Worker Ownership

Paris Commune Showed That Workers Can Run Society Themselves

March 19, 2026 Scott Hiley, People's World. Strategize! Communes, Marxism, Paris Commune, Worker Ownership

Shortly before dawn on March 18, 1871, several detachments of the French army—recently defeated in the Franco-Prussian war—entered Paris and made their way toward the working-class neighborhoods of Montmartre and Belleville. They were under orders to seize 400 old-fashioned cannons belonging to the city’s civilian militia, the National Guard. In doing so, the conservative government of Adolphe Thiers hoped to neutralize an increasingly militant opposition within the city. But 19th century Paris, that midwife of revolutions, was not easily pacified. Workers stood up, and soldiers backed down, refusing orders to fire on the people and sometimes even deserting to join them.

A Worker-Led Alternative To Billionaire-Owned News In DC

February 25, 2026 Chris Mills Rodrigo, Inequality.org. Create! Independent media, Media, Washington DC, Worker Ownership

The Washington Post’s decision — at the behest of billionaire Jeff Bezos — to fire, according to some estimates, over 40 percent of the newsroom is devastating for journalism and the DC area. Despite its storied history and name recognition, the Post had been struggling when the billionaire Amazon founder purchased the outlet for $250 million in 2013. It might be laughable in hindsight, but it’s not surprising that pundits and even workers in the newsroom viewed Bezos as a “savior” at the time. And for some years the situation worked well — during the first Trump administration, the Post recorded record revenues.

Worker-Owned Cooperatives Are Rising In New York

December 28, 2025 Camille Luong, The Chief. Create! Brooklyn, New York City (NYC), Worker Cooperatives, Worker Ownership, Worker Rights and Jobs

At most workplaces, there is a boss and an employee. The boss calls the shots — how much employees get paid, what drinks get put on the menu, what the exterior and interior design of the workplace will look like and more. If workers get burnt out, they either get fired or quit, with little say on how things get run or how they could change. What if, instead, the binary between worker and owners was shattered, and workplaces were run collectively by worker-owners? This was the question that Boyfriend Co-op, a lesbian cafe-bar in Bushwick, Brooklyn, sought to answer when they opened nine months ago, joining a movement of more than 85,000 worker-owner cooperatives around the world.

Employee-Ownership Mirage: Private Equity’s Latest PR Strategy

December 20, 2025 Nikishka Iyengar, On Labor. Educate! Economic Democracy, Employee Ownership, Private Equity, Worker Ownership

For an industry that employs roughly 12 million people in the United States, or about 8% of the labor force, the fundamentals of how private equity operates remain notoriously opaque. The big headlines about deals gone wrong — Toys “R” Us collapsing after a leveraged buyout, private equity firms buying up housing stock, Deadspin abruptly shuttering — capture the fallout but often miss the bigger picture of private equity’s cumulative impact on workers and the broader economy. In her new book Bad Company, Megan Greenwell details how these cases are not outliers but rather emblematic of a model that consistently prioritizes financial extraction over worker wellbeing, operational stability, or long-term value.

Worker Cooperatives Make The World Better

October 24, 2025 Godfrey Moase, The Solidarity Wedge. Create! Cooperatives, Worker Cooperatives, Worker Ownership, Worker Rights and Jobs

I have been a witness to how worker ownership tends towards humanisation. In the lead up to Christmas 2014, Ingham Poultry announced that it was planning to shut its turkey processing facility near the town of McLaren Vale just outside of Adelaide on the Fleurieu Peninsula. The plant was represented by my union at the time — the National Union of Workers (NUW). The local manufacturing workforce, with the recently announced shut down of the Australian car manufacturing industry that hit South Australia particularly hard, did not have many other options. The local turkey and poultry farmers, meanwhile, did not have any other accessible processing facilities in the area. A group of workers and farmers got together to campaign to re-open the factory under the operation of a joint worker-farmer cooperative.

Why More And More Journalists Are Launching Worker-Owned Outlets

January 9, 2025 Angela Fu, Poynter. Create! Cooperatives, Independent media, Journalists, Media, Worker Ownership, Worker Rights and Jobs

When staff at the Long Beach Post and Long Beach Business Journal decided to unionize in March, they were almost immediately hit with layoffs. The paper’s parent company, a nonprofit called the Long Beach Journalism Initiative, laid off nine of the 14 staff involved with the union drive just four days after their unionization attempt. Undeterred, those nine workers — along with three others who had gone on strike in protest — decided to start their own publication: a worker-owned cooperative called the Long Beach Watchdog. “We wanted to build this as a place that respected workers, respected the labor that they do, and allowed everyone a seat at the table and a voice in how the business is run,” said Dennis Dean

Adapting Employee Ownership For Truly Democratic Businesses

November 12, 2024 Kosta Juri and Tej Gonza, Grassroots Economic Organizing. Create! Cooperatives, Democracy, ESOPs, Globalization, New Economy, Worker Ownership

The form of globalisation that has prevailed – one that primarily serves the interests of financial and corporate elites – is, to a large extent, a political and legal artefact, not an inevitable outcome of an increasingly interconnected global economy. More specifically, it is primarily attributable to the commodified nature of the business enterprise, which is essentially a human organisation but legally treated as a commodity in our economies. A prime example of the damaging effects of business commodification is the private equity industry. Private equity firms typically acquire businesses with growth potential (often through a leveraged buyout, a mechanism originally devised by Louis Kelso in the 1950s for worker buyouts), restructure them to maximise profitability, and then sell them for a profit.

Introducing The Louder Than Ten Workers’ Cooperative

October 14, 2023 Travis Gertz, Louder Than Ten. Create! Cooperatives, Worker Ownership, Worker Rights and Jobs

Today is a big day. Today, Louder Than Ten Industries Inc. hands over operations to Louder Than Ten Workers’ Cooperative. That means Abby, Rachel, and I are equal partners. It also means new employees have the opportunity to purchase a stake and join us as an equal partner. We know this might sound like a questionable decision to many of you—especially to owners and consultants in our industry. We’re here to tell you that aside from being a more equitable and moral way of doing business, it’s also more practical, sustainable, productive, and financially secure. We’re gonna tell you why.

Why Is The Co-Operative Movement So Successful In Emilia Romagna?

May 16, 2023 Matt Hancock, Low Impact. Create! Cooperatives, Italy, Solidarity Economy, Worker Ownership

In a region of 5 million people, there are 4000 co-operative businesses, that employ 250,000 people – just under a quarter of the entire workforce. The co-op movement in ER goes back to the mid 19th century, with roots in the workers’ mutual aid societies, and many of the early ones are still strong today. It wasn’t a reaction to capitalism. The co-op movement developed alongside capitalism. There’s an entrepreneurial spirit, but also a propensity to do things together – creating associations, unions, co-ops, credit unions etc. There’s joint purchasing and lobbying, collective bargaining etc. There’s a sense that ‘we have to solve problems together’ rather than as individuals.

Workers Who Have Occupied An Italian Factory Are Close To Owning It

April 30, 2023 Conor Gallagher, Naked Capitalism. Resist! Italy, Occupation, Worker Ownership, Worker Rights

The longest-ever factory in Italian history is taking place in Florence where the 300 workers are now making progress at turning it into a worker-owned non-profit that would pay the employees and produce products that would benefit the community. Should the workers succeed, it could provide an inspiration for others. For three years workers at the former automotive parts factory, GKN Florence, were in limbo. According to Investigative Reporting Project Italy, in 2018 GKN was purchased by the British hedge fund Melrose, which went about enacting its motto of “buy, improve, sell.”

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.

Baltimore Is Democratizing The Economy, One Pint At A Time

February 14, 2021 Oscar Perry Abello, Next City. Create! Baltimore, Cooperative, New Economy, Worker Ownership

On your first day working at Taharka Brothers, a majority-Black-owned ice cream maker in Baltimore, you can join the flavor committee and help create flavors like the limited holiday edition Sweet Potato Crumble. Or you can join the social justice committee and vet local organizations to support through ice cream sales, like the Baltimore Action Legal Team. If none of those are to your liking, there are other committees you can join. If you work there for at least 15 months and earn top marks on your most recent performance review, you can become a part-owner of Taharka Brothers, and have not just a say but also a final vote on major business decisions and policies like those performance reviews.

The Economics Lesson Taught By The Pandemic

January 26, 2021 Democracy at Work, ROAR Magazine. Resistance Report COVID-19, Finance and the Economy, Private Ownership, Worker Ownership

On this week’s show, Professor Wolff explains that in countries where the government is respected and empowered, such as New Zealand, Taiwan and Cuba, among others, the COVID-19 pandemic has been effectively contained. Alternately, where the government is demonized, disrespected and distrusted, such as in the UK and the US, the pandemic has been devastating. Prof. Wolff argues that a rational economy includes both private businesses (regulated by the government to different degrees) and state-owned and operated enterprises, depending on which performs best to meet the needs of society. Moreover, besides the question who owns certain enterprises, the way in which they are internally organized (hierarchically or horizontally / worker-owned) is equally important.

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.

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