United States

In the foothills of western North Carolina, the small town of Morganton is home to a growing co-op movement that’s reinvigorating the region’s once-struggling textile and furniture manufacturing industries, and refashioning them around egalitarianism and localism. 

A look at a multi-stakeholder cooperative with a worker-owner member class and bylaws that state neutrality toward union formation.

A new report by the Democracy Collaborative has found that community utilities — those that are publicly or cooperatively owned — are better suited for a green transition than their for-profit corporate counterparts.

In this memoir, Elayne Archer describes daily life in the commune, its challenges, and its rewards. The memories of several commune participants, including three of the children, enrich the memoir and make it a vivid description of the time and of an alternative approach to living and raising children.

Mumbet’s Freedom Farm is a Black and Brown-led cooperative farm located at the base of a mountain in Sheffield, Massachusetts. In this episode I speak with worker-owner DeeArah Wright about their journey from the city towards collective rural land stewardship.

Jessica Gordon-Nembhard, Ph.D., Professor at John Jay College, and economic social justice advocate discusses her research on Black women in the U.S. co-op movement, and the Cooperative Development Fund's "Unsung Heroes Project."

Employee ownership, particularly in the form of worker cooperatives, offers a solution for business transitions.

Joining Rebecca Kemble to explain worker co-ops is MadWorC Coordinator Rek Kwawer and The Real News Network reporter Jaisal Noor. In the hour they explore how cooperatives work across the country and dive deep into worker exploitation.

Gilda is a co-founder and Senior Advisor to the L.A. Co-op Lab which works to build L.A.’s capacity for creating and sustaining worker-owned cooperatives as one way to push back against gentrification, the gig economy, and economic exclusion. Gilda also represents L.A. Co-op Lab on the loan committee and board of the national Seed Commons financial cooperative.

Rebecca Lurie, co-author of the Union Co-ops Toolkit presents the ways in which Unions and Cooperatives can support each other to build worker power and strengthen each other's movements.