Reflecting on the Movement: Christopher Andrew DeAngelis

[Editor's note: We'll be sharing responses to our survey asking cooperators to reflect on the last 20 years of worker cooperative development. If you'd like to share your thoughts, you can complete the survey here.]

When did you first become involved with the worker cooperative movement?
1997

What were your hopes for the worker cooperative movement at the time that you first became involved?
To change the nature of our economy, at the time I became involved (a couple years before the founding of USFWC) there were parallel efforts around opposing/proposing alternatives to NeoLiberal/Imperialist Trade Agreements, fighting climate change, connecting our cooperatives or sustaining their connections to local social justice movements & electoral campaigns. There was a lot of energy in connecting us to eachother and supporting eachother's models and efforts.

In what ways have those hopes been realized? In what ways haven't they been?
I feel most of my hopes have not been realized. I feel the loss of several critical cooperatives, within a few years of each other, combined with everything that 9/11 ushered in, took the wind out of our sails. I worry that worker cooperatives have turned become isolated from each other and there has been a loss of seeing ourselves as movement or a larger movement. I'll admit, some of this could stem from my specific experiences and not emblematic of the whole.

What has your experience been with national and regional worker co-op organizations? In what ways have they been beneficial for worker co-ops?
I've watched a lot of coops de-mutualize over the years and I have never heard of effort being made to prevent this. I think we are too focused on conferences and webinars when we should be organizing. We should be going out and finding those isolated coops and pro-actively support them, facilitate peer support and building a cooperative movement culture. I realize that dues don't provide sufficient funding to do this work at the level that is needed, however, many of our organizations seem stuck at the level of being professional conference organizations or talking circles. It is a catch-22 to be sure, but finding funding through foundations is not the cooperative model and the degree we rely on this is the degree to which we devolve into professional associations. I'll put it this way....Can anyone imagine labor unions relying writing grant applications for some blue-blood's tax shelter successfully guiding their movement? I we can't imagine that for the labor movement, then we shouldn't rely upon it for ours.

What would you like to see national and regional worker co-op organizations do going forward? Where do you think their focus should be?
I want to see a Farmer's Alliance style speaker's bureau. Ideally we have people focused on member recruitment and and organizing or assisting organizing of cooperatives. The U.S. labor movement has often been criticized for not investing enough in organizing and building up the power of workers on the shop floor and I think that is true of the worker cooperative movement. I realize this is challenging since worker cooperatives exist in different industries whereas unions here organize by industry and the Farmer's Alliance was organizing around the same types of enterprises. ACORN dealt with this problem by finding a common need that was keenly felt across potential members anywhere - in their case it was home ownership. They used this then get member dues that could finance organizing on other issues. That might be the way for us, if it isn't it still proves there should be a way