Western Europe

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.

GEO member Matt Noyes talks about his history in the union and worker cooperative movements.

ASETT has three main objectives. One is to build for the future, which involves engaging in scenario planning. The second is to pilot and scale cooperative and social economy practices. And the third is to focus on knowledge generation and transfer to create a narrative that breaks down Mondragón’s isolation and builds support for a social and solidarity economy. 

Across all conversations, participants described continually negotiating how and when aspects of their identity were disclosed, adapting to the needs of the people they supported while simultaneously managing their own sense of authenticity and professional identity.

Our modern mental maps of commons are woefully inadequate, in part because we have forgotten the history of commons and its once-flourishing folk culture. 

In this episode of How (Not) To Do Business, Chris King sits down with Cherry Haynes and Siôn Whellens of Calverts, the East London design and print co-operative.

I interviewed Bianca Elzenbaumer for my latest podcast of Frontiers of Commoning (Episode #75) to learn more about the group’s very different vision of development.

The unique communities described in great detail in the recently published Worker Cooperatives and Deep Democracy are utopian in vision but thoroughly practical in their everyday functioning.

This month’s guest is Rob Callender, co-founder of Kin.coop, a platform designed to help people start and manage cooperative savings clubs. What would it look like to organise money collectively? 

Nottingham Trent University researcher Maimoona Waseem and Genevieve Shanahan of Cardiff University have recently published an academic paper that highlights Equal Care Co-op as an example of 'transformative social entrepreneurship.'