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Today I’m talking with Matt Hancock, who’s been heavily involved with the co-operative movement in Emilia Romagna – the region of Italy around Bologna. There’s a huge, very successful co-op sector in ER. I want to try to find out in this interview is why – what’s special about ER, and can it be emulated elsewhere?

Encyclopedia of the Social and Solidarity Economy: A Collective Work of the United Nations Inter-Agency Task
Force on SSE (UNTFSSE).

How might the commons paradigm be applied to cities in a more focused, effective way?  To find some answers, I recently interviewed two leading thinkers and advocates for urban commons, Sheila R. Foster and Christian Iaione.

Vernon interviews Jessica Gordon-Nembhard, Ph.D., Professor at John Jay College, and Ajowa Nzinga Ifateyo, Co Editor at Grassroots Economic Organizing. Both are also economic social justice advocates. Vernon and his guests will discuss the Unsung Cooperative Hero Award, and its first recipient Ella Jo Baker.

10 years after the death of Comandante Hugo Chávez Frías, “commune or nothing” remains the battle cry of the Venezuelan people advancing in the Bolivarian revolution

Last week’s seminar with guest speaker Professor Vera Zamagni explored the various forms of value generated by Italian social cooperatives.

With an unprecedented 20+ new start-up home care cooperatives under development across the country, the home care cooperative sector has reached a tipping point. In this session learn from young co-ops about their reflections on the start-up experience, including what they wish they had known before, the surprises they encountered along the way, and their recommendations and tips for future start-ups.

Cuba’s thousands of agricultural cooperatives are responsible for about 56% of Cuba’s growing land, and employ an estimated 300,000 cooperative worker members. Some observers say the cooperatives more efficient than the state-owned parts of Cuba's agricultural production.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, platform capitalism has expanded greatly in the
delivery sector. The consolidation of an oligopoly controlled by a few corporate platforms has led to
precarious working conditions for “gig economy” workers. Increasing protests and strikes have led to
the reform of labour directives and to the emergence of alternative ways of organising work through
platform cooperatives. This article examines how these emergent platform cooperatives are mobilised
and their challenges and implications. Barcelona, the cradle of many platform economy and delivery
sector start-ups, is a critical case for examining the recent birth of alternative delivery cooperatives.
This article is informed by the cases of three cooperatives, organised by those working as riders,
providing delivery services in the city of Barcelona: Mensakas, Les Mercedes, and 2GoDelivery. The
paper shows how the embeddedness of these nascent platform cooperatives in favourable governance
arrangements, a supportive social and solidarity movement, the knowledge and experience of
workers, and the territory where the cooperatives are embedded are essential for their creation. This
multi-layered embeddedness is necessary, but not sufficient, to explain how platform cooperatives
thrive. The study concludes that the agency of platform workers, who triggered this transformation,
was essential for the emergence of alternative ways of organising work in the platform economy.

Last week’s Platform Co-op School event highlighted ICDE’s approach of recognizing the valuable contributions of scholars, technologists, artists, community organizers, and cooperators toward a more just and equitable digital economy. This is a recap of that event.