Catalyzing worker co-ops & the solidarity economy
Frontline employees with the government of Canada are being given training about the co-op model, with a course from non-profit organisation Co-operatives First and the Canadian Centre for the Study of Co-operatives.
To give co-ops more impact, the Cooperative Development Foundation (CDF) launched the Homecare Cooperative Initiative in 2014. The move aimed to plug co-ops into a more formalised network and connect them to experts. CDF also funded a feasibility study conducted by the ICA Group, which explored on the need to create a secondary homecare co-operative.
#Coopalooza was a week of events held the last week of September 2021, exploring our vision to redistribute wealth and power and dismantle the oppressive dominant economic system by creating more worker controlled enterprises. Nearly 300 people came to our events; we hosted over a dozen partners, collaborators, and panelists; and we grew our imagination as to what a world where work is governed and controlled by workers might look like.
Not creating a solid legal foundation for your intentional community can be a recipe for heartbreak. But navigating the law can be tough for inexperienced communities.
Thankfully, our facilitator Clifford Paulin Esq. has been advising communities on the legal aspects of community living for 15 years. Join us for a 1-hour bird’s eye view of legal topics to consider when starting, maintaining, or reforming a community.
Puusa, in conversation with US co-op scholar Jessica Gordon Nembhard, notes that co-ops have a “dual nature.” While credit unions and rural electric co-ops are nonprofits, most co-ops are for-profit businesses. Regardless of tax status, however, co-ops, like nonprofits, must balance margin and mission. “When times were better, cooperatives did learn to be efficient,” Puusa noted.
Slated to finish construction and open its doors in early 2022 (there’s even a live webcam feed of the construction site), Commongrounds Cooperative will have space for an independent coffee roaster, a local craft distillery, a food hall with a shared commercial kitchen for hourly rental, a childcare facility, a performing arts space and 24 apartments — 18 of them below-market rate, serving various income levels.
“Co-operatives employ millions of people, pay taxes and give back to their communities,” wrote Charles E. Snyder, chief executive of National Cooperative Bank, in the report’s intro. “They provide valuable products and services, trade in the global markets and deal with competition.
“While co-operatives may offer similar goods and services as publicly traded firms, they use a distinctly different business model. Co-ops operate for the benefit of their member-owners and communities.”
With Leslie Watson, Cooperative Development Services & Columinate, and Charlotte Narjes, Nebraska Cooperative Development Center.
Unions in Greece have organised a huge portion of the workforce, and this is the primary source of their strength. In the UK, unions struggle particularly to unionise young private sector workers, making the gig economy—which depends on this demographic—a corporate dream – but success on this magnitude will only yielded with similar numbers.
Another Now rolls out the story of a path not taken by Occupy movements in 2011, but one where a few subversive groups working in various sectors of society—electronics, banking, politics—manage to leverage their expertise to force the capitulation of powerful institutions to their demands. Varoufakis delves deeply into a detailed depiction of the alternative economic mechanisms that lead to a more democratic society in this other future.
Box-hand. Susu. Esusu. Meeting Turn. Sol. Lodge. Partner. These are some of the vernacular names for systems of banking co-operatives that Caribbean people have been doing for more than a century—these systems are known by academics as rotating savings and credit associations, or ROSCAs for short.
