Jim Johnson and John McNamara, two of the co-founders of the Democracy At Work Network (DAWN), joined our monthly livestream to share the history of this worker co-op peer support network that was conceived, built, and run by worker-owners across the US. DAWN provided training for worker-owners to become peer-advisors and help shepherd fledgling worker co-ops into existence. Despite its successful operation and low-overhead, the USFWC decided to abruptly end funding for the group in 2018. Jim and John walk us through the details of how DAWN functioned in its heyday, and some of the lessons they took away from both its successes and its eventual shuttering.
Citations
GEO Collective (2024). Remembering the Democracy At Work Network. Grassroots Economic Organizing (GEO). https://geo.coop/articles/remembering-democracy-work-network
Comments
John McNamara
August 23, 2024, 10:30 pm
I want to be clear that I think that the landscape today has changed a lot since DAWN was planned. There are a lot of co-op developers now that engage in worker co-op work. Project Equity started in 2014 and the Main Street Employee Ownership Act in 2018 has helped push more co-op development centers towards worker co-ops. Likewise CooperationWorks! provides training with some focus on worker co-ops (although nothing like the certification program of DAWN) and could provide more if there is demand for it. Further the revised "Madison Principles" now the "CooperationWorks! Principles" provide much better guidance to developers including how to encourage worker dignity and support worker organizing. The one aspect that is missing is the place for comradery as DAWN Peer TAs. The sense of place (of TAs with direct lived experience in worker co-ops) that DAWN provided was important.
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