Cooperatives 101 Workshop by Caroline Savery, cooperative business development consultant with Keystone Development Center

Thursday, Feb. 23 @ 7–9 p.m.

Feeling glum about the recession? P.O.'ed at the impact corporate greed has had on your local economy? Frustrated by the job market? Wondering how you can apply your talents  to meet the needs of yourself and your neighbors? Are you an entrepreneur who wants to improve your community? Are you curious about how co-ops work? Come learn all  about cooperatives—what they are, how they work, and why they offer a  promising alternative to "business as usual!"  Join us at The Big Idea Cooperative Bookstore on February 23 at 7 p.m. as Caroline Savery,  cooperative business development consultant with Keystone Development Center, presents a Cooperatives 101 Workshop (worker-owned, housing,  more). Free food provided!

A Discussion Course on Cooperatives

Thursdays, March 1–April 19 @ 7–9 p.m. 

This eight-week Discussion Course on Cooperatives is a group-education tool for  people who would like to become familiar with cooperative economics,  history, and philosophy. The Course is designed as a tool for Outreach to  Co-op Members, to be used to facilitate greater participation in the  Co-op community.  The  discussion format is centered around carefully  selected readings made accessible through a concisely planned anthology.  The short readings and lively interpersonal discussions make it the  ideal learning environment for busy people who would like to maximize  their educational experience. Free food will be provided The class is limited to six participants, so please contact  thebigidea+events@gmail.com to reserve your seat and course readings!  http://www.cgin.coop/discussioncourse

In celebration of the United Nation's 2012 declaration of the International Year of the Cooperative, we are organizing a summit of Upstate New York cooperatives - banking, grocery, housing, agricultural, worker.  The summit will be held in Syracuse on Saturday, March 31, and include presentations and discussions with inspiring cooperative organizations and members.  The event is free or very low cost, open to the public, and is primarily being hosted by Syracuse-based Cooperative Federal Credit Union and the Onondaga Small Business Development Center.   All sectors of the cooperative economy are invited.

The event will be an opportunity to

• Build relationships among the cooperative community around New York State
• Educate and inspire entrepreneurs and workers about possible cooperative control of their economic lives
• Give existing cooperatives greater exposure to each other and the public, and
• Assemble a database of organizations and individuals interested in cooperatives, for state-wide organizing.

The schedule of speakers is still growing, and currently includes the following, with lunch provided and plenty of time for networking:

The Big Picture: The Cleveland Evergreen Model and Community Wealth Building

Steve Dubb, The Democracy Collaborative

The Story of Local Cooperatives

Ron Eherenreich, Cooperative Federal Credit Union

Travis Hance, Syracuse Real Foods Co-op

Naquia Edwards, Eat to Live Food Coop

How to Legally Start a Cooperative

Deborah Kenn, Syracuse University College of Law

Jason Hirata, Syracuse University College of Law

Observations on Successful Cooperatives

Brian Henehan, Cornell Cooperative Enterprise Program

How Worker Cooperatives Work

Joe Marraffino, Democracy at Work Network

Kim Pinkham, Pioneer Valley Photovoltaics

Using Media to Raise Capital

Bob Proehl, Buffalo Street Books

Rochdale Principle Six: Cooperatives Developing More Cooperatives

Howie Hawkins, South Side Community Coalition

Equal Exchange, the largest worker-owned coffee roasting facility in the United States, is looking for a Production Assistant to join our production team.  The successful applicant will become a part of our production team which seeks to be a highly effective and flexible team working with the finest coffees in the world. The individual will be expected to learn and perform many of the tasks and activities associated with operating a coffee roasting facility. This position would be for our 2nd shift.

A presentation from Erbin Crowell of Neighboring Food Co-op Association and Adam Trott of the Valley Alliance of Worker Co-ops. 

The Big Idea Cooperative Bookstore and Cafe in Pittsburgh, which will celebrate its 11th anniversary this year, has expanded, growing into a bigger space and working to open a cafe and events space in addition to the bookstore.  The bookstore opened at new location in September but the café has yet to officially open, though very close.  The cooperative is waiting on a little bit more money to secure all the equipment and opening day stock.   Folks are interested in donating or spreading the word  can do so through the cooperatives IndieGoGo fundraising campaign to make up the remaining dollars needed to finally make the cafe's grand opening.

"Operation Cooperation is a 2012 initiative promoting the cooperative economy in greater Boston and across Massachusetts, and is encouraged by the UN’s designation of 2012 as the Year of the Cooperatives.  The benefits of cooperatives to our state economy are clear. Their principal concern is for their members, not profits. Co-ops are organized to solve local problems. They are sustainable by nature and co-op jobs are never under threat of being outsourced. Co-ops share a common goal: that of democratic rule. They have a propensity to support other co-ops and local businesses. Finally, a self-aware and vibrant co-op community strives to create a fairer society".
 

From WickedLocal.com

Occupy Salem Free University will host the forum “Building a Cooperative Economy: From Mondragon to Massachusetts” on Monday, Jan. 30, at 7 p.m. at 217 Essex St. (The Gathering).  Tony Dunn, a longtime labor activist, who is starting a worker-owned business in Lynn, will talk about his recent trip to Mondragon in Spain. He will be joined by Eric Johnson, an active member of the U.S. Federation of Cooperatives, who works at Red Sun Press, a unionized worker-owned business in Boston.

While unemployment reaches Depression-era levels, the politicians talk about cutting deficits, ignoring the needs of the 99 percent. How do we build a new economy based on the needs of the people? Mondragon is a network of worker-owned co-ops that is Spain’s seventh-largest corporation. The Mondragon cooperatives employ more than 80,000 people and virtually never lay anyone off.

A manifesto by Costas Panayotakis, Michael McCabe, Jan Rehmann, Sohnya Sayres, David Van Arsdale, and Richard D. Wolff. 

When workforce and residential communities decide together how the economy evolves, the results will differ sharply from the results of capitalism. Workplace democracy would not, for example, move production to other countries as capitalist corporations have done. Workers’ self-directed enterprises would not pay a few top managers huge salaries and bonuses while most workers’ paychecks and benefits stagnate. Worker-run enterprises sharing democratic decision-making with surrounding communities would not install toxic and dangerous technologies as capitalist enterprises often do to earn more profits. They would, however, be far more likely to provide daycare, elder care and other supportive services. For the first time in human history, societies could democratically rethink and re-organize the time they devote to work, play, relationships, and cultural activities. Instead of complaining that we lack time for the most meaningful parts of our lives, we could together decide to reduce labor time, to concentrate on the consumer goods we really need, and thereby to allow more time for the important relationships in our lives. We might thereby overcome the divisions and tensions (often defined in racial, gender, ethnic, religious, and other terms) that capitalism imposes on populations by splitting them into fully employed, partly employed, and contingent laborers, and those excluded from the labor market.

A new society can be built on the basis of democratically reorganizing our workplaces, where adults spend most of their lifetimes. Over recent centuries, the human community dispensed with kings, emperors, and czars in favor of representative (and partly democratic) parliaments and congresses. The fears and warnings of disaster by those opposed to that social change were proved wrong by history. The change we advocate today takes democracy another necessary and logical step: into the workplace. Those who fear (and threaten) that it will not work will likewise be proven wrong.

Professor John Lawrence, a member of the Grassroots Economic Organizing collective, writes in Baltimore's Indypendent Reader in 2007. 

During the industrial revolution in the United States, labor organizations such as the National Trades' Union, National Labor Union and Knights of Labor endorsed the development of democratic worker-controlled enterprise as a strategy for fighting “wage slavery” and developing a democratic economy. A stated goal of the Knights of Labor was “to establish cooperative institutions such as will tend to supersede the wage-system, by the introduction of a cooperative industrial system.” However, the creation of democratic worker cooperatives in a capitalist context proved exceedingly difficult. Capitalists attacked union co-ops, sometimes violently, but most often denied investment capital and limited access to markets. Repeated co-op failures, conservative labor leaders' acceptance of capitalist control over production, and the Marxist—Leninist emphasis on state control as the only means to power led labor to drop worker cooperative development as an organizing strategy. Now, at the beginning of the 21st century, diverse social movements around the world are showing a renewed interest in organizing democratic workplaces. Promoting democratic work is a key tenet of the solidarity economy movement that seeks to build an economy based on democracy and mutual support from the ground up. Solidarity economy activists argue that instead of waiting for an apocalyptic revolution, it is necessary to start building the new society in the context of old one.

A 2010 thesis paper by Christopher Wright at the University of Massachusetts, Boston.

Worker cooperatives have a long and tortured history, but recently they have been advancing globally on a more stable foundation than before. In this essay I provide a theoretical context for the current growth of cooperatives, drawing on Marxist theory to illuminate their potential. I also consider the sociology and economics of worker cooperatives, in addition to expounding and evaluating their history in the United States. A case-study of a cooperative printing press in Jamaica Plain gives a more intimate portrayal of worker co-ops, and hopefully provides lessons for future cooperators. I interpret society as on the cusp of a triumphant advance of cooperativism; the main purpose of this essay is to explain how and why this advance will occur.

The Cooperative Business Institute (CBI) is a comprehensive training program designed to equip participants with the skills and resources needed to establish and manage a worker-owned cooperative.  CBI trainings and workshops are based on a participatory education model anchored in the tradition of popular education, valuing the knowledge and experience that participants bring to our work.  Through a unique interactive learning environment, our trainers help participants flesh out their needs and goals, and work with them to put what they have learned into practice.  The program provides a range of education and training opportunities on the cooperative model, the green economy, and the legal, organizational and business essentials specific to worker-owned enterprises.  Whether you are looking to strengthen an existing worker cooperative or start a new one, the CBI has something for you.  Choose from one of the following options:

General Assistance

Are you part of an existing worker cooperative looking to strengthen or grow your business? Do you have an idea for a worker cooperative but you’re not sure what to do next? We will work with you to design the right consultation/training package to meet your needs and budget. For a free consultation,

submit a request today and email it to info@cooperationtexas.coop.

Startup Course

The CBI’s startup course is designed for teams of entrepreneurs seeking to start a worker-owned cooperative.  Composed of 13 classes, the CBI’s startup course covers a broad range of topics, including the fundamentals of the worker cooperative model, marketing, financing, democratic decision-making, business planning and more.  Throughout the course, participants will receive assignments to be completed outside of class that will help shape the development and implementation of their business plan.  All 13 classes are two hours long and are held twice weekly at 5604 Manor Rd.  Upon graduation, participants receive additional hands-on training and technical assistance from Cooperation Texas staff and other business professionals, providing legal assistance, logo and website design, and help in finalizing their business plan.  

The next startup course will take place from February 23 – April 5th.  To apply, you must have a team of at least three people committed to a single business concept.  The cost per team is $1,500, and we will work with each team to create a payment plan that meets their budget.  To apply, fill out the application and send it to info@cooperationtexas.coop by February 16th.

Hipfish Monthly looks back on the history of Astoria, Oregon's Blue Scorcher Bakery and Café. 

In 2009 co-founders Joe Garrison and Iris Sullivan Daire (married partners) began meeting more formally with a group of the workers who were interested in developing the business as a co-op. While Joe and Iris have officially been the owners in a DBA structure, “From the beginning it was a very participatory, collective business,” says Iris.

Flashback 2004, many customers to Blue Scorcher will remember The Bread Collective, the more humble beginnings of the busy bakery/café — about 5 folks gathered together in the back of a former restaurant, to bake good organic bread together and tasty cookies, and make it available to desiring consumers. What seemed rather experimental at the time has since evolved into one of Astoria’s most popular community gathering places. On a recent stormy weekday afternoon, there was a substantial crowd both at the bakery takeout counter and at the restaurant tables, where patrons enjoyed a daily special of fragrant garbanzo tangine soup served of course, with a gargantuan chunk of bread hand made in the bread oven a few feet away. Unlike most restaurants, here one of numerous chef/cooks delivers your meal to you, a touch that seems especially homey. The Blue Scorcher has also long been a large part of both the social and philanthropic scene in Astoria, hosting the late summer Lughnasa Fest, celebrating local growers and sustainability practices, Full Moon monthly dinner gatherings, making the dining area available to numerous types of events and bread donations to community organizations.

As the Blue Scorcher has curbed some if its own community productions, the focus now has turned to the work of creating cooperative bylaws, and membership agreements as six worker members step up to the cooperative plate with earnest monies. And while a worker-cooperative model serves a practical economic approach, Iris Sullivan Daire speaks passionately to the humanistic qualities that the coop structure allows, “When you have a voice, you are more fully human. When you are separate from what you do [in your place of employment] it becomes enslavement.” The cooperative environment, as the Blue Scorcher proves too, is creating space for people to transition in life and in their relationship to work.

"Shot In The Dark Café worker cooperative  is a collectively owned and operated coffee shop / restaurant.  We serve 100% organic, fair trade coffee and espresso.  We have a full breakfast, lunch, and dinner menu,  served 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, even on holidays!  Coffee, espresso drinks, house made chai, fresh cookies, homemade pastries.  Great food and generous portions, options for vegetarians, vegans and carnivores, and breakfast all day!  Live music & open mic night, art gallery, plenty of comfy seating, ethernet outlets, free WiFi and well-ventilated indoor smoking patio!  We also offer a selection of cigarettes!

Unlike the vast majority of businesses in Tucson or elsewhere, Shot in the Dark Cafe is owned and operated by its entire staff.  What this means is that everyone who works here owns part of the business, has a share in all profits and has a say regarding all major decisions. No major changes can be made to the business, nor can anyone be hired or fired, without passing a vote of the entire staff."

The Gainesville Business Report has an article on the thriving cooperative movement in the "eclectic" university town in North Central Florida, including the worker-owned restaurant Civilization. 

Gainesville’s eclectic culture has spawned several co-operative businesses in recent years, providing the community with access to good food and great art, creating great places to gather and giving members pride of ownership…

...Prosser was intent upon operating a business in which the workers were the owners when he bought Terranova Catering three years ago. He was buoyed by the availability of top-notch staff with whom he had worked at the Paramount Grill and other restaurants.  There was a catch. Most of the workers he started with didn’t get it, Prosser says. “They couldn’t get used to a different way of doing things. Democracy can be frustrating.”

Fortunately, Prosser and his wife, Ann Murray, have found an ample supply of workers, many of them artists, who embrace the idea of becoming part of a worker-owned cooperative as he expanded Terranova and started Civilization restaurant, Prosser says.  In addition to the 10 owners-workers, Civilization has 15 other workers, most of whom are interested in making the $1,000 commitment—which can be paid over time—to become owners, Murray says.  Among those involved is Caroline Hines, one of the few original staff who has remained with the business. Hines, who manages the catering business, says being an owner makes people like their jobs better  “It makes you responsible and aware of what needs to be done,” she says. “If I see that the plants need to be watered, I water them. If I see that the mat needs to be swept, I sweep it.”

Related

• Gainesville, Florida's Worker-owned Restaurant: Civilization
• Florida senatorial candidate promises support for worker-owned cooperative businesses

Union Cab of Madison, a Worker Cooperative in Madison, WI, is hiring a Business Manager.  Excellent communication and team leadership skills are required.  If interested please visit www.unioncab.coop/businessmanager for more information.  Union Cab is an equal opportunity / affirmative action employer.

Business Manager Opening

Union Cab is a worker-owned cooperative founded in 1979.  We have 240 members, and are located in Madison, Wisconsin.  We are looking for a Business Manager to fill the following job description:

Objectives:
Insure the financial sustainability of the cooperative while achieving the cooperative’s mission and maintain its core values.  Provide an overview of the different segments of the organization and ensure communication among the management teams and between the Board, management teams, and the membership.   Help plan for the cooperative’s future and develop infrastructure for the cooperative to maintain sustainability.