Democratic Dialog & Deliberation

The paper explores the organisational dynamics and production processes of worker cooperatives to analyse their potential as non-exploitative spaces of production within the capitalist economy. Drawing on qualitative data collected from five worker cooperatives in the United Kingdom, the paper argues that there are two major organisational tensions experienced by worker-members:
the tension between democratic governing and surplus production, and the tension between empowerment and (self) discipline. Theorised as manifestations of broader contradictions stemming from the capitalist relations of production, the tensions are inevitable. Nevertheless, as the research suggests, the intensity and form of these tensions vary depending on the governance
structure, division of labour, and nature of operations. Given this, worker-members are often able to collectively address and alleviate some of the pressures of production within capitalism through experimentation and organisational adaptation.

In this informative session, our Director of Education, Kyle White, was joined by Cathy Edwards, our Entrepreneur-in-Residence. They work through the purpose of a strategic plan, its key elements, and provide some guidance to those building their own.

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.