Are Co-ops the Answer?: Around the world, people are democratizing the workplace

[marmar]

from In These Times:



Are Co-ops the Answer?
Around the world, people are democratizing the workplace.

BY Rebecca Burns


Long before the Occupy movement sparked renewed protest of rising inequality, another global movement was quietly engaged in building a more democratic economy. From coffee growers in Kenya seeking a fair market price to worker-owned green businesses reviving the American Rust Belt, cooperatives are helping to spur a reinvention of work in a period of worldwide recession.

Globally, an estimated 1 billion people are members of cooperatives, and many believe that the scope of worker- and member-owned enterprises across the world represents a revolution already in the making. With combined earnings rivaling Canada’s GDP, co-ops could be the fastest-growing business model by the end of the decade. To promote awareness of their potential, the United Nations has declared 2012 the “International Year of Cooperatives.” Cooperative organizers, though they have generally worked on a separate track from protest movements, have called on Occupy and other mass movements to help build “an economy worth occupying.”

“It was really serendipitous that the ‘Year of Cooperatives’ happened at the same time as the Occupy movement,” says Cheyenna Weber of SolidarityNYC, a group that links social movements with “solidarity economy” initiatives. “There’s so much attention to this because people are intimately aware that the economic crisis is not going away on its own … they’re starting to get serious about doing it themselves.”

But do the swelling numbers of cooperative businesses constitute a force capable of transforming the broader economy? Governmental support for co-ops, though increasing at the behest of the U.N., is based on the principle that co-ops can create employment as part of a mixed economy, most often in sectors where capital has already retreated. And though most co-ops follow a set of seven principles – among them open membership, autonomy and concern for community – there are significant differences in how directly members or workers participate in decision-making and how explicitly they engage with broader economic justice movements. ...................(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/13178/are_co_ops_the_answer

[DirkGently]

1. An excellent piece.

[Maineman]

2. Yes !

[Cleita]

3. I'm thinking so and it could reverse the trend of union busting in this country.

I think it's the future.

[freshwest]

4. I love it!

[limpyhobbler]

5. yes, part of the answer

But not a replacement for the things that are best done by the gov't .

[yurbud]

6. yes, they are.

Individuals can start up factories and services because they have a unique vision for the product, and once that company goes public, so long as those founders or someone with the same vision is at the helm, all is well.

But once they are gone and the MBA bean counters take over, it's a little like having Hannibal Lector as your new doctor.

He could help you or take a helping of you.

A simple way to get to this co-ops: instead of one share one vote, one person one vote, including employees, investors, and as much as possible customers.