Cooperatives

Catalan Integral Cooperative – Simpler Way Revolution Is Well Underway!

January 19, 2018 By Ted Trainer, Resilience.org Create! Catalonia, Cooperatives, Nationalism, Spain

It is now abundantly clear that a just and sustainable world cannot be achieved unless consumer-capitalist society is basically scrapped. It involves levels of resource use and environmental impact that are already grossly unsustainable, yet growth is the supreme goal. The basic form the alternative must take is not difficult to imagine. (For the detail see TSW: Summary Case.) The essential concept must be mostly small, highly self-sufficient and self-governing communities in which we can live frugally but well putting local resources directly into producing to meet local needs … without allowing market forces or the profit motive or the global economy to determine what happens. Unfortunately even many green and left people do not grasp the magnitude of the De-growth that is required.

Why Are Young People Joining Cooperatives?

January 6, 2018 By Nithin Coca, Shareable.net Create! Alternatives, Cooperatives, New Economy

For many, cooperatives represent the past, not the future. But young people around the globe are challenging that notion. At the International Cooperative Alliance Conference, held in November in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, members of the Youth Network, a multilingual, diverse, global initiative to connect and empower youth to join and create cooperatives around the world, spoke passionately about why it is imperative to invest in a youth-driven cooperative future. The role of young people is crucial to the future of cooperatives, which are being increasingly seen as critical to not only addressing income inequality, but meeting sustainable development goals. Campaigns like #Coop4Dev are pushing cooperatives around the world to participate to help attain the United Nations Sustainable Development goals.

Seymour Melman And The New American Revolution

December 31, 2017 Johnathan Feldman, counterpunch.org Create! Cooperatives, Labor, New Economy, Wars and Militarism

Seymour Melman believed that both political and economic decline could be reversed by vastly scaling back the U.S. military budget which represented a gigantic opportunity cost to the national economy. The other side of the $1 trillion military budget was a vast development fund which Melman believed could be used to modernize the U.S.’s energy and transportation infrastructure and reinvest in other areas of economic decay self-evident in collapsing bridges, polluted waterways, and congested transit systems. He linked urban under-development and deficits in ecological remediation to wasteful military budgets. Melman believed that peace movements, while opposing senseless wars, had “become safe for the Pentagon.” By being remote from the culture of production, they did not realize the simple fact that producing and selling weapons generates capital and power, thereby requiring more than a reactive protest system to Pentagon capital accumulation. In contrast, the founder of Mondragon, José María Arizmendiarrieta Madariaga, realized in the Nazi bombing campaign of the Spanish Republic that technology had become the source of ultimate power. The other side of Picasso’s Guernica was a system in which workers themselves could control technology for their own use, providing an alternative to capitalists and militarists monopoly over technological power.

FairCoop: An Alternative System Outside Of Capitalism

December 15, 2017 Niko Georgiades, geo.coop Educate! Capitalism, Cooperatives, Greece, New Economy

Athens, Greece – Tools born from the internet, applied across autonomous networks and movements seeking alternatives to capitalism, are providing the infrastructure of alternative societies. In the last of our specials on community currencies and alternative economies, we showcase FairCoop, a self-organized and self-managed global cooperative created through the internet outside the domain of the nation-state. During a conference on alternatives to capitalism inside of the self-organized and squatted Embros Theater in Athens, Greece in the summer of 2017, a Catalan speaker (who remained anonymous for safety purposes) gave a presentation on FairCoop, which informed much of this reporting.

Organic Farm Co-op: World’s Largest Will Use 100% Renewables

November 9, 2017 Staff, thenews.coop Create! Cooperatives, Food and Agriculture, New Economy, Organic, Renewable Energy

By Staff of Co-operative News - Organic Valley is creating a solar partnership that is set to increase overall usage in Wisconsin by 15%, and will incorporate insect-friendly habitat. Organic Valley, America’s largest co-operative of organic farmers, is set to become one of the largest food companies in the world to source 100% of its electricity from renewable sources. The co-op is collaborating with the Upper Midwest Municipal Energy Group (UMMEG) and OneEnergy Renewables to create the solar community partnership. Together, the partners will initiate over 12 megawatts (MW) of solar installations in Wisconsin. The electricity created by this partnership will not only enable Organic Valley to cover 100% of its electric energy needs from renewable sources by 2019 but also increase overall solar energy use in Wisconsin by 15%. Beyond the 12 MW project portfolio, an additional 17-plus MW expected to be constructed as well, resulting in nearly 30 MW of new solar in the region. Organic Valley will purchase renewable energy credits from the solar projects near their headquarters and distribution centre enabling the co-operative to be fully renewable-powered. It is hoped the partnership will deliver lower and more stable electric costs for all participants, alongside the environmental benefits of renewable power. Additionally, the solar community partnership will adopt pollinator-friendly solar standards, which Organic Valley says reflects its commitment to “animals, people and the planet”.

Five Ways Co-ops Are Countering Corporate Power In Cities

November 8, 2017 Nick Stumo-Langer, nextcity.org Create! Cities, Cooperatives, New Economy

By Nick Stumo-Langer for Next City - As local economies suffer from market concentration in economic sectors ranging from retail to banking, cooperatives across industries are helping to strengthen communities and keep resources local. This is nothing new; cooperatives have a long history of serving local needs. Today, the cooperative ownership structure continues to create equal economic opportunity and counter concentrated corporate power. From innovative business arrangement to community-owned renewable energy, here are five ways cooperatives are making a difference. 1. Cooperatives allow local resources to improve neighborhoods. In northeast Minneapolis, a “DIY Downtown” was born to revitalize a neighborhood long-blighted by disinvestment and distant ownership. The Northeast Investment Cooperative (NEIC) created a neighborhood reinvestment program where any Minnesota resident could join the cooperative for $1,000, and invest even more by purchasing non-voting stock. After just a year, NEIC bought two vacant properties and sold one to a local bike shop and owns and manages the other which it rents to a cooperatively owned brewery and a bakery. These businesses were in turn financed by a local Minneapolis bank. This process kept property ownership and management local.

A Worker Co-op For Returning Citizens

November 8, 2017 J. Gabriel Ware, geo.coop Create! Cooperatives, Labor, New Economy

By J. Gabriel Ware for Grassroots Economic Organizing - The United States has the world’s highest incarceration rate, with more than 2.2 million people in prison. And within the United States, the highest incarceration rate belongs to Washington, D.C. There, a new worker-owned business cooperative hopes to reverse those numbers, offering former prisoners opportunities for employment and healing. Though co-ops that employ formerly incarcerated people already exist, Tightshift Laboring Cooperative is the first Washington, D.C., co-op formed and operated by ex-prisoners. The co-op offers an array of manual labor services, including residential and commercial cleaning, hauling and moving, and landscaping. It also uses eco-friendly products to provide customers with affordable, high-quality cleaning services. It’s more than just a business to Juan Reid, a former inmate who co-spearheaded the cooperative. For him, Tightshift is about helping former inmates recover, find work, and counter prisoner stigmatization in the workplace. Reid, 36, was sentenced to 14 years in prison for aggravated assault when he was just 18 years old. He spent the last seven of those years in solitary confinement, an experience he says was torture and a form of “dressed-up” slavery.

Newsletter – From Neoliberal Injustice To Economic Democracy

November 5, 2017 Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers, www.popularresistance.org Newsletter Cooperatives, Economic Democracy, Energy, Housing, Mutual Aid, New Economy, Public Banks, Transportation

By Kevin Zeese and Margaret Flowers. This week, we will focus on positive work that people are doing to change current systems in ways that reduce the wealth divide, meet basic needs, build peace and sustainability and provide greater control over our lives. The work to transform society involves two parallel paths: resisting harmful systems and institutions and creating new systems and institutions to replace them. Throughout US history, resistance movements have coincided with the growth of economic democracy alternatives such as worker cooperatives, mutual aid and credit unions.

Greece: Alternative Economies & Community Currencies Pt. 3

November 3, 2017 Niko Georgiades, unicornriot.ninja Create! Cooperatives, Currency, Greece

By Niko Georgiades for Unicorn Riot - Athens, Greece – Tools born from the internet, applied across autonomous networks and movements seeking alternatives to capitalism, are providing the infrastructure of alternative societies. In the last of our specials on community currencies and alternative economies, we showcase FairCoop, a self-organized and self-managed global cooperative created through the internet outside the domain of the nation-state. During a conference on alternatives to capitalism inside of the self-organized and squatted Embros Theater in Athens, Greece in the summer of 2017, a Catalan speaker (who remained anonymous for safety purposes) gave a presentation on FairCoop, which informed much of this reporting. Alternative economies are typically separate economic structures operating outside of the traditional economy and based on the common principles of a community. FairCoop is a function of an alternative economy and was built out of the necessity to provide an “alternative system outside of capitalism” and merge many autonomous movements and networks together to form a society based on each community’s values. FairCoop was created a few years after a nearly half a billion euro banking system expropriation action from 2006-2008, generally attributed to Enric Duran.

Huge Mobile Home Park Co-op Deal Puts Residents In Charge

November 1, 2017 Suzanne Potter, publicnewsservice.org Create! Cooperatives, Housing, New Economy

By Suzanne Potter for Public News Service - HALIFAX, Mass. – In a deal that is the largest of its kind, this week a group of 700 Halifax residents bought the mobile-home park where they live for $27 million - and they'll turn it into a co-op run by a nine-person board. The deal at Halifax Estates was facilitated by specialists at the Cooperative Development Institute, a nonprofit that helped the residents get a loan and form their co-op board. Thomas Choate, a cooperative housing specialist at the CDI says the board collects rents on the mobile-home spaces and decides how to put the money to good use. "With the surplus that they have in any particular year, they have agency to point that surplus where they would like in that community," he says. "And also, rather than an investor having the profits to themselves, the homeowners often can keep their rents lower." The homeowners, many of whom are seniors, don't have to put up any money, although they are collectively liable for the loan. The rent on the spaces tends to be at or below market rate, since the profit motive has been removed. In addition, the co-op board screens new residents. In this way, Choate says many lower-income communities have been able to stamp out persistent problems with drug and crime.

4 Energy Cooperatives Leading The Way To A Sustainable Future

October 31, 2017 Lynn Benander, Diego Angarita Horowitz, Isaac Baker, alternet.org Create! Cooperatives, Energy, New Economy, Sustainability

By Lynn Benander, Diego Angarita Horowitz, Isaac Baker for Island Press - In the early 2000s in the northeastern United States, a perfect storm was brewing in which the electric utilities were about to be deregulated, activists were organizing to fight climate change, and entrepreneurs were experimenting with various renewable energy technologies. Consumers had few sustainable energy choices. Solar systems installed in the 1970s sat idle, with few solar companies still in operation able to get them back up and running. People in the Northeast have a tradition of direct democracy in governing their towns through town meetings, and barn raisings are commonly known as events where people come together to build a barn. Though communities are largely segregated by class and race, there are many places where people come together across class and race and get things done. It’s also a part of the United States where climate change is having a noticeable impact, not only on the weather, but on the forests, too. Co-op Power, launched in 2004, is a multiracial, multiclass cooperative movement. It’s a consumer-owned energy cooperative working for a just and sustainable energy future. It is also a decentralized network of community energy cooperatives in New England and New York dedicated to working together as agents of social, economic, and environmental change in their region...

‘State Of The Co-op Economy’ Report Counts 40,000 Co-Ops

October 25, 2017 Elizabeth Lechleitner, www.ncba.coop Create! Cooperatives, New Economy, Workers Rights and Jobs

By Elizabeth Lechleitner for NCBA CLUSA - In recent years, NCBA CLUSA has estimated that there are about 40,000 cooperative businesses within the U.S. Now, new research from the University of Wisconsin–Madison’s Center for Cooperatives (UWCC) has validated that number. In a presentation at this month’s Co-op IMPACT Conference and a companion pieceheadlining the Fall 2017 issue of the Cooperative Business Journal, Brent Hueth unpacks the center’s foundational work to develop the data infrastructure necessary to measure the cooperative economy in a way that enables ongoing reporting and analysis. While an economist’s perspective on cooperative impact doesn’t necessarily tell the complete co-op story, a national cooperative census is integral to communicating effectively about co-ops in the public policy space, said Hueth, who directs the Center for Cooperatives and is spearheading its work to measure the cooperative economy in partnership with NCBA CLUSA and its Council of Cooperative Economists. “Measuring the impact of cooperatives is much more than measuring their total employment, total revenue, or the total number of establishments and businesses, but it’s a first step,” Hueth said. “These baseline numbers are critical to communicating the general economic footprint of cooperatives.”

Greece: Alternative Economies & Community Currencies Pt. 1

October 23, 2017 Niko Georgiades, www.unicornriot.ninja Create! Cooperatives, Economics, Greece

By Niko Georgiades for Unicorn Riot - Athens, Greece – While capitalism and consumerism dominate the culture of the United States of America and the Western world, community currencies are creating a buzz elsewhere. The radical need for alternative economies and community currencies is becoming more commonplace among societies across the globalized world dealing with the crisis of mass poverty and inequality. In part one of our three part series shining a light on some of these alternatives, we look at the Athens Integral Cooperative. In the summer of 2017, the self-organized squat of Embros Theater hosted a speaking engagement discussing community currencies and alternative economies. After the discussion, we interviewed Theodore from the Athens Integral Cooperative (AIC) inside a social center in Exarcheia (Athens, Greece) about the parallel economy they are creating. Theodore gave a run down of what AIC is, the importance of it, as well as its struggles and how it modeled itself after Catalan Integral Cooperative (see our special on the Catalan Integral Cooperative). “We are building a substantial, alternative, and autonomous economy.”

Arkansas Farmers Join Cooperatives to Make Small Farming Possible

August 25, 2017 Staff, www.foodtank.com Create! Agrticulture, Cooperatives, Farmers, Food and Agriculture, New Economy, Worker Cooperatives

By Staff for the Food Tank. In addition to providing fresh produce and meat for families in Arkansas, New South Produce Cooperative and Grassroots Farmer’s Cooperative supply financial and agricultural support for their member farms. Based in Little Rock and Clinton, respectively, these farmer-owned and operated co-ops connect members to distribution networks, provide technical assistance, and help small farmers raise capital as a collective. New South Produce Cooperative and Grassroots Farmer’s Cooperative are providing small farmers with the tools they need to keep their small farms up and running. The farmers in these cooperatives have been able to expand their businesses and reach a wider network of consumers thanks to the cooperative business model.

Electricity Cooperatives Paving The Way For A Renewable Future

August 19, 2017 Kevin Stark, www.shareable.net Create! Cooperatives, Electricity, Energy

By Kevin Stark for Shareable - That's exactly how the cooperative system is supposed to work, he added. It's an example of a core tenant of electricity cooperatives: sharing ideas. "It's a mission. It's time for us to learn from them and do what they are doing." Woolery said. Wynn signs on to this philosophy too. In 2017, he wrote an open invitation for any other co-op to copy the program. "It is really hard to argue against energy efficiency," Woolery says, adding that it's all about economic development. "We want to create jobs and opportunity and wealth that stays in Appalachia, because so much has been extracted from it." So far, How$martKY has funneled $2.5 million to local contractors for performing efficiency upgrades on homes, but the program hasn't reached the same scale as in Roanoke. Still, he's worked with organizations from California to Arkansas to develop similar programs. He testified on behalf of the program at the Kentucky state legislature in the city of Frankfort. Most recently, Woolery went to the Lausitz region of Eastern Germany for a summit on how coal communities can transition to renewable energy.

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