Retail Trade

In this episode Nacho speaks candidly about the highs & the lows of his & Carla's 10 year journey with Black Cat Cafe. Even though from the outside Black Cat Cafe seems to be extremely successful Nacho shares about the constant challenges they faced - the difficulties paying members & staff fairly, and the set backs when trying to attract & retain worker members.

Celia LoBuono Gonzalez joins us on the show this episode to share her story and that of Other Avenues Grocery Cooperative.

In the heart of Victoria, British Columbia, a remarkable transformation story has been threaded by The Make House. What started as a 10-year-old sole proprietorship blossomed into a worker co-operative in December 2022.

This is a story of how the makers who create a living off their hard-earned skills, banded together to challenge this dominant business ethic, and about the cooperative they built that’s just now getting off the ground. It is a venture that aims to grow at the speed of trust to serve the makers, the customers, and the staff who run it.

How the VAWC Inter-cooperative Loan Fund helped save the fledgling worker co-op Flat Iron Coffeehouse.

Dru Oja Jay is joined by Kevin Harding, one of the organizers of a spirited hail-mary attempt to save Mountain Equipment Co-op from being sold off to a US private equity firm.

Ellis from New York State of Pine discusses the Christmas tree business and how he became a worker-owner.

The Co-op Wars traces the history of the food cooperative movement in the mid to late 1970s in Minnesota's Twin Cities. The rapid development of the food co-op network in the area prompted a split between anarchist "hippies" and Bolsheviks who styled themselves as the “Cooperative Organization” and set about taking over the People's Warehouse by force.

Big tech is facing an escalating backlash. Co-operatives could offer a more equitable and accountable alternative. In fact, some already do. This article describes three large co-operatives that have managed to take on tech giants such as Amazon and IBM.

Fairmondo is an online-marketplace owned by its local users currently based in Germany. It is an ethical alternative aiming to compete against Amazon’s extractive model.