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.

How a group of food writers is reviving a legendary magazine as a worker-owned cooperative.

Rupay is an employment lawyer in Germany, fighting for workers’ rights. Frustrated, working in a system rigged against workers, he sought out more empowering alternatives and discovered worker cooperatives. Rupay is an employment lawyer in Germany, fighting for workers’ rights. Frustrated, working in a system rigged against workers, he sought out more empowering alternatives and discovered worker cooperatives.

Ten years after India won its independence in 1947, the Communist Party of India won state elections in Kerala. Right from the start, the left government in Kerala adopted an agenda to smash ancient social hierarchies and customs, provide social goods to the public that were not readily available in the rest of India (including quality public education, health care, and transportation), and construct the basis of working-class and peasant power by defending workers’ rights to organise in unions and build cooperatives.

Come join Baltimore Roundtable for economic Democracy for a fun filled hour full of conversations about legal structures and capital! We will be discussing the pro's and con's, the differences between these flexible forms of doing business, and how you can put what you learn to work.

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.