Sustainable Tompkins Promotes Worker Cooperatives

Submitted by Joe on

"Leaders in the sustainability movement believe that the most promising economic development strategy available may be a focus on economic justice. This would reduce poverty and increase tax revenues, strengthen democracy and the sense of a shared future, reduce the tax burden for social services, and increase support for investments in education and public infrastructure. All of these are part of a viable and sustainable local economy.  Worker cooperatives can be an important tool in this strategy. According to the Democracy Collaborative at the University of Maryland, cooperatives can create a green and just economy by building community wealth “in which ownership is broadly shared, locally rooted, and directed toward the common good.  Worker cooperatives are businesses owned and democratically controlled by their workers. They have been organized since the dawn of the industrial revolution and have been successful in virtually every industry – from mining companies, to robotics firms, taxi drivers, health care providers, food processors, to creative and technology firms – anywhere where the workers and their community would benefit from having a stake in their workplace and the incentive of receiving an equitable share of the fruits of their labor.

While worker cooperatives have been a steady presence in modern history, they have surged during times of economic dislocation, and rapid cultural and technological change. During the massive movement of capital and jobs out of the upstate region in the 1970s and 1980s, a wave of efforts to create and save jobs through cooperatives and employee ownership rose up in Jamestown, Herkimer, Saratoga, the Mohawk Valley, Ithaca and elsewhere in New York State.  The wave was given technical assistance by the NYS School of Industrial and Labor Relations and supported by government loans. State workers, researchers and organizers in Central New York were considered authorities throughout the country, structuring buyouts and training workers. In the mid-1980s the New York State Legislature formalized their support by writing a new article into State Corporations law recognizing the benefits of the worker cooperative model."

Gay Nicholson and Joe Marraffino co-write Sustainable Tompkins (County's) column in the Tomkins Weekly.  See also the organization's interactive sustainability map:

 

Job Opening: WAGES Executive Director

Submitted by Joe on

Women’s Action to Gain Economic Security (WAGES) builds worker-owned, green businesses that create healthy, dignified jobs for low-income women. Founded in 1995, WAGES addresses both income and asset inequities for low-income, immigrant Latinas through an array of programs, trainings and other services that help them create and sustain stable, thriving businesses ultimately achieving financial stability and family economic success. The success of our model relies upon intensive training and support for worker-owners, business development programs to encourage the co-ops’ growth and job creation, and a client-centered model for economic empowerment of low-income women.
 
WAGES incubates housecleaning cooperatives that use eco-friendly cleaning products and techniques. These profitable businesses generate high-quality jobs, providing financial stability and asset accumulation for low-income new immigrant women and their families, and protect the health of workers and their business clients. To date, WAGES has created four successful green-cleaning cooperatives, beginning our fifth project in 2011.
 
The Executive Director of WAGES will provide overall leadership and direction for all WAGES’ activities and ensure a healthy organizational infrastructure to support program growth and stability.  The ideal candidate will possess a strong background in managing a nonprofit organization and will have entrepreneurial expertise and spirit to continue to build and support successful cooperatives to serve the Latina immigrant socias that participate in our program.
 
Required

  • A minimum of five years service as a high-level administrator in a nonprofit organization.
  • Private sector business experience.
  • Prior experience working with immigrant populations or familiarity with the immigrant experience.

Preferred

  • Bilingual Spanish/English.
  • Previous experience as an Executive Director of a nonprofit 501 c3 organization.

Related

Four Recent Books on Economic Democracy from New Unionism Blog

Submitted by Joe on

"All the criticisms in the world will get us nowhere, unless they are acted upon. As He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named said: “Philosophers have merely interpreted the world… the point, however, is to change it."  The process of change, when it comes, usually features an escalation in protests and strikes (as we’re seeing). It also creates a thirst for new ideas. So what has been tabled in the past ten years, beyond desperate calls for a return to social dialogue, state socialism, and/or the regulatory regimes of the twentieth century?  The point of this article is to look at four examples. As you’ll see, each of them has something rather interesting in common. If you take nothing else away from this article, just make a mental note of one thing, right now. Each of the proposals is predicated on the democratization of work."

 

2012 National Worker Cooperative Conference in Boston Now Accepting Workshop Proposals

Submitted by Joe on

The U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives has opened its 2012 conference planning process to proposals. Proposals will be accepted until December 15. The planning committee will begin reviewing proposals as soon as they are submitted, and will notify proposers on a rolling basis, with final selections to be made by January 15, 2012.

Guidelines and tips to getting your workshop accepted:

This conference year is the International Year of the Cooperative. It is our time to celebrate what we represent and also to share our tools and experience with people from all different regions. Keep this in mind as you formulate your workshop ideas. We are looking for solutions to specific challenges as well as ways that worker cooperatives link up to larger solutions.

  • Be specific! Often we can learn most concretely and make the bigger connections by focusing in very closely on a particular region or industry or cooperative or structure or idea. Consider how to keep it interesting by making it specific, and then how to relate it back out to our overall theme: solutions.
  • Be creative! The world may not need another general "unions and coops" discussion, or "management issues in coops" workshop, but these issues are important, so consider approaching them from an unexpected angle or new vantage point.
  • Be something we haven't seen before! There's always room for the basics and foundational topics, and if you're really good at those, by all means propose a workshop on a well-traveled coop topic. But what will really get you noticed is something we haven't seen yet: either a new topic, or new approach to an old topic, or a new presentation method/presenters

See previous conference workshops: 2010, 2008, 2006

Penticton and Area Cooperative Enterprises

Submitted by Joe on

Penticton and Area Cooperative Enterprises (PACE) is a worker cooperative committed to community base recovery through supported employment, supported education, and consumer operated services in Penticton, British Columbia.

 

In this day and age of growing cutbacks and less resources, we are looking towards innovations in delivery of Mental Health Services. This approach to Community Based Recovery is an alternative for Health Providers and Human Resource Ministries to consider. The elements of responsibility, work, and citizenship must be at the core of a solid rehabilitation program. Recovery must be viewed as the individual’s journey to reach their full potential and maintain control of their lives.

 

Mandate

To provide transition to employment, specific skill training, paid work opportunities and opportunities to develop consumer run businesses to persons diagnosed with a mental illness and referred by mental health service providers.

 

Issues that the Cooperative Addresses

PACE is a rehabilitation program that helps address the gap that exists with many Mental Health Services in the continuum of care provided for Mental Health clients in recovery. The gap exists largely in community based rehabilitation services that address the rehabilitation politics of inclusion and integration into society. This model has proven, over the past three years, that given the opportunity to participate in paid work, have control over their choices and movements they make on their journey towards integration and citizenship, clients stay well for longer periods and rely less on emergency services.

 

Description of the Cooperative

A new perspective on community based, vocational rehabilitation is alive and well in Penticton. The concept of developing a worker cooperative to assist our mental health clients to participate in paid employment opportunities is not a new idea. What makes this cooperative unique is that it is a multi-stakeholder cooperative where the membership is 70% client members and 30% supporters. The other unique aspect is that it is a “not for profit” cooperative meaning that all profits once payrolls and expenses are paid are directed back into the cooperative and not paid out to members as is the case in most corporations. This is not to be confused with a non profit society. The Penticton & Area Cooperative Enterprises (P.A.C.E.) is a business and is out there to make profit!

 

Presently PACE has a number of divisions or shall we say Consumer Run Businesses that operate under the mandate of the cooperative. These businesses each have their own “Worker Pool”. They meet once a week and make decisions about how they run their business. The motions made at these meetings give direction to the service providers working under PACE such as the operations manager, bookkeepers and front end staff and it gives the workers a strong sense of ownership. The cooperative model is effective as a Rehabilitation vehicle for Mental Health clients who often struggle with developing a strong sense of self, belonging and just feeling like they are contributing to community. The prospect and reality of earning extra money every month has also contributed to clients having a better quality of life and are looking forward to the future with hope.

Tags: 

New Economics Institute

Submitted by Joe on

The Annual E. F. Schumacher Lectures and other New Economics Institute lectures  include some of the foremost voices on a new economics.  Browse summaries of the lectures. Listen to audio selections of the lectures.  View recent videos.

 

Selected lectures and writings include those by

Mike Leung Analyzes Worker Cooperative Capital Structure

Submitted by Joe on

Mike Leung, founder of the yet-chartered Worker Cooperative Federal Credit Union, and Abolish Human Rentals, interprets and offers constructive criticism of the standard model for capital structures in the United States. 

 

The presentation is just under an hour long, in 3 parts.  A 30-page working paper on these ideas is also available.    

Tags: 

Patronage Calculation Examples

Submitted by Joe on

Here is a spreadsheet to show some examples of calculating patronage.  "Patronage", as you may know, is the amount of work performed as a member of a worker cooperative,  measured in accordance with the certificate of incorporation and by-laws.  But how do you measure the amount of work performed? 

Patronage calculation examples .xls | .pdf

The spreadsheet gives four examples, from simpler (with the greatest equality) to more complex.  The first example uses hours worked as the measurement, and labor hours remain the building block through the examples.  The second amplifies the amount of work performed by some hours by adding  a "skill factor" to certain workers.  This may be used where some labor contibutes a greater amount work, including special skills.  The third example follows that format, but uses wage differentials as an index of skill, essentially assuming that pay is already measuring the amount of work performed (which may not be true - pay may measure seniority, for instance, but not greater skill).  The last example is of a worker cooperative where there are different worker membership classes, and amplifies the work performed by some "special" class.  This is the most unequal, but there may be cases in which it is useful to recognize a special contribution by some member classes if they are not recognized in other ways.    

The best system should be fair, transparent and understandable, and agreed upon democratically - and enshrined in your bylaws before the fiscal year in which the work is performed.   

There are surely other models, for example adding a skill factor for certain tasks or labor hours, rather than for certain laborers.  I would interested to hear about your model in the comments if you have one to offer.    

Support the National Cooperative Development Act of 2011

Submitted by Joe on

For nearly a year, cooperative business owners and developers have been working to develop a wonderful piece of legislation that will support the growth of cooperative businesses in underserved communities throughout the country. For months, many of you have been hearing about this, but recently we've been particularly quiet. That's because we've been hard at work, behind the scenes, preparing to grow our campaign to fully support the legislation when it is introduced.  

 

I'm happy to announce today that our campaign has a home!

http://campaign.coop

 

our campaign has a name!

Campaign for Cooperation

 

and our legislation has a name!

National Cooperative Development Act of 2011

 

We need your support. We could spend our days calling the offices of al Members of Congress, telling them about this terrific piece of legislation, but it wouldn't be very effective. Members of Congress are not interested in hearing what people outside their districts think they should support. They want to hear from their constituents, which is YOU!  The Campaign for Cooperation will work with you and help you spread the word about the National Cooperative Development Act, and to help you talk to your Representatives about how wonderful co-ops are, and how this legislation will benefit their constituents.

We expect Rep. Fattah to introduce the National Cooperative Development Act this Fall, and the cooperative community needs to be ready to support it from day 1. We will let you know as soon as the legislation is available. While we wait for its introduction, there are a couple things you can do to help.

  • Share campaign.coop with your community of co-op supporters
  • Contribute to the campaign at our website (any amount helps!) - this helps us spread the word about the legislation throughout the country.
  • Meet with your Member of Congress or their staff to talk to them about your co-ops, and that the National Cooperative Development Act is coming soon, and you want them to be a co-sponsor.

 

Read an interview with Rep. Fattah about the National Cooperative Development Act.

Jenny Kassan talks about (Legally) Raising Capital for Worker Cooperatives

Submitted by Joe on

Jenny Kassan of Cutting Edge Capital and the Sustainable Economies Law Center gives two video talks on raising capital as part of the NoBAWC Lecture Series.

Related

Tags: 

Sectoral Strategies in CED: Critical factors in the Success of Cooperative Home Care Associates and Childspace

Submitted by Joe on

Sherman Kreiner writes in Making Waves in 2003. 

Scale and markets notwithstanding, Cooperative Home Care Associates (New York City) and Childspace Day Care Centers (Philadelphia) have plenty to teach Canada's co-operators and other CED activists. Kreiner challenges CED practitioners to move beyond creating business just within ‘their’ territory; they are often poor, thus possess weak markets and often have a hard time attracting entrepreneurial and professional management. He asserts one can be often more strategic and get better results through focusing on sectors where the quality of service provided is a competitive advantage. The twin benefit of better jobs (within the sectors targeted) and higher quality service (through workers also being owners) is backed up by the evidence presented in these two cases. Interestingly, the cases he presents both are both ‘human services’.

Reports and Presentations from the Northwest Cooperative Development Center

Submitted by Joe on

The Northwest Cooperative Development Center's Co-op Starter Series is a set of "How-To" articles for

developing co-ops. 

 

General Co-op Info:

 

Decision Making Processes:

 

Meeting Mechanics:

 

Strategic, Business and Financial Planning Basics:

 

Presentations

The Open Door Policy of Worker Co-operatives

Submitted by Joe on

John McNamara, current General Manager of Union Cab, writes at The Workers' Paradise:

 

The 6th Principle of Co-operatives is called, somewhat reflexively, “Co-operation Among Co-operatives.” I have talked about this in a previous post. Today, I want to focus on it from a different perspective provided to us by the spiritual guide of Mondragon, Father Arizmendiaretta. He wrote: “It is risky to make each co-operative into a closed world.We have to think of the inter-cooperative solidarity as the only solution to other problems of growth and maturity. We must think about a vital space appropriate to our circumstances.” (Reflections, 488)  ...We need to engage each other more than at the regional, national and international conferences; however, these are important events. These events help us to start talking and formulating the physical structures that we will need to make cooperation among cooperatives more than a marketing tool. Why is that important? Look at the so-called P6 Cooperative Trade Movement.

 

...The P6 model works for the consumer co-op world (and those providing it with goods) despite its inherent flaws; however, what should worker co-ops do to promote solidarity amongst ourselves in a way that builds our movement not sow the seeds of our destruction? Here are a few ideas:

  • Join your apex organization: in the United States, it is the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives. In Canada, it is the Canadian Worker Co-operative Federation.
  • Get involved in your organization: form work groups, communicate with directors, ask them to speak at your co-operative meetings.
  • Join the Worker Co-operative Federal Credit Union (unchartered). This has an incredible potential for our movement. When a worker co-operative joins, then all of its members may join as well. This could become our Caja Popular Laboral.
  • Shop Worker Co-op: I can tell you that I only buy Worker Co-op Coffee (Just Coffee and Equal Exchange). In Madison, I can buy worker co-op bread and granola, shop at a worker co-op pharmacy (Community Pharmacy), support a worker collective community supported radio station (WORT-FM), buy books from a multi-stakeholder bookstore (Rainbow Bookstore Coop).
  • Join your local network of worker co-operatives or help to create one.
  • Work with the WCFCU and local, regional and national networks to create a solidarity fund. Imagine if the 80 member co-ops of the US Federation committed 10% of their annual surplus to a solidarity fund and another 10% to a development fund as the Mondragon co-operatives do? Our co-ops would be able to navigate the tough times and take advantage of development funds to expand when the market beckons.

The Catholic Case for Worker Cooperatives

Submitted by Joe on

Joe Hargrave writes in 2008 for InsideCatholic.com:

In his encyclical Laborem Exercens, Pope John Paul II rejected the idea that "private ownership of the means of production" should remain an "untouchable dogma" of economic life. He also rejects a mere conversion of private property into state property and the creation of a command economy. His vision of an alternative is captured in the following lines:

 

Merely converting the means of production into State property in the collectivist system is by no means equivalent to "socializing" that property. We can speak of socializing only when the subject character of society is ensured, that is to say, when on the basis of his work each person is fully entitled to consider himself a part-owner of the great workbench at which he is working with every one else… the members of each body would be looked upon and treated as persons and encouraged to take an active part in the life of the body.

 

There is little said here about markets – in fact, the word "market" does not appear even once throughout the entire encyclical. Thus the "socializing" of the economy is evidently a task that can take place without excessive and ultimately harmful interference in the market. Instead, it can come about through the proliferation of organizations wherein the "subject character of society is ensured," where "each person is fully entitled to consider himself a part-owner" of his place of work, and where the members are "encouraged to take an active part in the life of the body." These are the underlying principles of workers' cooperatives.

 

One example of the cooperative principle in action is the Mondragón, a cluster of cooperatives in the Basque region of Spain. It can't be mere coincidence that this organization, which is the largest and most successful cooperative in the world, was founded by a Catholic priest by the name of José María Arizmendiarrieta. To me it suggests that there is something in the Catholic view of society and justice that is naturally hospitable to the idea of the workers' cooperative.

 

Cooperatives, Territories and Jobs: Twenty experiences of cooperatives active in industry and services across Europe

Submitted by Joe on

"The massive wealth and job destruction caused by the 2008 financial crisis has brought back the focus onto the real economy, job creation and territorial development in public agendas. There seems to be a rediscovery of the fact that employment, provided it is sustainable, is conducive to regional development. Cooperatives, precisely, have a special impact on employment and territorial development, and have proved to be particularly resilient to the crisis, due to their distinctive characteristics.  The book focuses on five different modalities by which cooperatives active in industry and services contribute to sustainable employment and regional development: their overall governance at the enterprise level; the successful cooperativisation of enterprises in crisis or without heir; the creation of workplaces for marginalized citizens; the delivery of social services that favour employment; and the building of horizontal groups among cooperatives."

A new, fairly expensive, book is available from CECOP. 

Should Your Small Business Be a Co-Op?

Submitted by Joe on

Joshua Kurlantzick writes at  AllBusiness.com:

As the economic rebound continues to lag, many entrepreneurs and small companies are looking for innovative strategies to survive and prosper in the face of tough times and even tougher credit. Perhaps the most innovative approach is to rethink the very nature of what it means to be a company…   Co-ops have long been dismissed as touchy-feely experiments in business socialism, but with growing pressure on many traditional companies, the co-op model is getting increased attention -- not just as a political statement of owner-worker solidarity, but as a fresh approach to business success….  Several new high-profile cooperatives have attracted a substantial amount of funding from local foundations and investors. In Cleveland, entrepreneurs backed by a grant from a local development fund opened Evergreen Cooperative Laundry, a worker-owned firm that delivers high-end laundry services to health care providers and currently employs 10 workers. Its success inspired a similar co-op, Ohio Cooperative Solar, which will provide solar panels for large companies. In New York, another new co-op, ReBuilders Source, will sell recycled building materials to construction companies.

Co-ops offer several advantages, the primary one being that because employees own the business and share in its success, motivation is seldom a problem. "You have at least two-thirds of the workers who take great pride in the fact that we are an employee-owned company, that their name is on the line in terms of quality," explains Firmat. And because co-ops usually keep overhead low -- the workers who own them naturally want to keep expenses down -- they can often pass on lower prices to consumers. And, notes Firmat, Full Sail is able to use its employee ownership as a marketing tool to help foster an image of high quality and local production, which appeals to many beer buyers.  Co-ops' low costs can give them a real advantage in the most expensive sectors of the economy. That's good business, but also good for customers. "Health care and employee-benefits cooperatives can help rein in the skyrocketing costs of these services," notes NCBA president Paul Hazen.

A few factual errors (Full Sail is not organized as a cooperative, Rebuilders Source has closed, the definition of cooperative is not quite on target) suggest the article was not thoroughly researched, but it remains good to see the cooperative story being broadcast to the business community. 

Cooperatives Have Newfound Relevancy Helping Low-wage Workers

Submitted by Joe on

Norma Sanchez's hand still flutters to her chest when she remembers the incident that was the beginning of the end of her career as a $5-an-hour janitor. She was mixing heavy-duty cleaners in a supplies closet when the mixture exploded, filling the space with caustic smoke. Unable to read the English labels, she had accidentally combined ammonia and bleach.  The Oakland resident's lungs ached for a month but taking a night off seemed impossible.  "Now I look back at all of that and I say, 'Wow, I was really suffering,'" she said.

 

Today, Sanchez, 35, cleans with baking soda and natural Castile soap and takes sick days when she needs them.   She is one of dozens of low-income, low-education, sometimes undocumented workers who have gone into business for themselves thanks to a boom in worker-owned cooperatives. 

 

Organizers at the Bay Area's two co-op associations say their membership rolls have swollen in the past several years even as the broader economy has faltered.   That's partly thanks to expansion among hip mainstays such as Arizmendi Bakery, Berkeley's Cheese Board Collective, bike shops and artisanal collectives.  But a different kind of co-op is also gaining in popularity.  Responding to what they say is a remarkable interest in entrepreneurship, nonprofit organizations are launching programs that provide leadership training, management support and other tools that help workers become their own bosses.  "That's the reason I'm interested in co-op development," said Melissa Hoover, director of the San Francisco-based U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives. "I'm super glad the world has a lot of bike stores, but I'm more interested in how co-ops are used as a tool for economic development."

 

Hannah Dreier writes in the Oakland Tribune.  

 

United for Hire, a Worker-Controlled Cooperative in Springfield, MA

Submitted by Joe on

United for Hire is a worker-controlled cooperative business in Greater Springfield, Massachusetts, which seeks to provide living wage employment, on the job training, profit sharing, decision-making, and wealth building opportunities to low income people.  The cooperative provides landscape maintenance and construction, interior and exterior painting, general maintenance, light construction, and snow removal services. 

 

The cooperative is a subsidiary and affiliate of the Alliance to Develop Power (ADP), a non-profit organization.  The cooperative pays dues to and holds a seat on ADP's Board of Directors.  Some of United for Hire's work comes from the maintenance of ADP's other affiliates, including 5 tenant-owned subsidized housing cooperatives totaling 1,400 units of affordable housing. 

Related

Tags: 

Worker Cooperatives Considered in the Georgetown Law Weekly

Submitted by Joe on

Jordan McLaughlin takes a brief look at worker cooperatives, including the "degeneration" problem, in the online Georgetown Law Weekly:

 

"Whereas in the public sphere, we cherish equality, in the private sphere, we live with incredibly unequal power relationships; whereas in the public sphere, we promote the questioning of authority, in the private sphere, we have a “culture of deference.”  If the devolution of power to states and localities might enhance participation as people become more and more collective masters of their own fates and regulations, would not devolution into one of the major components of nearly every person’s life, work, also enhance participation? At the level of the cooperative, voting groups are often small enough that one vote really does make a significant difference, and so changes the rational calculation as to whether to participate. Moreover, participation in the cooperative has a real and visible effect on one’s own fate; for example, in approval of hiring of a manager, or in the election of a board to run the company day-to-day."

 

Worker Cooperatives have also been a subject in the Georgetown classroom.  Students in Sarah Stiles' Social Entrepreneurship class, "for example, work with Washington, D.C.’s Foundry United Methodist Church and the coalition group D.C. Jobs With Justice in creating a workers’ cooperative for day laborers in the city. An alternative to seeking daylong positions, the cooperative would create steadier jobs for workers, who would also share in the profits. The arrangement, Stiles said, will help combat wage theft problems faced by many day laborers."

Back to Basics: Worker Cooperatives as Economic Development

Submitted by Joe on

"Drawing upon the literature on anchor institutions and on Ann Markusen’s (2007) analysis of the “Consumption Base” theory of development, I look at the assets deployed in the “Cleveland Model.” From the network of small and medium cooperative businesses that already exist in the United States, there is sufficient evidence to indicate that worker cooperatives can assist in the stabilization of communities by offering living wages as well as a chance to build wealth in the form of workplace equity. In so doing, they have the potential to turn the “non-basic” sectors that export-base models for growth ignore—such as home repair, nursing care, local fresh food supply, and cleaning services—into jobs that can grow wealth and expand the workforce to marginalized populations such as the underemployed, women, and the formerly incarcerated."

A short paper from Evan Casper-Futterman, Masters Student at the University of New Orleans.

Community Pharmacy Makes the Case for Worker Cooperatives

Submitted by Joe on

"With the recent political events here in Madison, there has been a surge of interest in the cooperative model. Some of us here at Community Pharmacy have found ourselves explaining what a worker cooperative is to many folks at rallies and other events. Simply put, a worker cooperative is a business that is owned and controlled by its workers."

David Ellerman on the Theory and Practice of the Firm

Submitted by Joe on

Some selections from David Ellerman's collection of online writings.

Writings

Slide presentations

Related

Steps Towards a New York State Worker Cooperative Development Center

Submitted by Joe on

Are you a New York State worker, entrepreneur, or business owner who is interested in funded technical assistance for starting or transitioning to a worker cooperative?  If so please voice your support by Tuesday, 9/27 for a pilot worker cooperative incubator and technical assistance center in the Southern Tier.  Joe Marraffino (Democracy at Work Network) and Gay Nicholson (Sustainable Tompkins) will carry your expression of demand to the Southern Tier Regional Economic Development Council seeking funding to launch this new center. 

 

It is the legislative policy of New York State to promote the creation of worker cooperatives - businesses owned and democratically controlled by their workers. The legislature recognizes that "cooperative ownership will result in increased job satisfaction and increased productivity and will enable workers to receive the fullest economic benefits from their endeavors," will "result in the creation of new jobs in all economic sectors, will offer greater economic stability," and "will discourage the movement of capital and jobs out of this state." Worker cooperatives are also an important tool for creating a green and just economy via community wealth building as "entities in which ownership is broadly shared, locally rooted, and directed toward the common good."

 

The regional Councils have until November 14th to submit their proposals for economic development in a competition for several $40 million dollar grants.  We'd like to see some of those funds invested in social and economic justice.  New York State residents, please click here to express your support!


Opportunity Threads Partners to Cut and Set for School House Inc

Submitted by Joe on

"Meet Opportunity Threads, School House’s new cut and sew partner. Opportunity Threads is a worker-owned, cut and sew cooperative based in nearby Morganton, NC. Theirs is a company with an emphasis on both fair labor and sustainable environmental practices, buzzwords that here at School House are enough to fill our hearts with joy.

 

In the not-too-distant past, North Carolina was a powerhouse in the textile and apparel industry. Unfortunately, trends toward outsourcing and a service-based U.S. economy have contributed to an overall decline in North Carolina’s textile and apparel industry, which has traditionally played a fundamental role in providing jobs and revenue for the state.

 

Enter Opportunity Threads. Founder Molly Hemstreet recognized the need for a new model of labor organizing in the South. Her idea was to take the pieces of this declining infrastructure that has long been a part of North Carolina history and to put the pieces back together in a more sustainable way.

Molly got in touch with worker-ownership pioneer Frank Adams and Maggie’s Functional Organics, a worker-owned sewing cooperative in Nicaragua, to work on the idea of bringing the model of worker-ownership back to the U.S., specifically to an area that has been hit by job loss in the apparel industry. The connection was then made to workers in Morganton, NC, a rural county with high unemployment but two critical resources: manufacturing mills and talented ex-apparel workers.

 

And so Opportunity Threads was born. Its principles? Dignity for workers, fair wages and worker-ownership, quality and sustainable production. The goal? Not only to recreate textile work in Southern Appalachia in order to change the lives of many workers, but also to build upon this industry by emphasizing fair trade and sustainability."

 

[Opportunity Threads previous on American Worker Cooperative]

 

 

"Most of our workers are currently Mayan immigrants that now call Morganton home. The Maya of Morganton have a long and vibrant history in our community. Many came during or after civil war wreaked havoc on their native communities in Guatemala. You can read more about this incredible community in the book The Maya of Morganton, by Opportunity Threads friend and supporter Leon Fink."

Tags: 

Collective Thinking: Zine Documenting Workers' Collectives in the Twin Cities

Submitted by Joe on

"I've been working with many different volunteer collectives over the years; various Community Bike Shops, Wayward Council (a Record Store & Venue), All Ages Venues, Books for Prisoners, Food Not Bombs, a Cafe Collective, Community Info Shops, and more. All the while learning skills and trades and perfecting hobbies and crafts, and working 'real' jobs with bosses and managers and the like to make ends meet in the 'real world.'

Worker Owned businesses are functional examples of the goals many of us share; working together towards equality and freedom in the workplace and our communities that is unprecedented by any other model.  Why the Twin Cities? Minnesota has a particularly vibrant history of co-ops and collectives, inlucding land and food co-ops facilitated by northern euorpean settlers in the 1800's.

I went into the Seward Community Cafe and Hard Times Cafe in Minneapolis several years ago and asked if they could produce any publicized material on how they conducted business as a collective, with the intentions of finding working models to structure future collective projects. Neither spot could provide me with the information, most of the it are in folders and stacks of old documents in the basement, and both expressed that it would be a good idea to have it available in a way that was more understandable by other like minded folks that were interested in the Collective Process and possibly starting up a collective business or few in their own communities.  So I decided to be the one to do just that."

Is A Non-Exploitive Economy Based on Worker-Own Cooperatives Possible?

Submitted by Joe on

Two parts of a three-part article on worker cooperatives have been posted to DailyKos by Geminijen:

 

Part one, Is A Non-Exploitive Economy Based on Worker-Own Cooperatives Possible?

 

"Anarcho-syndicalists put forward the concept of democratically run cooperatives and worker-owned and managed enterprises as a transformative economic form that could replace the rapacious capitalist system which has so brutalized and exploited workers.  Based on the ideas of economic democracy and voluntary cooperation without class conflict or labor exploitation, anarchists focused on organizing from the ground up, establishing locally managed cooperatives, linked through confederations of unions, cooperatives and communities."

 

Part two: The Development of a Cooperative Economy in Practice

 

"This post (part II of the article) will compare: 1) The state sponsored model in Venezuela where funding and regulations that define cooperatives originate in the political process and 2) the Evergreen Initiative private sector model in Cleveland, Ohio which uses a network of existing industries and community nonprofits to drive cooperative development.  Because of its importance as a model to the overall development of cooperative networks, we will also refer back to the Mondragon Model in Spain which was discussed generally in Part 1 and in detail in an excellent diary by T Pau..  This piece analyzes how each model deals with the major problems that are barriers to the development of a cooperative economy within a capitalist economy. The point is not to judge, at this juncture, the superiority of one model over the other, but to see how different models are affected by and operate in practice given the economic and ideological environment in which they have developed."

 

Part three (coming soon): The historic and current relationship between trade unions and cooperatives

Portraits of the Solidarity Economy

Submitted by Joe on

"In New York City many are imagining--and creating--another way to do business. They are economic innovators combining new and old practices to align their businesses and organizations with strong values of justice, sustainability, democracy, and cooperation. Together, they make up something called the solidarity economy..."

"We're bringing the stories of these economic innovators to life through 7 short films, 1 stop-motion animation, and an informational website. Each film portrait examines the values and practices of a given business or organization through the story of an individual leader. We've included a reiki practitioner at a worker co-operative in Brooklyn; two co-founders of Brooklyn food co-operatives, including the most successful food co-op in America; a co-founder of a barter network for artists; a member of a 32-year-old successful intentional community on Staten Island; a community resident advocating for participatory budgeting in East Harlem; a board member at a Lower East Side community development credit union; and a veteran community gardens advocate in the Bronx...  Here's a sample from our food co-op film to give you an idea."

Tags: 

Rosalinda Guillen of Community to Community Development

Submitted by Joe on

Rosalinda Guillen, keynote speaker (with Gordon Edgar) at this year's Western Worker Cooperative Conference talks about her work at  Community to Community Development, a woman-led, grassroots group working for a just society and healthy communities in Washington State. 

Related

Tags: 

Pages

Subscribe to American Worker Cooperative RSS