American Worker Cooperative

Timothy Hall talks about how Roxbury Green Power, a worker-owned cooperative, is entering the biofuels market in Boston and creating green, collectively governed, pathways out of poverty.

A documentary work in progress about the immigrant community in Whatcom and Skagit Counties, WA. This clip is from a section about Las Margaritas Catering Cooperative.

The Pedal People is a "worker-owned human-powered delivery and hauling service" based in Northampton, Massachusetts.

From the pages of Labour Co-partnership, 1897:

Chris Michael of Workers Development in New York City talks about organizing a direct public offering of non-voting shares for a cooperative in development: the Workers' Diner.

Watch the rest of the video

"This isn't some high school science project led by a kindly teacher. This is a business owned, controlled and managed by its members who just happen to be teenagers. They do the testing, they do the removal. More importantly, they make the decisions on how to organize and run the business."

"In 1980 five Clover Brigade members formed a worker cooperative to acquire the bakery and manage it as a separate business. Using $5,000 of their own funds, they purchased the bakery and formed the Semper Virens Bakery Food Cooperative. One of the workers gave it the name that stuck: Alvarado Street Bakery, a nod to a Los Angeles street sign that perched atop the bakery’s flour bags. The sign still hangs over the bakery’s ovens as a good luck charm and a reminder of its roots. The cat featured in Alvarado Street’s logo is also a relic of the early years: Greta was a key part of their initial pest control program, which has since evolved to meet the latest food safety protocols. Today Alvarado Street Bakery is a $25 million dollar business with over 100 worker-owners, making it the largest cooperative bakery in the U.S. "

"Since 1995, ICA has been an active participant in the creation of three social purpose staffing companies. WorkSource Staffing Partnership in Boston was the first, followed by FirstSource Staffing in New York City, and Enterprising Staffing Solutions in Washington D.C. Several others are in various stages of development. Each reflects its particular local circumstances and personnel. As with all ICA projects, the idea is to set a company in motion, develop the infrastructure so that it can succeed, and encourage opportunity and creativity to take its course."

The University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives manual Cooperatives: A Tool for Community Economic Development was organized for the 1998 Cooperative Development Training Conference.  "This Manual is designed to provide you with a comprehensive overview of cooperatives: what they are, how they work, and how to start one.  In addition, it offers numerous examples of actual co-ops in Wisconsin and other states which are successfully meeting the needs of their members and their communities. "

Chapter 1 - Introduction to the Manual & Conference

Chapter 2 - Cooperatives as an Economic Development Tool

Chapter 3 - Introduction to Cooperatives

Chapter 4 - Basic Steps in Starting a Cooperative

Chapter 5 - Conducting a Feasibility Study

Chapter 6 - Outline of a Business Plan

Chapter 7 - Financing Cooperatives

Chapter 8 - Legal Structure of Cooperatives

Chapter 9 - Keys to Success & Potential Pitfalls

Chapter 10 - Housing Co-ops and Other Housing Alternatives

Appendix A - Resources : Where to go for help

Appendix B - Bibliography

Appendix C - Sample Bylaws

Appendix D  - Wisconsin Articles of Incorporation

Appendix E  - How to Conduct a Survey

Appendix F  - Excerpts from Feasibility Studies

The survey results indicated that a large majority of founding members in these successful worker co-operatives did not have business experience. Overriding this was the willingness of members to work together and to continuously learn on the job in a working environment that allows them to express their values and social concerns. Through this, successful worker co-operatives were able to carve a niche in their business sector by providing high quality goods and services. Other factors critical to success were access to capital and creative financing, including members’ significant commitment to sweat equity, and available technical and industry resources to assist with the challenges of business and co-operative organizational development.

"The Worker Co-op Sector in Canada: Success Factors, and Planning for Growth" from the Canadian Worker Co-op Federation accompanies their report on success factors in Italy, Mondragon, and France.

Derek Jones is an New York-based economist who studies worker cooperatives, often from the perspective of participation and productive efficiency.  He is an active member of the International Association for the Economics of Participation, an organization that holds conferences (2010, 2008, 2006) and publishes the annual journal Economic Analysis: Journal of Enterprise and Participation.  Here are a few of Jones' works from his website.  

• Co-operatives and Employee Ownership "forthcoming, International Encyclopedia of Civil Society," edited by Helmut K. Anheier and Stefan Toepler, Springer. - Derek Jones and Panu Kalmi
• The Productive Efficiency of Italian Producer Cooperatives: Evidence from Conventional and Cooperative Firms Advances in the Economic Analysis of Participatory and Labour Managed Firms, vol.10, 2007, pp.3-28 - Derek Jones
• How Does Employee Involvement Stack Up? The Effects of Human Resource Management Policies on Performance in a Retail Firm (with Panu Kalmi and Antti Kauhanen) Industrial Relations vol. 49:1, 2010, pp.1-21 - Derek Jones
• The Effects of Employee Involvement on Firm Performance: Evidence from an Econometric Case Study (with Takao Kato) "forthcoming, Industrial and Labor Relations Review." - Derek Jones

After their editions on The Crisis in Steel, Fighting Rust, and Fighting Shutdowns, The Cornell ILR's Labor Research Review focused their April 1985 edition on "Workers as Owners," looking exclusively at cases where ownership would stanch the divestment of industry from the Northeast and Midwest.  Articles included   

Worker Ownership: A Tactic for Labor by Dan Swinney
The Case Against Worker Ownership by Mike Slott
ESOPs & CO-OPs: Worker Capitalism & Worker Democracy by David P. Ellerman
Lessons From Three UAW Locals by Craig Livingston
A Lost Dream: Worker Control at Rath Packing by Gene Redmon, Chuck Mueller, and Gene Daniels

Possibly the single most important economic work in recent history, David Ellerman's Property and Contract in Economics addresses the fundamental issues shunned by the current economic and legal framework. It lays out a modern Labor Theory of Property which treats the appropriation of produced goods in a consistent manner and undermines the human rental, the standard employment relationship today. An essential read for anyone studying worker cooperatives. - Mike Leung

This course will examine literature and practice regarding community-owned enterprise as an alternative means of increasing community participation and development. The use of cooperatives, credit unions, land trusts, and limited stock ownership enterprises for increasing community participation and empowerment will be examined.  Lynn Benander and Shakoor Anjawani of the Cooperative Development Institute present MIT Urban Studies and Planning 11.954: Community-Owned Enterprise and Civic Participation.  Readings.  Assignments.  Seminars. 

Christina Clamp's presentation at the 2008 ACE Institute on innovations in worker coopertive development begins by outlining answering "Who are the founders of worker co-ops?".  There are multiple entrepreneurial motivations, including:

• Ideological cooperators - fair trade, anticorporate, cooperators
• Labor Intervention by cooperative developers (plant closing, anti-labor move by owner
• Developer led Antipoverty intervention
• Opportunistic self help groups

Here are some readings to become familiar with the waves of cooperative organizing that have been a part of the United States' history.  Many cooperative guides will use the Rochdale Pioneers as an historical touchstone, but there is quite a storied, innovative and relevant history in more recent times that is worth getting to know.

Overview

  - American Producer Cooperatives and Employee-owned firms: A Historical Perspective by Derek Jones.  1984

 - For All the People: Uncovering the Hidden History of Cooperation by John Curl.  2009

The Knights of Labor and striking worker cooperatives

 - The Citizen Producer: the Rise and Fall of Working-Class cooperatives in the United States by Steve Leikin. 1999

 - The Practical Utopians: American workers and the cooperative movement in the Gilded Age by Steve Leikin. 2005

Self-help cooperatives of the 1930s

 - Living in the U.X.A. by John Curl.  1983

The Plywood Cooperatives of the Pacific Northwest

Twenty four worker-owned plywood manufactories prospered in Washington and Oregon between the 1930s and 1970s.  

 - Worker-owned Plywood Companies of the Pacific Northwest by Ben Craig and John Pencavel.  1993

 - Plywood Co-operatives of the Pacific Northwest: Endangered Species by Christopher Gunn. 1993

 - Spillovers From Cooperative and Democratic Workplaces: Have the Benefits Been Oversold? By Edward Greenberg.  2008

 - Worker participation: lessons from the worker co-ops of the Pacific Northwest by John Pencavel. 2001

Sunset Scavenger

The independent garbage collectors of San Francisco organized into a worker cooperative in the 1920s that held the municipal monopoly to serve most neighborhoods in the city.  Their organization demutualized in the 1970s.   

 - Collecting garbage: dirty work, clean jobs, proud people by Stewart E. Perry, Raymond Russell.  1998

The Federation for Economic Democracy

The Federation for Economic Democracy (or FEDO) was a network of local technical assistance organizations advocating worker cooperatives and self-management from 1975 to 1977 in the eastern United States.  Local nodes of the Federation became the Boston-area Industrial Cooperative Association and the Philadelphia-based PACE.   

 - The Federation for Economic Democracy 

 - Building Support Systems for Worker Cooperatives by George Benello. 1982

 - ICA Model Bylaws for A Worker Cooperative.  1983

 - A Targeted Approach to Worker Co-op Development: Lessons from Mondragon and Northern Italy, by Sherman Kreiner. 1989

Youngstown and the Campbell Iron Works

The shutdown of the Campbell Works in 1978 galvanized a lot of the cooperative organizing efforts of the Northeast.  Though the project did not succeed, both the Ohio Employee Ownership Center and eht University of Maryland's Democracy Collaborative were founded by people involved in the rescue attempt. 

 - Steelyard Blues by Paula Cizmar. 1978

 - Worker Ownership as a Means of Reducing Regional Unemployment and its Application to Steel Plant Shutdowns By Peter Berg. 1983

The Influence of Mondragon

The success of the Mondragon Cooperatives has been an inspiration for American Cooperative organizers ever since word arrived.   Previous to Mondragon the best large scale implementation of the cooperative idea available was the socialist self-management of Yugoslavia.   

 - The Mondragon System of Worker Production Cooperatives, Ana Gutierrez Johnson and William Foote Whyte.  1977

 - From Mondragón to Ohio: Building Employee Ownership by John Logue.  2001

 - In Cleveland, Worker Co-Ops Look to a Spanish Model by Judith Schwartz. 2009

The O&O Supermarkets

The O&O Supermarkets were a series of worker cooperatives in the Philadelphia area in the 1980s.  The United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 1357, in partnership with Philadelphia Area Cooperative Enterprise (PACE), organized the first two stores in 1982 as part of a negotiation to keep the stores from being shut down by A&P.

 - The O&O Supermarkets

 - Worker Ownership as the Basis for an Integrated, Proactive Development Model by Sherman L. Kreiner. 1987

The counterculture

Many small worker cooperatives formed as part of the counterculture in urban areas in the 1970s.

 - The Bay Area Directory of Collectives.  1980

- The Shape of the Small Worker Cooperative Movement, Robert Jackall and Joyce Crain.  1984

- Cooperatives in the late twentieth century: the democratic impulse and the challenge of oligarchy.  Joyce Rothschild. 1986

The Hoedads

The Hoedads were a network of worker cooperative tree planters that reforested the Pacific Northwest after logging.  At peak they had 13 crew and over 300 workers.

 - Tree Planters: The mighty Hoedads, back for a 30-year reunion, recall their grand experiment by Lois Wadsworth

 - Hoedads Celebrate Reforestation History By Roscoe Caron

 - Birth of a cooperative: Hoedads, Inc., a worker owned forest labor co-op by Hal Hartzell

Startups of the 1980s, 1990s

Sometimes people remark that worker cooperatives were a phenomenon of the 1970s, but there are plenty of examples of startups, some of them quite innovative, during the 1980s and 1990s. 

 - Isthmus Engineering, founded in 1980

 - Alvarado Street Bakery, founded in 1981

 - Cooperative Home Care Associates, founded in 1985

 - Equal Exchange, founded in 1986

 - South Mountain Company, converted in 1987

 - WAGES, founded in 1994

 - The Arizmendi Association of Cooperatives, founded in 1994

Demutualizations

Demutualization, or restructuring as non-democratic corporation usually to sell to an outside buyer, can be a problem if a cooperative is struggling OR if it is too successful.  Demutualizations of two of the larger West Coast worker cooperatives created stir a few years back.

 - Good Vibrations Restructures as California Corporation.  2006

 - Eugene co-op shifts gears: The maker of bicycles and bike trailers incorporates.  2006

Conferences and Federations

During the late 1990s and 2000 a serious organizing effort was made toward creating federations of the somewhat isolated worker cooperatives in the country.  

 - Network of Bay Area Worker Collectives (NoBAWC) History

 - Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives (VAWC) to Publish a Movement Book by Michael Johnson.  2009

 - Western Worker Cooperative Conference

 - Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy

  - Regional Histories  from the United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives

 - The United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives Has Issued a Call for Membership

 - The US Federation of Worker Cooperatives at Two

This work attempts to contribute to our understanding of the role of the external agent and, in particular, the adult educator, in co-operative development. By focusing on the role of adult education in co-operative movements, we can better understand how education contributes to a change in attitude, to building trust and cohesion in groups, and to encouraging people to work together to make improvements in their economic situations and in their communities. The objective of this work is to describe the role of adult educators and extension agents in the co-operative development process. To accomplish this objective, information is compiled from literature dealing with adult education, co-operative development, economics, and other disciplines, and from primary research presented as a case study. Information for the case study was gathered through study tours, personal and telephone interviews, and from literature describing co-operative development in North Dakota and Minnesota. The results of this research emphasize the importance of the active participation and encouragement of a variety of external agencies. The role of the change agent as co-ordinator and facilitator appears to be a crucial element in fostering collective action. In summary, the role of the adult educator is to: • facilitate a change of attitude; • co-ordinate the expectation of reciprocal co-operation; • assist in identifying common goals and a common vision; • expand the frame of reference by providing information in an appropriate manner; and • foster and nurture leadership within the constituent group. Adult education programmes involved in co-operative development tend to employ similar methods, such as group learning, community capacity building, individual capacity building, discussion forums, and a broad education in economic, social, and political issues, as well as the more practical elements—literacy, life skills, and general information. The adult education programme does not stand alone. A network of external agencies provides support and services to the programme and to the fledging co-operative. This network focusses on a common goal: to develop policy and resources to support and encourage education and collective action to address social and economic problems.

Yo Mamas Catering Cooperative and the Third Coast Workers for Cooperation were featured in the Austin Business Journal's ABJ Entrepreneur.

Jeanette Monsalve and three friends — all but one mothers — started making empanadas to raise money for a project. And when orders for their pastries kept coming in after their fundraising stopped, they knew they had the makings of a business.  They also knew they didn’t want the typical business model, so they decided to create their catering company as a worker cooperative — aptly named Yo Mamas Catering Cooperative…

Yo Mamas’ founders had good timing in that they benefited from the efforts of an upstart nonprofit with a new program focused on helping people start worker co-ops.  Third Coast Workers for Cooperation is aimed at developing, promoting and supporting worker co-ops through educational and outreach programs, including its Cooperative Business Institute, said Carlos Perez de Alejo, community outreach coordinator for Third Coast. The Cooperative Business Institute is a 16-week program that takes participants through the nuts and bolts of starting all types of worker cooperatives, everything from writing a business plan to decision making.

ReBuilders Source, the Bronx's 2-year old worker-owned, materials re-use cooperative, has closed for financial reasons.  At the 2010 USFWC conference organizer Omar Freilla noted that the cooperative's business plan was ill-timed; the store opened to sell building materials in 2008 just as the recession was devastating the construction industry. Green Worker Cooperatives, the organization that developed and supported ReBuilders Source, has reinvigorated their Co-op Academy and has 6 new cooperatives in development:

As a result of the new format for our Co-op Academy, in 2009 we graduated six new co-ops in development that cover a wide range of industries: two healthy green caterers (Sabor Latino & B-Blossom); a green diner (The Worker’s Diner); a solar thermal products manufacturer (Aquatecture); a furniture renovator & re-designer (ReFab); and a green community youth center owned and governed by both workers and the young people served.

Equal Exchange's fair trade curriculum for grades 4 though 9 is available online: Win Win Solutions: An Introduction to Fair Trade and Cooperative Economics, including Unit 1, Class 3: Problems with our Food System. Learn about the underbelly of our food system. (Writing & Civics), Unit 2, Class 2 What's Fair Game?  Role play what it’s like to trade cocoa. (Math & Science), and then:

Unit 3: Understanding Cooperatives

• Class 1: Cooperatives Meet People's Needs - Learn about your local cooperative scene.  (Science & Business) 
• Class 2: Democracy in Action - Find out about real life trade-offs from co-op membership. (Social Studies & English)
• Class 3: Running a Student Cooperative - Create and become cooperative  entrepreneurs. (Cooperative Business) 
• Class 4: Making Choices - Write your story and try to persuade your listeners. (English & Food Business)

Rose Aguilar hosted an interview show on worker cooperatives on KALW in advance of the 2010 conference.  The guests are Dan Thomases, worker/owner of Box Dog Bikes and board member of Network of Bay Area Worker Cooperatives, John Kusakabe, worker/owner of Arizmendi Bakery,  Hilary Abell, executive director of Women's Action to Gain Economic Security (WAGES).

 Mike Leung's Abolish Human Rentals website is "dedicated to bringing an old idea into the public conscience, that the standard employment relationship, a contract for the rental of people, is invalid due to the inalienable rights of humans. It is based on the already widely held principle of the non-transferability of responsibility for one’s actions. That principle, taken to its logical conclusion, means the rental of humans have no more legitimacy than their sale."

The work follows in the theoretical footsteps of David Ellerman, who among other pursuits was the co-author of Chapter 157A of the Massachusetts General Laws: Employee Cooperative Corporations

Mike's presentation at the 2010 U.S. Social Forum is embedded here.

Watch the rest of the presentation

The Association of Cooperative Educators is a membership organization that brings together educators, researchers, cooperative members, and cooperative developers from across cooperative sectors and national borders to enhance cooperative development, strengthen cooperatives, promote professionalism and improve public understanding.  Presentations from their 2009 ACE Institute are available online including:

Is Policy Helping or Hindering?

Tom Webb of St. Mary’s University Master in Management -- Co-operatives and Credit Unions says there is an “enormous suspension of common sense” in the economy today. He prescribes several policy changes to free cooperatives to help create change: appreciation of the model by governments; equitable, not equal treatment of businesses; balanced education about business models, and the removal of barriers to co-op development. Community developer Margaret Lund of Minneapolis recommends building a broad recognition of the fundamental public purpose of cooperatives, and encouraging governments to recognize retained earnings and further co-op/community development through tax advantages. Webb and Lund are introduced by Rizick Rosario Peña of the ACE board of directors and Cooperativa de Seguros Múltiples de Puerto Rico.   Listen to the audio recording / see Tom Webb's presentation

Worker Cooperatives

Melissa Hoover, executive director, United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives, and agricultural economist Bruce Reynolds of USDA discuss their work with worker cooperatives. Hoover introduces a technical assistance program for a new generation of worker cooperatives. Reynolds explains USDA programs related to worker ownership, the sustainability of co-ops and the challenge of demutualization. James Wadsworth of USDA Rural Development's Cooperative Programs and ACE board secretary introduces the session.  Listen to the audio recording / see Bruce Reynolds' presentation / see Melissa Hoover's presentation

Aboriginal / First Nations Cooperative Growth

Louise Champagne, president of Neechi Foods Co-op Ltd. of Manitoba, Canada, describes her cooperative, its mandate, collaborations, recent expansion, and successes to assist inner city Winnipeg. Manley Begay, Jr., faculty chair of the Native Nations Institute for Leadership, Management, and Policy in Arizona, discusses the cultural differences among First Nations, and suggests that Aboriginal and First Nations people look at cooperatives as an option for their enterprises. CHS Foundation President William J. Nelson introduces the session.  Listen to the audio recording / see Manley Begay's presentation / see Louise Champagne's presentation

Developing Cooperative Leaders at Universities

Denyse Guy (Ontario Co-operative Association), Christina Clamp (Southern New Hampshire University) and Tom Webb (St. Mary’s University) describe their challenges and wishes for their respective new university programs on co-operatives and credit unions.

Listen to the audio recording / see Christina Clamp's  presentation

A vast amount of research on women and work indicates that women have not gained parity with men in the paid workforce. Workplace democracy is particularly relevant for women. I employ US national survey data from 1991 to analyze women's support for worker control over workplace decision-making. The nature of this support is hypothesized using four branches of feminist theory. An analysis of the gender gap in attitudes is performed and then I incorporate logistic regression to test for cleavages in women's attitudes. The lack of consistency across the items suggests that these speci®c work issues are not re¯ective of a larger, generalized predisposition to workplace democracy. I conclude by considering the relationship between women and the labor movement. Union-supported worker participation is most likely to improve women's working conditions.

Workplace democracy has been advocated by labor as a means of worker empowerment and by management as an effort to improve productivity and quality. This article seeks to clarify this contradictory support through an analysis of American managers’and workers’attitudes. Class ideology and class experience are tested as factors that underlie attitudes toward three different forms of workplace democracy. Ordinary least squares regression and path analysis are employed in an analysis of national survey data from 1991. Class location is found to be a weak predictor, whereas class experience is a strong determinant. The findings indicate that American workers want more control once they get some influence over workplace decision making, highlighting a paradox behind the often narrow goals of managers. Implications are discussed vis-àvis the labor movement and contemporary corporate participation programs.

Workplace democracy has been advocated by capitalists, managers, and workers. This paper seeks to clarify such cross-class support by analyzing Americans’ attitudes toward worker participation in decision making and worker control. National survey data from 1991 are employed. Hypotheses surrounding various criteria of class are tested and production-related conceptions are the most powerful predictors of these attitudes. The existence of significant cross-class support is confirmed. A path model is estimated for each class location in order to compare the underlying causal mechanisms. Non-working class support for workplace democracy is found primarily in subordinated class segments. Most importantly, “middle class” women are supportive as worker empowerment may improve their own lot. Overall, the advocacy by capital and its managers appears to merely reflect a veiled attempt to further their own agenda of capital accumulation.