Worker Cooperatives

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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. 

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

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 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.