Cooperatives

Building A Cooperative Labour Movement

May 4, 2026 Canadian Centre for the Study of Co-operatives, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Strategize! Cooperatives, Labor Movement, Unions, Worker Rights

How could labour unions and worker cooperatives work together to build a more democratic economy? Although distinct in their approaches and strategies, both unions and co-ops seek to center workers in an otherwise hierarchical economic system. Yet intersections between these movements have been historically rare, with only occasional moments of collaboration and conflict. This Co-op Conversation contextualizes the recent surge of unionized worker co-ops, or “union co-ops,” in the United States within the structural aims and orientations of the respective movements.

Drivers Are Challenging Uber With Their Own Denver Startup

May 3, 2026 Zachary Shell, Denverite. Create! Cooperatives, Denver, Drivers, Worker Rights

Ahmed Eloumrani was already a veteran of the ride-share industry. He’d given thousands of rides through Denver and knew the city’s streets like the back of his hand. But on a Thursday in September 2024, parked outside Denver International Airport, he felt like a beginner again. He pulled out his phone and opened an app. But it wasn’t Uber or Lyft — it was Drivers Cooperative, the ride-share co-op he helped to create. And then he panicked. “When I got my first ride,” he recalled recently, “I couldn't even control my emotion. I got lost.

Brazilian Cooperatives: The Path To A Green Economy

April 25, 2026 Bernard Marszalek, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Brazil, climate crisis, Cooperatives, COP30, Green Transition

The UN declared 2025 the International Year of Cooperatives. The theme of the year—"Cooperatives Build a Better World”—provided a splendid opportunity for the worldwide cooperative movement to mark its existence as vital to building a better world by limiting the effects of climate change. Unfortunately, that didn’t occur. To be more precise, it didn’t occur with the bureaucrats associated with various top-heavy international organizations that represent the cooperative economic sector on the world stage. However, the Organization of Brazilian Cooperatives (OCB) did take a stand to support the UN Climate Summit, COP30, held in Belem, Brazil on the edge of the Amazon rainforest.

The True Origins Of Mutual Aid And Danger Of Getting It Wrong

April 24, 2026 Zede, Substack. Strategize! Africa, Cooperatives, Indigenous culture, Mutual Aid

There is a conversation happening on social media, in organizing circles, in group chats and comment sections about what mutual aid is, what it can do, and whether it is failing. But it is, in my view, asking the wrong question. The question is not whether mutual aid works. It does. It has, for centuries. The better question is whether mutual aid, as most people currently practice it, can reliably function as a long-term welfare system for entire communities. My answer is no— not by itself. Not without structure. This essay is my attempt to lay out what I mean by that. I want to trace where mutual aid actually comes from.

Co-op Banking Of The African Diaspora Has Implications Beyond Finance

April 17, 2026 Alice Toomer-McAlpine, Coop News. Create! Africa, Banking, Cooperatives, Roscas

In this absorbing book, Caroline Shenaz Hossein (pictured) tells the story of the informal co-operative banks and rotating savings and credit associations (Roscas) used by the African diaspora, and of the women who run them. Rosca is the term used by academics to collectively describe these informal banking institutions, while their members around the world use a range of names depending on their geographic and cultural context, such as the Jamaican Pardner, Peruvian Juntas or Egyptian Gameeyaa. The term Susu is used in Ghana, Trinidad and Tobago, Grenada and St. Vincent, while Hagbad, Shalongo, Ayuuto are used in Somalia.

Collaboration And Mutual Care

April 11, 2026 Samuel Comé, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Cooperatives, Mozambique, Women, Worker Rights

Maputo, Mozambique - Isaura Matola (pictured above), a widow and mother of four, wakes up every day at 5 a.m., before sunrise, to begin collecting recyclable waste at the Hulene landfill on the outskirts of Maputo, Mozambique’s capital. After losing her job as a domestic worker in 2023, Matola faced unsuccessful attempts to secure other employment. Waste sorting at the landfill became her only viable option. “With what I earn here, even though it is not much, I manage the basics to live. It’s different from doing nothing,” she says, while separating plastic, paper, and metal from large piles of rubbish. “At least my children are able to go to school.”

AI Used Against Associated Press And ProPublica Journalists

April 9, 2026 Mark Gruenberg, People's World. Resist! Artificial Intelligence (AI), Cooperatives, Journalism, Pro Publica, Strikes, Unions

New York—AI has hit the AP: At least 120 U.S. newspeople, some of them longtime veterans of the Associated Press, the worldwide wire service, have received layoff notices as a result, with buyout offers—but with little notice to and no negotiations with their union. AI—artificial intelligence—can be used for good or ill, but corporate executives are using it to guillotine people’s jobs, thus increasing company profits. The cost, however, as critics on social media pointed out, is in reduced coverage at a time when news consumers need unbiased information more than ever before.

The Uralungal Labour Contract Cooperative Society

March 10, 2026 Najeeb VR, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Cooperative Network, Cooperatives, India, Poverty

In 1925, before the communist movement was established in southwestern India, the followers of the social reformer Vayaleri Kunhikannan Gurukkal, also known as Sri Vagbhatananda Guru, (1885–1939) founded the Uralungal Labour Contract Cooperative Society (ULCCS) to provide construction workers with social protection. Today, the ULCCS is Asia’s largest workers’ cooperative, and it was ranked second in the 2021 World Cooperative Monitor list of industry and utilities cooperatives. United Nations Development Programme Resident Coordinator in India Lise Grande calls it a model cooperative whose success provides ‘great lessons for the rest of the world’.

Small-Scale Supply Chains In Action

March 1, 2026 Zoe Gilbertson, Resilience. Create!, Podcast – WTF is Going on in Latin America & the Caribbean Cooperatives, Local Economy, Supply Chain, Sustainability

Re-thinking governance requires changing how we organise, share knowledge, and develop structures emphasising value beyond the monetary. Systems that encourage cooperation require more social input but have many long-term and wide-reaching benefits. Cooperatives provide an enterprise container that can embody agroecological values such as social and ecological care. Due to the complexities of organising complex fashion supply chains, textile cooperatives are a rare form of business around the globe. However, we can find some inspiring examples in France and Spain.

Financing Freedom: How We Funded Our Co-Op

February 19, 2026 Ray the Spirit. Create! Cooperatives, Financing, Housing, Preservation

When I shared our recent journey to settling into our new home one of the things that most interested people was how the finances work. It is also the aspect of co-operative living that seems to present the biggest challenge to banks, government bodies and boomers alike. In simple terms we are a fully mutual housing co-operative. This means that all of our tenants are members, and all of our members are directors/decision-makers. So while we do all pay rent, we also get a say in what the rent is set at (in our case Local Housing Allowance level) and how that rent is used.

Local Governments Tap Worker Cooperatives In Depopulated Areas

February 1, 2026 The Japan Times. Create! Cooperatives, Japan, rural communities, Worker Cooperatives

In depopulated areas across Japan, the withdrawal of supermarkets and other businesses has left essential services, vital to residents' daily lives, at risk. To address this problem, some local governments are turning to resident-led nonprofit organizations known as "workers' cooperatives" as new providers of local services. In these cooperatives, residents themselves plan, develop and operate the services their communities need, supported by local government subsidies for startup and operating costs. The Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry is also working to create a framework to make it easier for such organizations to receive financial assistance and other forms of support.

From Breakdown To Breakthough: 2025 Union Co-op Symposium

January 25, 2026 Megan McGee, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Organize! Cooperatives, New Economy, Solidarity Economy, Symposium

The 7th Union Co-op Symposium, a gathering of worker-owners and union members from across the US, opened with guests being invited to talk to someone they don't know. Facilitators repeat this exercise two or three times in a row to begin the biennial event. “It is actually really hard to shut it down once you get it started, because so many people are so excited,” says Kristen Barker, a co-director of Co-op Cincy, which has hosted the Symposium since 2013. The 2025 Symposium took place from October 17-18, offering workshops, panels and conversations on how the cooperative and labor movements can work together to build a democratic economy.

Envisioning A Co-Operative Reset For Canada

November 9, 2025 Kenzie Love, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Canada, Cooperatives, Worker Cooperatives, Worker Rights and Jobs

The title of Ludovic Viger’s new book The Great Canadian Reset says it all. Faced with a series of interlocking political, economic, and environmental crises, the current system isn’t sustainable and can’t be fixed with some minor tweaks. Instead, a full “reset” is required. The subtitle of his book is clear on what he believes it is: Why Co-ops Are the Answer to Our Toughest Problems. “I was looking for one model, or one solution that could help at least make it viable for most Canadians to live in an era of decline,” he says. “And that’s why I came across cooperativism.”

Federation Of Southern Co-ops Sets Out Shutdown Support Measures

November 8, 2025 Miles Hadfield, Coop News. Organize! Cooperatives, Food and Farming, Government Shutdown, SNAP Program, The South

With the US federal shutdown entering its second month, the Federation of Southern Cooperatives/Land Assistance Fund has set out its effort to support people suffering food insecurity. The shutdown, which began on 1 October, has affected food stamp payments issued through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (Snap) benefits. This month, the Trump administration said claimants will be given half their normal monthly allotment, taken from emergency funding. The Federation has pointed to the ”urgency” of the situation and its impact on programmes like SNAP, “which millions depend on for food access”, and says it has “built infrastructure to address crises like this”.

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