The Baltimore Roundtable for Economic Democracy (BRED) is thrilled to announce that Baltimore has joined other leading cities in committing public support for worker cooperative development. With the award of a $47,000 Community Catalyst Grant, the City of Baltimore is enabling BRED to launch a new initiative designed to pilot the creation of a worker cooperative conversion pipeline.
In our latest podcast, we examine how philanthropists—even the most well-intentioned ones—can sometimes “capture” the social movements they fund and, in doing so, steer grassroots organizations and activists away from their original missions.
WORCESTER — On the top floor of an old industrial building at 41 Jackson St., steps from a factory where garment workers a hundred years ago made women’s corsets, a printers’ cooperative is stoking a political revolution, one T-shirt and one coffee mug at a time.
Here is a link to the video recording of the chat where Nicolas Dimarco of Fiqus.coop presents the formula for federated work among cooperatives. Here is a link to the notes from the meeting on 3/20/2019 and some past Show and Tell meetings.
Next Offering: May 20-th-23rd, 2019, Madison, WI
More than 26,000 Kentucky businesses, employing more than 300,000 people, are owned by baby boomers, many of whom have not identified the next generation of ownership and could be at risk of closing their businesses when they retire. Transitioning to a worker-owned cooperative or another form of employee ownership could keep these businesses thriving and locally owned.
Before Sophie Slater lived in a housing co-operative, her homes, across south London, were precarious. There was the illegal house share in New Cross where she slept under a dodgy boiler for six months. (Eventually the gas man snitched and they had to move out, which was probably for the best, on account of the potential for carbon monoxide poisoning.) There was the flat on the Old Kent Road where she paid £300 to sleep in the living room and her friend, who had the bedroom, paid £600. The worst thing about that flat was that Slater slept by the kitchen bin.
The US rural electric cooperative movement dates back to the economic development programs of the 1930’s New Deal, when 9 out of 10 rural households had no electricity. Now RECs are recasting themselves as solar power leaders of the Green New Deal, before there is even a Green New Deal.
Kirk Vartan, founder of 10 year pizza businesses, presnts on experience of converting to worker-cooperative in 2017. April 2018
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Enspiral is a rather unique organisation, often featured in this blog. Over the years the number of participants, its core structure and overall network have evolved in fascinating and informative ways. This evolution along with the many lessons learned is chronicled in their collective book “Better work together”.
There is a widespread belief that the driving force of innovation is competition between companies. The government is viewed as an obstacle holding back the full potential of entrepreneurs with outdated regulation. However, practically all tech start-ups that are poster-boys for innovation are built on two profound inventions, both of which are born out of publicly funded research: the digital computer and the internet. These inventions were not born from profit driven competition, but instead cooperation between scientists.
Historically, solidarity economy is a term used in the global South to describe anti-capitalist innovations emerging from a desire for self-determination. Typically, the concept includes models such as community land trusts, worker cooperatives, community-supported agriculture, food cooperatives, community gardens, housing cooperatives, credit unions, barter networks, time banks, and cooperative loan funds, among others.
A little over 30 years ago, Equal Exchange started as a small company with a big mission: to change the food industry from the inside out. They understood that the farmers who put food on our plates were invisible to most consumers, and abused by the corporations who paid them meager amounts for their backbreaking work.
Vice President of Advocacy Alan Knapp goes through some basic advocacy techinques when speaking with policymakers about cooperative issues.
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Corrections and clarifications: The fire destroyed a building that housed executive offices at the Highlander Center. It was one of 10 buildings on the campus. The other nine structures were not damaged. An earlier version of this story was not specific enough about the extent of the damage.
A fire of unknown origin has destroyed the main office building containing decades of archives at the historic Highlander Education and Research Center in New Market, officials confirmed.
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