Democratic Dialog & Deliberation

This article explores how union negotiations in worker-owned co-ops compare to more traditional labor negotiations. The theoretical analysis addresses possible synergies between practices traditionally considered as alternative, employee ownership and collective bargaining, and the development of collective bargaining in new business models.

Bookchin’s works on direct democracy and social ecology seem to directly resonate with the practices of countless contemporary social movements worldwide: from political initiatives directly or indirectly referring him or his concepts, to social media memes like the infamous “Google Murray Bookchin.”

Ramsey Nassar, Gwen Pasquarello, and Andy Wallace at EMMA Technology Cooperative have spent five years as a worker-owned co-op building software and hardware for video games, theater, public installation, and media arts. And theme parks. And custom programming languages. And a nonprofit arcade collective. They're thriving.

A workshop of best practices for effective governance, by and for worker co-ops.

Paul Kahawatte - an experienced mediator working with communities, cooperatives, and social movements - shares the structures and processes he uses to ward off conflict, catch it early, and resolve it in ways that strengthen, rather than fracture. 

Practicing Social Ecology: From Bookchin to Rojava and Beyond, from Pluto Press, offers a compelling synthesis of ethnographic research, journalism and political analysis, combining the author's field research and her own activist experiences in a highly engaging and superbly accessible manner.

Catalyst Cooperative is an all-remote, 8-person, tech worker cooperative based in North America. The coop was founded in 2017 with the mission to make US energy system data more accessible. Catalyst's main objectives are to curate the free, open-source Public Utilities Data Liberation project (PUDL) and help clients navigate a myriad of energy or environmental data needs.

In this session, Stephanie Rearick of Humans United in Mutual Aid Networks discusses getting started on projects and Julian Rose of Endstate ATL and New Economy Coalition discusses key considerations for sustainability, including governance, power, conflict, and more. 

In all likelihood, board meetings will be run according to Roberts Rules of Order. My guess is that the vast majority of HOA are governed in this way. Based on my 4+ decades of working with cooperative groups, however, I know this can be done better. 

Josh talks with Kate "Sassy" Sassoon about her long history in co-ops of all different varieties and her current work as a co-op facilitator.