo-conservative and global corporate than the term 'makerspace'. It creates the dynamic of Middle-Ages where corporations in different industries build structures for these guilds (unions) with the premise of citizens as interns, volunteers, apprentices, all working in these common spaces usually under the direction of a 'Master craftsperson' . As you see here-----Koch Foundation just as with the Baltimore Deutsch Foundation-----it is all the NEW WORLD ORDER with US workers as Middle-Ages trade guild. Journeymen toiled most of their lives for free given only room and board for being in these guilds with the Master craftsmen being the only one lifted to what would be today a Living Wage.
THIS IS TO WHERE US INTERNATIONAL LABOR UNION LEADERS SUPPORTING NEO-LIBERAL HILLARY ARE TAKING AMERICAN LABOR UNION MEMBERS. IT IS WHY ALL THE WEALTH AND LABOR RIGHTS TIED TO US LABOR THROUGHOUT THE CENTURY OF PROGRESSIVE SOCIAL DEMOCRACY HAS BEEN NEGOTIATED AWAY BY NATIONAL UNION LEADERS.
Here you see the link of our K-12 to this apprenticeship trade guild structure------all of this tied to corporate education reform and businesses. This is all funded by global corporations and Wall Street investment firms with the goal of having a Middle-Ages trade guild union structure in the US. Again, this is not a European or German union structure----this is really, really, really ancient Medici as a rich global merchant owning the town of Florence trade guilds.
Wichita State and Koch Foundation Unveils MakerSpace
WSU dedicated its under-construction Experiential Engineering Building and MakerSpace Friday morning.
youtube.com
Stocking up School Makerspaces
- By Michelle "Binka" Hlubinka
- August 21st, 2013 9:44 am
17910963214
Superstar maker-teacher Casey Shea recently unveiled a new-and-improved makerspace at Analy High School, near the Maker Media offices in Sebastopol, Calif.
Lots of teachers have been asking us how to set up a Makerspace at their school. As part of our Back to School series, we’re sharing an excerpt from the Makerspace Playbook: Schools Edition.
Once you have a space where you and your students can work, you’ll want to outfit it with the tools, equipment, and materials your Makerspace needs in order for your students to accomplish their projects.
But before you go on a shopping spree and max out your credit card, assess what your Makerspace will actually require. You don’t necessarily need a fully equipped shop. Sometimes an empty countertop might be more valuable than a fancy new machine. You may be surprised at how many projects can be completed with a few hand tools, along with some simple power tools such as an electric drill, jig saw, and circular saw. For engineering-oriented projects, an appropriate shop would be a traditional woodshop or metal fabrication facility. However, for more craft-oriented projects, a shop could consist of large tables, adequate light, a sewing machine, a quilt frame, and so forth.
The Perfect ListHa ha! We don’t have it! Equipment lists are as individual as the space and its members.
Of course, we have suggestions, but it’s up to you to find the right combination of tools and materials for your students. We recommend you take a look at two other documents we’ve produced for suggestions, checklists, and images of gadgets, tools, workspaces, and more:
- Makerspace Playbook: Schools Edition guides those who are hoping to start a Makerspace at their school or in their community. This edition focuses on schools. The playbook discusses places, tools & materials, safety, roles, practices, projects, startup, documenting / sharing projects, resources. It also describes several schools’ experiences starting a makerspace in four snapshots and a chapter “A Year of Making.” (This post you’re reading has been adapted from Chapter 2.)
- Make: magazine’s special issue, The Ultimate Workshop and Tool Guide. Includes step-by-step photo instructions and reviews of more than 200 tools for the modern maker. A few teachers have told us they’ve used this to design their higher-end makerspaces.
- High School Makerspace Tools & Materials, written by Steve Hoefer, covers a modular build-out of the workspace, general making, woodworking, metalworking, electronics, textiles, computers, 3D printing, laser cutting, CNC cutting. Each module is described generally and accompanied by detailed shopping lists for associated tools and equipment (broken down into the categories of safety, accessories, consumables) and materials and parts.
- Adam Kemp’s forthcoming Make title, The Makerspace Workbench. Singe this book! That’s right. Author (and high school teacher!) Adam Kemp intends this book to be covered in notes, torn, and slightly charred while sitting aside your next amazing creation. The book shows you how to organize your environment to provide a safe and fun workflow, and demonstrates how you can use that space to educate others.
No matter how durable the tool, equipment always begets more equipment. Hand tools need toolboxes or cabinets to organize them. Battery-powered tools need charging stations. A vacuum is needed wherever there are cutting tools. Some equipment has safety considerations, such as fire extinguishers, air filters or eye shields. First aid kits should always be well stocked and at hand throughout the space.
In addition there is maintenance. Filters get dirty, alignments need to be recalibrated, blades become dull, and sometimes things break. Welders use wire and/or gas. A laser cutter’s tube will need to be recharged. 3D printers need filament. Be sure to budget for this when acquiring your equipment. It may be worth looking into maintenance contracts for more expensive tools such as laser cutters and mills.
Strategies for Stocking UpFew spaces can afford to buy all the equipment they want, especially at retail price. Used equipment and tool donations can be a big help. Some equipment makers will offer discounts to educational and non-profit groups. Tool rental or leasing is also an option for larger equipment.
Acquire general-use equipment before task-specific tools. Get simple and affordable tools ahead of advanced and expensive ones. Before getting a major piece of equipment, be sure there is a both a need for it and the expertise to use it. There’s nothing more lonely than a big expensive tool laying unused because no one knows how to use it.
Third-party services can make up for a lack of some tools. Laser cutting, 3D printing, milling and other services that a smaller space might find hard to afford can be hired out. Or you might be able to work out a deal with your local hackerspace or TechShop to use time on one of their high-end machines until you’re ready to purchase one for your space. It’s also possible to get pricing breaks if several project teams combine their orders. If you do hire out the fabrication, keep in mind that the price of these tools drop over time, and there’s really no substitute for hands-on experience using them.
The more you spend on a tool the more speed, precision and capability you typically get. Computer Numerical Control (CNC) tools provide a way to reliably and precisely reproduce items. Additionally laser cutters and 3D printers provide quick and precise fabrication that is difficult or impossible with non-computerized tools.
Makerspaces have taken a few different approaches to equipping their shops:
- Find an advocate with a wallet. Sometimes, you can stock a shop using funding from a foundation or a local corporation who shares your vision for a new kind of shop facility for kids. Our Resources section has a sample proposal and budget to submit.
- Beg and borrow. Do a tool drive in your community. Your neighbors may have some of the tools you need and be happy to share these with a new generation of Makers. You may also be able to find Makers or other Makerspaces that are near enough to you that they’d be willing to loan you a hard-to-find tool for a single use. And don’t forget to check to see if your community happens to have a “tool library”, where you can check out tools the way you can check out books.
- Buy used. Tools, especially power tools, have very long lifetimes, so buying used expensive tools can save you 50% or more on cost with little or no loss of functionality or quality. Keep your eyes open on sites like Craigslist for hobbyists’ estate sales and fabricators who are liquidating their shops. And this is an environmentally friendly approach. (Reduce, reuse, recycle, right?)
- Lure kids in with the latest and greatest. Sometimes, having just one hot new machine to give your students a glimpse of a fab-friendly future world can open their minds to new possibilities in their projects. They may not know what to make on a MakerBot, but the experience of using one may transform their thinking.
- Just-in-time purchasing. You don’t have to have a fully equipped shop to get started. It can be very effective to wait to purchase a new tool only when a project comes along that needs it.
- Wait for critical mass, and for prices to come down. You will surely feel frustrated when your $3000 machine is superseded by more powerful, smaller, cheaper cousins rolling off the manufacturing floors, unless you know that you got $3000 of use out of it before it started collecting dust in some forgotten corner of your Makerspace. If a project “needs” to use a laser-cutter, you might find that it’s more economical to rent time on one or send your digital files out to a service that can create the part for you. Once there’s momentum and you see that your members really can’t create their projects without that tool or machine, you have some great anecdotes and visuals to support your claim that you need it as you fundraise to buy one.
- Build out your capacity modularly. We cover this in Chapter 4 of the Makerspace Playbook.
You could choose to have a few simple tools for some kinds of making, keeping the capacity at a “basic” level there while building out another area of making to a level that might be considered “intermediate” or “advanced.” We define basic as relatively low-cost while still useful and easy to use, while “intermediate” tools and materials add more capability to the Makerspace, allowing makers to create more ambitious projects and work with more materials with greater precision.
In the companion document High School Makerspace Tools & Materials we define several different modules, and each section contains checklists in two categories, and these constitute the bulk of each section. Checklists include the common name of each tool, general pricing information, and when necessary, a more specific description and web link to an example.
- Tools & Equipment — including Safety, Accessories, and Consumables related to those tools
- Materials & Parts — the actual “stuff” that will be used by the students in their projects, that you want to have on hand.
- Workspace
- General tools commonly used on a wide range of projects
- Woodworking
- Metalworking
- Electronics (from basic circuit design to microcontrollers, robotics, and other electromechanisms)
- Textiles (all flexible materials such as cloth, vinyl, leather, rope and string, including soft circuits and wearable electronics)
- Computers (hardware and software necessary for planning, design and fabrication)
- Digital Fabrication
- 3D Printing (additive manufacturing to build up detailed, complex objects)
- Laser Cutting (cut and etch materials quickly and with high precision)
- Computer Numerical Controlled (CNC) (accurately cut & sculpt various materials.)
A retention policy, such as “first in, last out”, or 6-month expiration dates, keep contributed materials from piling up. Segregate project storage to prevent the accidental dismantling of someone’s project.
For things that aren’t available at local suppliers, consolidate online orders to get bulk discounts and save on shipping costs. Some spaces keep an order form on a clipboard for members to log what they need bought on the next hardware store run.
Organization and maintenance can be very time-consuming and cause burnout. Be careful not to be sucked into it all by yourself! Require users to do their part in maintaining the stockroom. Delegate the task of doing inventory and sorting unused items that have been left behind to a someone you trust (who knows what’s what!) or to a knowledgeable volunteer. Or organize an occasional community cleanup to take care of the background maintenance that may not be done on a day-to-day basis.
Our “Makerspace in a Box” ListWe’ve put together a list of items to add to your makerspace to provide a good range of tools and materials.
Related articles
- Stocking up School Makerspaces (makezine.com)
- Key Qualities for a School Makerspace (makezine.com)
- Is it a Hackerspace, Makerspace, TechShop, or FabLab? (makezine.com)
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