By Bert
Yes, there is something positive about being a workers center, just like the NMASS article said, true. A downside is that workers centers are not able to change conditions in whole industries, or change conditions long term, because they did not get power on the job, where most power is. This is because most workers came to our workers center after they were already fired, to see if they could get some justice. So we fought for the past,--back wages--but did not establish a presence in the shops to effect permanent change for the future. I used to joke that we are a "union of the fired" .
This was evident in the MiniMax boycott where the 6 workers won back pay and the changes they demanded in the shop but could not win reinstatement and so we had no mechanism to enforce the changes (sick days, OT pay, etc). This began to change when whole groups of workers, still on the job, began to come to the workers center, wanting to make a change and ready to stand up. It was a natural fit between workers center--as a community place for them to come to, and where they also receive help with other problems as workers in a community such as English classes, legal help, improving their kids schools, etc, ---and union, in this case the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), so as they fought for back wages, they also organized to demand changes on the job. So in that experience it has not been that workers centers are the future and unions are the past, but how they complement each other and are both necessary forms of workers fighting organization. If they are controlled by the workers and not foundations, or bosses, or new bureaucrats or specialists than that's okay.
So I say, rather than workers centers being better than unions, the key question is, who are running them? Rank and file workers need to run them if they are to be fighting organizations of the workers. That is the new labor movement, not the particular forms in my opinion.
Bert is an activist in both a workers center and a union organizing campaign in Brooklyn, NY