Reflecting on the Movement: David Rossing

When did you first become involved with the worker cooperative movement?
Embracing the worker cooperative movement had been a gradual process. Late 2005 I started at Union Cab of Madison. Several years later, I became a Director at Rainbow Books Cooperative (RBC). In 2012 I became Union Cab's representative to Madison Worker Cooperatives (MadWorC), our regional worker cooperative network.

What were your hopes for the worker cooperative movement at the time that you first became involved?
Having conducted research in SE Asia among various indigenous groups, I was interested in decentralized forms of organization, in contrast to state and corporate forms of domination. Additionally, having grown up in Madison, I already had an appreciation for the positive influences worker cooperatives can have locally (as havens for creative types, activists, non-conformists, for sustaining conditions to experiment with and defend direct democracy, freedoms, ecology, equality, dignity in labor, and other shared values). I recall having a great deal of optimism that a sustained form of worker democracy can spread into many industries and have crucial transformative effects. At that time, my optimism partially grew out of the global Fair Trade movement forged by trade and producer cooperatives. I was inspired by the potential of worker cooperatives to help foster relations that better connect diverse people and practices, locally and globally, with shared principles that cut across differences to generate Common Good.

In what ways have those hopes been realized? In what ways haven't they been?
There are countless efforts underway to realize the benefits of cooperative and democratic strategies for creating Common Good. I too believe our hopes abide in the shadows. The extent to which such efforts  are thriving within what we might call the Worker Cooperative Movement is debatable. Too much to speculate about here. Suffice to say, it is encouraging to see unprecedented growth of new worker cooperatives (and conversions), alongside ascent of social solidarity initiatives, broad disenchantment with neoliberal reforms, etc. There also seems to be increasing recognition in academic and policy circles that worker democracy is a positive path towards more just and sustainable societies.

On the other hand, immense problems make it difficult to remain optimistic. For example: our times of intertwined and extreme experiential and environmental crises severely undermine capacities to do the fundamental work of participation on which all democratic-cooperative efforts depend; our capitalistically-defined culture and infrastructure so successfully penetrate, co-opt, reorient our efforts; and our confusion and infighting about the merits and necessities of democracy itself (to whom and what must we take time to listen?) seems increasingly difficult.

What has your experience been with national and regional worker co-op organizations? In what ways have they been beneficial for worker co-ops?
In my capacity as President of the Board of Directors at Union Cab, I helped to reconnect our organization with USFWC. We resumed paying dues after a long hiatus and in so doing made our membership aware of the various programs and opportunities that this affiliation affords. I don't recall that any USFWC offerings really resonated with our members, nor led to them taking advantage of any programs (disability, eye/dental insurance, etc). I did participate in their leadership, facilitation, and inclusion-related workshops. Our resumed dues contribution was undertaken as a responsibility Union Cab has to furthering "the movement". In my capacity as Union Cab representative to MadWorC, I became less enthusiastic about our commitment, as I saw USFWC withdraw from its dues arrangement with most regional worker co-op organizations and also begin warming up to ESOPS.

Over the dozen years as Union Cab's representative to MadWorC, I developed great fondness and respect for its other worker co-op members, as well as our connections to University of Wisconsin and other community supports. MadWorC has much to be proud of, including administration of municipal funds and fiscal sponsorships to build/support worker co-ops, organization of inspiring events like the annual Regional Rendezvous, and creation and delivery of a trade school course introducing the worker co-op model. Last year, we engaged in several months of work to draft MadWorC's shared values. I believe that that process and its outcome epitomize the positive leadership organizations of this kind must engage.

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 believe that there must be a more robust articulation and defense of the very principles on which worker cooperatives are founded and persist. This is an ongoing responsibility and much more challenging than is usually understood. What we might call ideological leadership must also translate into material support so that, for example, we greatly enhance co-op sourcing from co-ops and facilitate other cross-fertilization, assist with co-op internalization of expertise, create co-op cloud resources and other shared social infrastructure, connect our collective struggle with other working class groups, reflect and reinforce alternative forms of belonging, decision-making, defending dignity, support growth of countless shared creative and practical modes, foster a democratic model to enable mutual existence, difference, consent, benefit, trade, power-with, societal stability...Common Good.