This summer, staff of the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives (USFWC) formed an independent union, the Federation Workers United (FWU), which was subsequently voluntarily recognized by Executive Director Esteban Kelly on July 14th, 2023. The union includes the full and part time staff outside of the USFWC leadership team.
Main Street Phoenix Project is closing down. It is a cooperative that many of us in the co-op movement were looking to as a model. MSPP emerged in the context of the disruption of COVID-19, with the goal of enabling small businesses to be more resilient. Rather than workers owning just their particular workplace, as in a typical worker co-op, they would own a holding company. This means that, if a particular business faced trouble, its workers could draw on the resources of a larger network to adapt.
“This is the biggest difference with most of the European record labels – the company belongs to the musicians and producers,” says Christian Müller, managing director of Red Brick Chapel. The artists can help shape how the company develops and retain control over their music. “They decide what happens to their music after production and how they are exploited financially.”
In an evolving world where organizations are shifting towards a more resilient, responsive, and decentralized approach, we are finding ourselves in uncharted territories. This transformation has brought along an array of challenges, including around shared decision-making in financial and legal spheres.
On Wednesday, August 23rd, The ILO’s Cooperative Unit (COOP) and the Gender, Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (GEDI) Branch came together with 27 ILO colleagues from headquarters and the field to discuss progress on the initiative Cooperative Care Provision as a Gender-Transformative Decent Work Solution, initially launched in March 2023.
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The Stud, a stalwart San Francisco bar that hosted events and provided support to the city's LGBTQ community for decades before closing during the Covid pandemic, is slated to reopen this year in a new location.
"When we first heard ... that Anchor (Brewing) was closing, the first thought is complete dread," Felipe Bravo said. "If an institution like that can't survive, how are we supposed to survive?"
