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My AFSEE project emerged from knowing, from past experiences and reading, that ubu-ntu imparts a compelling model for cooperative ethics, governance, and economics. There are many competing accounts of the philosophy. I worked with one put forward by philosopher Mogobe B. Ramose. In this account, ubu-ntu proposes that a person is and becomes a person through their relations with fellow beings, both human and not—including the living, living-dead (or ancestors) and yet-to-be-born.

The Beneficial Ownership Information program, requires reporting on business owners and individuals who exercise significant control over a business. For businesses that are not cooperatives, this is a relatively straightforward reporting requirement for the owner(s) of the business. Because cooperatives have a broad-based ownership model, it is not clear currently who exactly within the business ownership needs to report. For worker cooperatives, this can be especially tricky to understand. 

The factory, at Campi Bisenzio near Florence (Firenze), has been occupied since July 2021, when Melrose Industries, the asset-stripping corporation that took over GKN, announced it would close. Other GKN plants were also junked.

In the spring of 2019 the Southeast Center for Cooperative Development and Free Hearts, an organization led by formerly incarcerated women, providing support, education, and advocacy to families impacted by incarceration as it pursues opportunities to create jobs, training and financial support for individuals reentering, formed an alliance to create a local non-extractive loan fund to support minority worker cooperatives start-ups and conversions. 

Every year I labor to find the perfect gifts for my children. Something that expresses my gratitude for their existence and shows how deeply I know, see, and love them as their interests and passions grow and evolve over the years. Gifts that express my hopes for their wellbeing and happiness. Gifts that will help them to grow and deepen. Gifts that honor the love and dreams passed down to me from my own parents, grandparents, and even more distant generations.

The Summit for a New Global Financial Pact organized by France this year stressed that climate justice requires a reform of our current economic and financial model; we need to move from words to deeds. Unfortunately, the most important climate funds are so restrictive in how they operate and how they are allocated that they exclude the economic players on the ground.

A group of mobile home residents in western Massachusetts will ring in the new year with a renewed sense of place, after they banded together to purchase their park before outside investors could take over.

Bissellville Estates, a park in Hinsdale with 29 mobile homes, sold for $600,000. Residents borrowed an additional $180,000 to make improvements like cleaning up oil contamination and fixing electrical equipment.

Gary Bird, a resident leader who has lived at the park for 15 years, said he and his neighbors feel a sense of relief.

This Guide is for worker-owners, cooperative developers, lawyers, technical assistance providers and others thinking about expanding worker cooperative businesses. We focus specifically on expansion through licensing and franchising.

It took almost three years, but we did it! The Compost Co-operative and Oxbow Design Build Co-operative transformed a dilapidated building in Greenfield into apartments that will last centuries rather than decades. Six people who collectively experienced decades of homelessness and housing insecurity now have homes.

How can we overcome this vicious regime? The advocates of the progressive work ethic offer some suggestions. From the Industrial Revolution to the twentieth century, debates have raged about how best to promote and reward labor. Conservatives argued that the poor could only be induced to work hard if they are subject to precarity and ruled by their employers. The middle classes, in this view, could be motivated through a culture of competitive conspicuous consumption.

Cooperative

In a cooperative, a resident is a shareholder of the organization or co

Community Land Trusts (CLTs) are neighbourhood controlled nonprofits that take land off the speculative real estate market for the long-term benefit of the tenant and working class. The buildings on that land, such as housing, gardens, parks, or stores, are governed by the land trust’s members. CLTs are seeing a new wave of interest from policymakers, citizen groups, and anyone worrying about the housing crisis we face. Join CLT practitioner Chiyi Tam, for a short course on the what, why and how of community land trusts.