As France celebrates its 14 July independence day (Bastille Day), the country is witnessing an increasing number of co-ops, with over 263 co-operatives set up in 2013. By contrast in 2012, 248 worker co-operatives were created in France.
The Mariposa Food Co-op relocated to Baltimore Avenue two years ago, and while the corridor is now among the most vibrant in the city, it is also not far from some of West Philadelphia’s poorest neighborhoods.
Cities are at the crosswalk of talent and density, and they have a lot to lose by not thinking innovatively about economic policy.
How do activists continue to persevere? What happens when, despite years of work, it seems like things haven't evolved at all?
New York is now the first city in the United States with a line item in its budget specifically for the development and cultivation of worker cooperatives.
Humanity is facing a global emergency. Extreme poverty and climate-related disasters are taking the lives of over 40,000 people every single day and severely affecting many millions of others.
Boston TechCollective is a worker-owned cooperative offering tech support and computer services to the Greater Boston area.
The blog, Mike Norman Economics points to a recent paper from Cornell which can be downloaded from this link. It is a study of democratic internet sites called Wikis where people can collaboratively and democratically contribute and improve content. It finds that as the number of contributors grows past some arbitrarily large number, a "oligopoly" (a hierarchy of power roles) is instituted. From this, conclusions are drawn (rightly or wrongly) about the limits of the size of democratic organizations.
Chris Dillow, a UK Economist/Journalist, points out that workplace democracy (worker control) is a political issue. The Capitalist rule-book demands absolute control over the worker (labor) and so Capitalists enforce hierarchic control even at the cost of higher productivity.
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Recently Zac Johnson, a Milwaukee community member and Michigan native who teaches fourth grade in the city, shared with me his views on the lack of attention cooperatives have received in the economic discourse of the gubernatorial race, particularly on the part of Democratic candidate for office Mary Burke. Zac himself is a member-owner and volunteer of several community cooperatives in his neighborhood of Riverwest.
Co-hosts Matt Cropp and Eric Davis interview Jeremiah Ward of the Cooperative Development Institute about the trend of mobile home residents cooperatively purchasing their mobile home parks that has been growing since the 1980s, and discuss the experience of the creation the Milton Mobile Home Co-op with resident board members Val Sicard and Karen White.
PACA and NCBA are reopening the search for PACA's executive director role. The Executive Director will provide day-to-day leadership for PACA including strategic management and organizational leadership, financial supervision, grantwriting and fundraising, and promotion of PACA to internal and external audiences.
