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An hour south of San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury, away from remnants of tie-dye and peace signs, lies a different chapter of countercultural history — one that is still being written. 

SAN JOSE, California (KOVR) — There is something different about A Slice of New York Pizza in San Jose. And it goes beyond their award-winning pies.

It’s about the people. In fact, everyone in the kitchen owns an equal slice of the business.

How we structure ownership and work in healthcare matters.

As a society, we underpay and under-support—under-care-for—the very workers we rely on to provide health and care services to others. The COVID-19 pandemic briefly spotlighted this fact as health workers braved risks to care for the vulnerable. The worst of that crisis has passed—but the extractive business models that structure health and care work under American capitalism endure.

In April, the group had a chance to tour the model that inspired their own; now, they’ve returned with a list of action items. Their goal: To better understand how Ohio co-ops could get to Mondragon’s level.

“We’ve laid a base, where can we go from here?” asks Ellen Vera, Co-op Cincy’s co-founder and co-director. “How do we get to that next level?”

Rural electric cooperatives provide power for huge swaths of the country, providing electricity to 56% of the United States’ landmass. And now, thanks to federal clean energy tax incentives, they could cut consumer costs in low-income communities across the country.

In a nutshell, co-production is when professionals work in partnership with people who have lived experience, to develop solutions to challenges in public services and communities.

The definition we use is: 

Co-production is an asset-based approach to public services that enables people providing and people receiving services to share power and responsibility, and to work together in equal, reciprocal and caring relationships. It creates opportunities for people to access support when they need it, and to contribute to social change.

The Allium also had to face the fact that while it might be operating as a worker co-op, it was still doing so within a capitalist system. While it tried to buy from small local suppliers instead of big corporations, the latter were always cheaper and inevitably ended up getting some of the restaurant’s business. Its landlord was also largely primarily concerned with profit and had little sympathy when The Allium asked, for instance, for a pause on rent increases.

Mirai recalls the outrage that erupted once SEWA members chose Chanchi Ben as the health worker of her community. "The village menfolk and some upper caste members asked how she could become the local leader, but we stood by her side."

"Today, Chanchi Ben has been asked to step in as sarpanch [head] of her village, and the upper caste, who wouldn't allow her to cross their threshold, invites her home for delivery of life-saving medicines. And she hugs their babies and gives them polio drops."

If you’ve ever sipped Florida’s Natural orange juice, buttered a dinner roll with Land O’Lakes, or spread Welch’s grape jelly on a peanut-butter sandwich then you’ve done business with a farm co-op.