United States

Unions and co-ops go together. This session outlines the practice of labor neutrality — when an employer commits to taking no position for or against their workers organizing and to voluntary recognize a labor union without requiring an election facilitated by a third party (commonly through a "card check" process) — and how workers in cooperatives can benefit from their employer proactively supporting their rights.

The Dorchester Food Co-op is a new community & worker-owned grocery store that aims to make healthy food accessible and advance economic opportunity and neighborhood engagement. General manager John Santos joins CommonWealth's Jennifer Smith to discuss the co-op's origins and business model.

workerowned.info is a free, searchable marketplace that indexes products from worker-owned businesses and puts them in one place.

The Game Workers Conference is an entirely new game industry event made by and for the countless workers who make this massively influential industry and artistic medium succeed.

We are Green Halcones, a social cooperative owned by formerly incarcerated individuals based in Los Angeles, California. We are working to make neighborhoods beautiful, grow healthy food, and protect the environment for future generations.

This session will explore the power of cooperatives working across three very different contexts: Seikatsu Club Consumers’ Cooperative, Cecosesola and Ventures. It will explore how the cooperative economic model provides benefits both for employees and the communities they serve. 

Housing advocates in Eugene, Oregon, are seeking to create a legislative framework that would allow tenants to collectively acquire multifamily buildings when a building comes up for sale.

Ebony Gustave writes about touring several cooperatives in the Hudson Valley as part of the Cooperative Leaders & Scholars Fellowship.

This talk shares stories of the emergence of solidarity economy movements in Massachusetts. Loh traces how these movements, many of which he has been involved with, have been fighting for and building over the past fifteen years around projects such as worker-owned cooperatives, community land trusts, community investment funds, mutual aid, and more.

Investor Owned Firms will continue to seek regulatory treatment similar to cooperatives but without having to adhere to any type of democratic and fairness principles. Competitors of cooperatives can also be expected to search for ways to try to undermine member solidarity.