Worker Coops and Unions: A Strategy to Create Jobs and Union Members

"This workshop will focus on current successful examples of unionized worker owned companies and work that labor unions and support groups are doing to create co-ops providing workers more control of their work and increasing union membership. There will be a presentation on creating a special type of ‘worker owner” union membership to complement the existing collective bargaining type of membership, providing unions with an additional source of members and providing worker owned companies with much needed technical and professional resources. Union resolutions supporting education about and possible funding to underwrite formation of worker co-ops, that have been presented to union members and governing councils, will be presented. These include work on educational videos and toolkits to introduce labor to worker co-op ideas. There will be presentations on specific projects in Oregon, Oklahoma and Maryland, and the historic United Steel Workers collaboration with Mondragon. USFWC Union Co-ops Committee, which was established at Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy in 2007, will present its work, and discuss other ways that working people can control of local economic development."

Materials from the 2010 USFWC conference