At a time of growing public distrust and disillusionment with the Internet as a source of democracy, an emerging movement of social entrepreneurs, cooperativists, designers, labor advocates, workers, and programmers is working toward a people-centered, cooperative Internet where platforms are owned and governed by the people who most rely on them.
The international co-operative movement has seen a series of catastrophic failures of large scale co-operatives in recent decades, such as the Saskatchewan Wheat Pool, retail co-ops in Germany, France and Atlantic Canada, banking in Austria and the near meltdown of the Co-operative Group in the UK. Yet our co-operative culture has not been one of seeking to understand the factors which are common in these events and which, if understood, could be used to prevent such collapses in the future.
Praxis Peace Institute is organizing its seventh 5-day workshop/seminar with the Mondragon Cooperatives in the Basque Country of Spain. The purpose of the seminar is to learn about worker owned businesses from the leading consortium of cooperatives in the world.
The need for skilled worker cooperative developers is increasing throughout the United States. The Democracy at Work Institute's Development Fundamentals training lays a foundation for you to meet that need.
We call upon cooperatives large and small – farmers, growers, producers, distributors, financiers, policymakers and retailers, to share their experiences and to build relationships across Alaska, Washington, Oregon, Idaho, western Montana, Minnesota, and our friends around the nation.
We are gathering conference participants together in order to:
With democratic control, cooperatives have the potential to be very responsive to member interests.
Executive capture is not a modern phenomenon. Members were complaining about their society managers in the 1850s. In those days it wasn’t sophisticated boardroom power struggles, just managers running off with the takings. But the theme is the same.
This past summer was been a roller-coaster ride for affordable housing activists in New York.
The Workers Lab is excited to announce our inaugural Enterprise Institute of 2016. At our Enterprise Institutes, we offer:
5 of 7 ROCs have site fees below market and 2 of 7 have site fees equal to market after 5 years of ownership;
- ROC rents are at market and range up to as much as $86 per month (17%) below market; and,
- The average annual increase in ROC site fees is $4 per year, or 1.26% per year.
The data and the performance of these ROCs says a lot.
Anne Reynolds has been working to promote cooperatives around Wisconsin for many years. She oversees a staff of six employees on the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus and, together, they extend research and education to communities all over the state. The outreach mission is strong, she said.
Little Weaver is a worker-owned collective. All of our members have equal pay and equal say in the decision-making process. We’re looking for a new member who is interested in a cooperatively-minded, fully-remote workplace with a relaxed company environment.
