Zeke Coleman’s story says a lot about his worker cooperative, Our Harvest — part of Co-op Cincy’s growing network of worker and community owned businesses. But it also says a lot about America:
Before [here] I worked at a chicken processing plant. I got a raise one or two times, at fifty cents, and that was it. I didn’t receive another raise for the next four years. [It’s] different here, because I feel like I’m treated like a person, and it’s not a big corporation where the CEO is making millions and millions and millions while the workers are getting peanuts.
Coleman is a worker-owner and the food hub manager at Our Harvest, a worker co-op founded by Co-op Cincy in 2012. Growing healthy food across two urban farms, and sourcing more from community food system projects, Our Harvest connects local growers and producers to customers, creating good jobs along the way.
And they’re expanding — in March, they acquired a six-decade old greenhouse located up the road, giving its workers a chance to join their cooperative when a longtime owner decided to retire. That deal relied on over a million dollars of capital, which Co-op Cincy was able to access thanks to its membership in Seed Commons — a national cooperative that channels non-extractive investments through its 39 member organizations into worker-owned businesses like Our Harvest.
Read the rest at Inequality.org
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