Worker Cooperatives

We need our national and international organizations to join us. I call on others to participate in building the movement while reframing and redirecting the Federation to become a member-controlled and -focused organization once again.

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

A panel discussion by the Interagency Working Group on Cooperative Development, with presentations from two worker cooperatives assisting the reintegration of previously incarcerated people. 

We continue to explore the relationship between cooperativism and the market and society. Is cooperativism “a practical demonstration of the possibility of an economy without bosses? A convenient mode of distribution of commodities? An economic form that preserves exploitation of workers and fails to overthrow bourgeois political domination? A way to live out the principles and values of Christianity in the economic terrain?”

Starting off as a small shop operating out of a loading bay to a thriving worker co-op that owns its own the entire building, has around 50 dedicated members and is a shining example of what worker cooperatives can accomplish. 

The 2025 Union Co-op Symposium took place from October 17-18, offering workshops, panels and conversations on how the cooperative and labor movements can work together to build a democratic economy. This year’s theme was From Breakdown to Breakthrough, focusing on how we can meet this moment of system breakdown with cooperative solutions. 

In this chapter, Razeto makes use of a concept that is one of Antonio Gramsci’s most important theoretical contributions – the “determined market.”

Unfortunately not everybody's experience of cooperatives is positive. For Elle, their time in co-operatives was both transformative, but also painful, marred by classism that often goes unnamed.

The new approach that Razeto proposes here is made up not through federation of cooperative businesses but association of individuals in small groups or base communities. This is his movement-building perspective: cooperative organizing from the grassroots, with a clear distinction drawn between representational and operational functions.

I reached out to David to talk about homes, ownership, and why rebuilding communities might be the last honest form of democracy left.