Worker Cooperatives

A survey for cooperators, reflecting on the worker cooperative movement on the occasion of the 20th Anniversary of the founding of the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives.

Cooperative development is the most important social change work that a person can do.

In recent years, there’s been renewed interest in the worker co-op model. The Earthworker cooperative network focused on Victoria’s Latrobe Valley. The goal: find new types of employment and products in a coal area undergoing transition.

Are you a business owner who is retiring or transitioning out? Don’t just close the door—pass the torch.

When is a “Coop” not really a cooperative? The short answer is whenever the actual activity of the “cooperative” is not carried out by the members but by employees. The problem is, of course, not in cooperation per se but in the hiring, employing, renting, or leasing of people to carry out the supposedly “cooperative” activities of the “cooperative.”

An interview with Andy Bowling of comp.coop and Co-op Cincy.

This timeline presentation goes over the highlights of 20+ years of worker cooperativism in the United States. 

Bernard Marszalek joins us to discuss the history of the Hawthorn Works and his new book: Jobs, Jive, and Joy: An Argument for the Utopian Spirit.

For growing numbers of media companies, employee ownership offers journalistic freedom and job stability.

Bethany and Tim of the Cheeseboard Bakery and the Arizmendi Association of Co-ops talk about the model of worker co-op development they have been successfully pursuing in the San Francisco Bay Area.