Worker Cooperatives

Celebrating 20 Years Of The Worker Cooperative Movement

June 25, 2024 Margaret M. Bau, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Cooperatives, History, USDA, Worker Cooperatives, Worker Rights and Jobs

When Congress enacted the Cooperative Marketing Act of 1926, it directed the USDA to create a range of federal services in support of producer-owned cooperatives. For nearly 100 years, USDA has gathered statistics, conducted research, provided education, and offered cooperative development to America’s agricultural cooperatives. Occasionally, USDA conducted cooperative development among producer co-ops of artisans or created educational materials on housing, shared services, or worker co-ops. Though the name of the agency changed at times, most of USDA’s efforts remained firmly focused on farmer-owned cooperatives.

Technology Cooperatives In The Movement: Where Are We Now?

June 18, 2024 Micky Metts, Keegan Rankin and Benjamin Melancon, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Cooperatives, Technology, Worker Cooperatives, Worker Rights and Jobs

Cooperatives have many benefits to their members and communities. The transformation of the economy to one that works for all, likely requires a much greater role for cooperatives—worker owned cooperatives perhaps most of all. Marxist economist Richard Wolff has gone so far as to posit that the critical failing of past socialist revolutions has been not democratizing the workplace. Certainly, catalyzing a solidarity economy network will require as much of the economy and public infrastructure as possible to be under people's direct control. Tech worker cooperatives have the potential to provide particularly crucial infrastructure for the communication and coordination necessary for a liberatory movement and a robust and just economy.

Dorchester Food Co-Op Is Here To Shake Up Boston’s Food Ecosystem

September 4, 2023 Punnya Kalapurakkel, Next City. Create! Boston, Cooperative, Food and Agriculture, food justice, Worker Cooperatives

Stroll down the intersection of Bowdown and Topliff Streets in Boston and you’ll see the shiny automated doors of the brand new Dorchester Food Co-op, where a few friendly faces are adding some finishing touches to the space before it opens to the public in the coming weeks. The worker- and community-owned grocery store, which aims to increase access to nutritious and culturally relevant food, is a project over a decade in the making. As Next City reported during last year’s groundbreaking ceremony, the co-op is the result of more than 10 years of organizing around investors and gathering the funds to make a dream come true.

Driver-Owned Ride-Hailing App Is Putting Its Foot On The Accelerator

June 13, 2023 Oscar Perry Abello, Next City. Create! Cooperatives, Gig Economy, Lyft, New York City (NYC), taxis, Uber, Worker Cooperatives, Worker Rights and Jobs

Sometimes the money’s good, sometimes not so good. Either way, Shaun Beckles loves the human aspect of working as a for-hire vehicle driver — getting to know fares even just a little in passing, gaining a glimpse into so many different lives over the course of a single shift. “I’ve always liked driving for the mere fact that you get to meet some interesting people who can connect with your passion, you’d be surprised,” says Beckles, now operations manager at The Drivers Cooperative. The driver-owned ride-hailing platform, which launched in 2021, is hitting some major milestones this year: It has a new app, it’s the official transportation partner for Juneteenth NY, and

NYC’s Christmas Tree Cooperative

December 24, 2022 Democracy At Work, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! New York (NY), New York City (NYC), Worker Cooperatives, Worker Rights and Jobs

New York City, New York - In this holiday-themed episode of All Things Co-op, Kevin speaks with Ellis Roberts of New York State of Pine, a worker cooperative selling Christmas trees in New York City. They discuss the exploitation of workers and huge markups for consumers from traditional Christmas tree companies, New York State of Pine’s democratic centralist model for decision-making, the question of scale, and the importance of working with and getting to know working-class people as communists and socialists. If you live in NYC and haven’t gotten your Christmas tree yet, visit NY State of Pine at 323 St. Johns Pl in Prospect Heights, 75 7th Ave in Park Slope, or Metropolitan Ave and Bedford Ave in Williamsburg! About our guest: Ellis Roberts came to New York from Pennsylvania to join the Occupy Wall Street encampment and never left.

Social Impact Worker Cooperatives Gain Adherents In Madison

June 7, 2022 Emilie Heidemann, Madison.com. Create! Wisconsin, Worker Cooperatives, Worker Rights and Jobs

A business model that allows workers to have a stake in how their employer pays and supports them while also tackling social justice issues is expanding in Madison and statewide. The worker cooperative model, which already has a history in Wisconsin and the city spanning decades, is one in which the business is equally owned and governed by its employees — they each get a say in their pay, benefits and how to divvy up company profits. In Madison, an accelerator for worker cooperatives that want to make that social impact was recently put together by Downtown startup promoter gener8tor and the Nehemiah Center for Leadership and Development. Also, a local worker cooperative called Roots4Change, which partners with health organizations to support Hispanic mothers through their pregnancies, is expanding.

How A Cincinnati Preschool Became Worker-Owned

March 22, 2022 Cinnamon Janzer, Next City. Create! Education, Worker Cooperatives, Worker Ownership, Worker Rights and Jobs

Mt. Airy, Ohio - Katie McGoron founded Shine Nurture Center — a childcare and preschool in Mt. Airy, Ohio, a suburb of Cincinnati — in 2015. She envisioned a small, closely knit childcare center where kids would play outside and eat healthy food. That’s exactly what she built over the last seven years. But when she decided to go back to school and start a new phase of her life, she did something unexpected. Rather than sell her business to the highest bidder, she sold it to five of her workers, turning it into a worker cooperative. The transition process concluded last month when ownership was officially transferred from McGoron to Shine workers, thanks in large part to the help of Co-op Cincy.

Richard Wolff: US Capitalism Has Peaked And Is On The Way Down’

December 27, 2021 Margaret Flowers, Clearing the FOG. Podcast Capitalism, Economic crisis, Pandemic, Worker Cooperatives

For the end of the year, Clearing the FOG speaks with economist Richard Wolff about the current state of United States capitalism. Wolff explains that the United States is experiencing the greatest crisis in its history - a severe economic crisis at the same time as a pandemic, as well as the climate crisis. This is unprecedented. Unlike the great depression in the last century, when the wealth divide shrank, inequality is worsening. On top of that, US empire is in decline. Wolff discusses the current state of inflation and supply chain disruption and the forces behind them. Instead of facing up to these realities and learning from the experiences of other countries, such as China, and even our own past, the ruling class is in denial and continues on the same path that created the current situation. Wolff talks about what we need to focus on going forward.

Take This Job And Love It

October 21, 2021 Jaisal Noor, The Progressive Magazine. Create! Transportation, Uber, Worker Cooperatives, Worker Rights and Jobs

In the six years that Michael Ugwu has worked as an Uber driver in New York City, he’s seen a growing share of his earnings diverted into venture capitalists’ pockets. Uber and Lyft require workers to assume a myriad of expenses that can quickly trap drivers like Ugwu into debt and poverty. “Currently, they’re taking out between 35 to 40 percent, when you add up all the deductions,” Ugwu says. “You end up not having enough to pay rent, maintain the car, pay the car loan, and buy gas. They’re continuously ripping us off.” By 2017, rideshare drivers were earning less than half what they made just four years earlier, a study found. Meanwhile, executives at Lyft and Uber have raked in tens of millions of dollars in compensation.

Worker cooperatives prove your job doesn’t have to be hell

June 2, 2021 Jaisal Noor, The Real News. Resistance Report Worker Cooperatives, Worker Rights and Jobs

We speak with worker-owners at 8 co-ops in 4 states about the unique benefits, struggles, and limitations of of the worker cooperative model. In the words of Kimberly Britt, a worker-owner at ChiFresh Kitchen, “We work at and own this company, and we designed it to work for us, what would make it not feel like a job.”

How To Turn Your Non-Profit Into A Worker Co-op

July 8, 2020 By GEO Collective. Create! New Economy, Nonprofits, Wisconsin, Worker Cooperatives

If people who want to start a worker-owned cooperative are currently working for a government agency — like we were working for a nonprofit that was contracting with a government agency — but even if you are working directly with a government agency and they're going to outsource your jobs to another company, you have the best expertise that anyone could have for doing your job. And if you form a worker cooperative and put in your own bid, there's nothing to stop you from doing that. And your bid will probably be the most attractive because you know the best of how much things cost, and what to expect in the way of expenses. And you can also address how the work will be done better than anyone else could. And so your chances for keeping your jobs that way are, I think, really good, as as we were able to do. And so I think what we did could be a model for any government employees where they're going to get laid off, and the job is going to be outsourced. All government agencies have to put bids out for proposals.

Pandemic Crash Shows Worker Co-ops More Resilient Than Traditional Business

May 11, 2020 By Brian Van Slyke, Truthout. Create! New Economy, Recession, Worker Cooperatives, Worker Ownership

While we have no way to know yet the full extent of the economic fallout from the COVID-19 pandemic, by all accounts it could be as bad — if not far worse — than the 2008 crash. In fact, in terms of unemployment alone, the numbers are already staggering: more than 33 million jobs have been lost so far in the U.S. during the coronavirus shutdowns, compared to the roughly 8.6 million lost in the Great Recession. Following that crisis, many working people turned to the worker cooperative model as a way to build economic resiliency and stability for themselves. In the decade after 2008, the number of worker-owned cooperatives in the United States nearly doubled, increasing from 350 to 600. I know, because I am a member of one of those cooperatives that formed: The TESA Collective, which creates tools and games for social change.

Major Advances In 2019 Toward A More Democratic Economy

December 25, 2019 Juliana Broad, The Next System Project. Create! Land trusts, New Economy, Public Bank, Worker Cooperatives

This past year, state and municipal lawmakers teamed up with community organizations to fight for—and win—a wide variety of policies and initiatives that will help foster a more democratic economy. New measures supporting public banking, worker co-ops, and community land trusts were launched across the country, continuing to grow a robust, cooperative economic ecosystem that builds community wealth. Here, we’ve highlighted some of the most exciting changes in local and state policy that happened in 2019. Public banks, unlike their private counterparts beholden to the profit demands of Wall Street shareholders, are owned by and accountable to the public. This year saw some important victories in the movement for these democratic financial institutions.

Economic Development Department Directed To Create A Worker Co-op Pilot Program

November 7, 2019 By Annelies Lottmann, Acba.coop Create! New Economy, Texas, Worker Cooperatives

The Austin Cooperative Business Association announces a big win for cooperatives in Central Texas, as the Austin City Council passes an express directive to the Economic Development Department to pilot a worker cooperative development program in fiscal year 2020. This program will create outreach and education materials, and provide direct technical assistance to groups seeking to form worker owned businesses as well as cooperative conversions, in which an existing business is sold to its workers.

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