Building a Cooperative Labour Movement

This month's Co-op Conversation featured Dylan Hatch and his talk, "Building a Cooperative Labour Movement: Strength and Struggle in Unionized Cooperatives". 

How could labour unions and worker cooperatives work together to build a more democratic economy? Although distinct in their approaches and strategies, both unions and co-ops seek to center workers in an otherwise hierarchical economic system. Yet intersections between these movements have been historically rare, with only occasional moments of collaboration and conflict. This Co-op Conversation contextualizes the recent surge of unionized worker co-ops, or “union co-ops,” in the United States within the structural aims and orientations of the respective movements. Based on a recently-completed thesis at Cornell University, this talk will explore how these modern collaborations manifest, how they seek to maximize the respective strengths of each approach, and why they sometimes fall short of reaching these aspirations. 

About our Speaker 
Dylan Hatch is a union representative and researcher at the New England Joint Board, UNITE HERE. He recently graduated with his BA in from UMass Amherst and his MS from Cornell University, where he studied unions, worker cooperatives, and the intersection between the two. Dylan also helps to facilitate the Union Co-op Council (part of the U.S. Federation on Worker Cooperatives), while continuing his research on unions and worker ownership.