Chris Mackin of Ownership Associates will be teaching a Spring 2012 course called Democratic Capitalism at the Rutger's School of Management and Labor Relations, where he is a fellow.   See Mackin's recent article in the Nation: Employee Ownership: The Road to Shared Prosperity. 

"This course examines how to create a more inclusive economy where workers can obtain a fair share in the wealth that they create. Overview of relevant political and economic thinkers, both classical and contemporary. Review of relevant public policies and models both domestic and international. Examination of democracy within the firm, the role of unions and organizational cultures. Exploration of career tracks for students." 

Other Curricula:

• UMass' The Economics of Cooperative Enterprises
• UConn's Introduction to the Co-Operative Movement: History, Philosophy & Prospects for the Future
• The Babson-Equal Exchange Curriculum on Cooperatives
• MIT's Community-Owned Enterprise and Civic Participation course
• UC Berkeley's: Cooperatives and Community Development Education for Ownership

A menu option for all the content with videos has been added: Videos.  You can also look at a list of those posts: Video Index.

Here's the index so far. 

Videos from October's North American Worker Co-operative Conference in Quebec City via the Canadian Worker Cooperative Federation.

Aaron Dawson is a board member of the United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives.

Yilda Campos is from the Rainbow Grocery Worker Cooperative in San Francisco.

Melissa Hoover is the Executive Director of the United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives.

Rebecca Kemble is President if the United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives and was elected president of CICOPA North America at this conference.

The CoopZone Developers' Network Co-operative is pleased to announce that it will offer a two-level on-line training program on co-operative development, beginning in September, 2011.  The first level, called the Foundations Program will last for one year (September - April).  The second level, or the Advanced Program, will last for two years.  Each level is designed to take 2 - 3 hours per week.  For more information, please read the attached brochure, which provides a high-level summary of the program, and practical information about it (application deadline, tuition, etc.). 

• Brochure Co-op Development Training Program
• Co-op Development Foundations Module Outline & Learning Objectives
• Co-op Development Advanced Module Outline & Learning Objectives
• CoopZone Development Training Program Powerpoint Information Slides

As the Occupy Wall Street movement has steadily grown into a global uprising against a corporate-dominated economy, many are wondering how we can begin to build an economy rooted in social justice.  Join the Center for Political Education, members of Arizmendi Bakery & Panaderia, and PODER (People Organizing to Demand Environmental & Economic Rights) for a film and discussion series exploring the past, present and future of worker-owned cooperative experiences, from the Mission District to Mondragón, Spain.   This will be an ongoing monthly film series.  Arizmendi's cooperatively produced pastries and pizza will be available at the screenings. 

October 25th:  Cooperativism in the US

"Beyond the Bottom Line"  A 30 minute documentary about a little known twist on the American Dream – businesses in which workers own the stock, reap the profits and decide for themselves how the company runs.   

"Democracy in the Workplace"  In this half hour video, the worker-owners of three Bay Area businesses show what it's like to work collectively and deal with problems in a truly democratic way. These businesses are managed solely by their employees.  

November 15th:  Cooperativism after Crisis

*Screening at Arizmendi Bakery: 1268 Valencia Street, San Francisco

"The Take"  A documentary film by Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein about how workers in Argentina are taking over the factories abandoned by their owners after their country is devastated by economic crisis. 

December (DATE TBA): Cooperativism Gone Big

"The Mondragon Experiment"  A BBC Docmentary from the 1980s about the origins and growth of the Basque cooperative corporation, including a short history of the Rochdale cooperatives that inspired the Don José María Arizmendiarrieta.  

Rink Dickinson, co-founder and co-president of Equal Exchange, writes about the cooperative's fair trade principles.

Founders and Founding Principles – Equal Exchange was started by Jonathan Rosenthal, Michael Rozyne and me. The three of us were all working at a food coop warehouse from the early 80′s before Equal’s founding in 1986. Working together in that environment that functioned in the food system but was active in trying to change the food system fed our souls and gave us vital experience. We got to buy and sell produce, cheese, and grains. Because that warehouse was doing cutting edge work buying from farmers coops we learned how to trade like this. And we made all kinds of mistakes. Over ordering. Under ordering. Buying from farms that were too big for us, or from farms that were too small, or were poorly organized.

We were direct marketing local products, often produce, to all kinds of consumers who were organized in pre-order/self organized clubs and cooperative storefronts We got to learn about marketing, customer service, co-op democracy,and building a movement while moving a product.  Those lessons were grafted into the core operating DNA of Equal Exchange.

Co-directors, Rob Everts & Rink Dickinson

The first strand of the DNA was to take risk and learn. And we knew to do that meant to experience ongoing failure. Everything about Equal Exchange was a risk by definition. Our starting product – Cafe Nica Nicaraguan coffee was from an embargoed country. Our entire concept was to sell fair trade coffee and food which in 1986 meant we were marketing a concept that simply didn’t exist. But beyond that we didn’t know how to raise money, how to incorporate, how to create financial statements or really how to launch Equal Exchange. But we did know how to support and challenge each other. We shared this work with each other and opened the door for others but tried to keep a high bar. We believed new members needed to be given authority to make decisions but only if that was earned through responsibly admitting failure, sharing failure, and hence creating genuine learning. In a very real way that learning was the product we were trying to create. That learning was also critical to try to hold together the other two key somewhat contradictory strands of core operating DNA.

The second strand of the DNA was democracy. The co-op warehouse we worked at before Equal Exchange was collectively run by consensus by employees who were not owners of the co-op and had no governance control of the co-op. Instead, ownership (which was weak) and control were, in theory, held by consumers in the buying clubs and stores to whom we sold. Jonathan, Michael and I loved the democracy experimentation, at times loved consensus, and strongly objected to the employees being absent in ownership, governance and control. Instead of running from democracy and creating a private company, we ran towards democracy and created a worker co-op dedicated to the goal of supporting small farmers. It was a pretty crazy dream and I feel fortunate every day to get to do this work. It is not easy trying to even understand how to build a market-based organization that is democratic. We fail on a regular basis as we walk down this path. But we stay on that path.

The third strand of the DNA was strong management. We believed that the only way we had a chance to succeed was to hustle, make decisions, screw up, and get back up and do it again. To do this, meant that management needed to be empowered and backed up. The seeming contradiction is to build democracy while building strong management. Holding these things together are people and the need for an outstanding hiring process and the need for a high degree of trust. That trust is still there at Equal Exchange today but not as a static easy guaranteed trust. It is earned and lost and re-earned everyday as we all go through the stresses and strains of supporting small farmers, increasing sales, taking care of customers, and wearing the multiple hats of owners, workers, and perhaps managers or board members as well.

Via NYC NoWC

"On September 15th, NYC NoWC received a call from the Policy Division of City Council Speaker Christine Quinn. They wanted to know how City Council might help worker cooperatives in New York City!  We acted immediately, engaging in continuous telephone and email dialogue, submitting proposals, providing research assistance, and arranging two in-person meetings at City Council offices. After one month of discussion, City Council decided to act on two proposals:

• City Council will provide Center for Family Life in Sunset Park (a member of NYC NoWC) with a $150,000 grant to incubate 2-3 new worker cooperatives and
• City Council will facilitate a working relationship between NYC NoWC and NYC Small Business Services.

On October 18th, Council Speaker Christine Quinn made a speech announcing a series of new job growth initiatives. Included in the speech was a mention of the $150,000 grant to Center for Family Life in Sunset Park (CFLSP).  Since then, CFLSP has received additional press coverage, and expects a press event next week at CFLSP offices with Christine Quinn.

NYC NoWC is extremely excited to be working with City Council, and tremendously grateful for its generosity. And we look forward to continued collaboration with City Council on the issue of worker cooperative job creation."

Related

• Other posts on the Center for Family Life

• The Center for Family Life: Tackling Poverty and Social Isolation in Brooklyn with Worker Cooperatives (Grassroots Economic Organizing)

From the dawning of the industrial epoch, wage earners have organized themselves into unions, fought bitter strikes, and have gone so far as to challenge the very premises of the system by creating institutions of democratic self-management aimed at controlling production without bosses. Looking at specific examples drawn from every corner of the globe and every period of modern history, this pathbreaking volume comprehensively traces this often under-appreciated historical tradition. Ripe with lessons drawn from historical and contemporary struggles for workers’ control, Ours to Master and to Own is essential reading for those struggling to bring to birth a new world from the ashes of the old.

Immanuel Ness is professor of political science at Brooklyn College, City University of New York, and a founding member of the Lower East Side Community Labor Organization, an autonomous activist organization in New York City. His research and writing focuses on social and revolutionary movements, labor militancy, and migrant worker resistance to oppression. Ness has just completed Guest Workers, Corporate Despotism and Resistance,(forthcoming University of Illinois Press) a book that examines the rise of guest workers from the global South in the US and labor opposition to employer abuses. He is author of numerous books including an anthology of contemporary labor: Real World Labor, with Amy Offner and Chris Sturr (Dollars & Sense). He edits the peer-review quarterly journal, Working USA: The Journal of Labor and Society, and has also edited several reference works, including the International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest: 1500 to the Present (Wiley-Blackwell 2009), and, with Aaron Brenner and Bejamin Day, the Encyclopedia of Strikes in American History (Sharpe 2009).

Dario Azzellini is a writer, documentary director and political scientist and lecturer at Johannes Kepler University in Linz, Austria. He splits his time between Berlin and Caracas. His research and writing focuses on social and revolutionary militancy, migration and racism, people’s power and selfadministration, and workers control, with extensive case studies in Latin America. He served as Associate Editor for the The International Encyclopedia of Revolution and Protest: 1500 to the Present, and was primary editor for Latin America, the Spanish Caribbean, and the new left in Italy. He serves as Associate Editor for WorkingUSA: The Journal of Labor and Society and for Cuadernos de Marte, an academic publication about war sociology released by the University of Buenos Aires. He has published several books, among them The Business of War (Assoziation A 2002), about the privatization of military services. His latest documentary Comuna under construction (2010) examines worker councils in Venezuela.

A new day is dawning for cooperatives all across our land – from Northwest Philadelphia to the Cornbelt. A movement that throughout our history has been associated with rural areas is taking hold in our largest cities, with Philadelphia as a prime success story.

That is why I am co-sponsoring – along with Republican Congresswoman Jo Ann Emerson of Missouri – a Capitol Hill briefing on “The Role of Cooperatives in Rural and Urban Communities.”  The briefing, aimed at Members and their staff, will showcase practitioners, advocates and academics describing the challenges that coops are facing. It will describe why federal policy support – which I have pledged to develop -- is needed for these unique entities.

The policy makers and stakeholders who will be filling a Rayburn House Office Building hearing room Tuesday afternoon will hear a lot about Mt. Airy’s pride, the Weavers Way Coop. Bob Noble of Weavers Way will make a presentation along with speakers from the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association, Cleveland Ohio’s Evergreen Cooperative Initiative, the National Credit Union Association and others from city, town and farm. Credit Unions – a major banking alternative in Philadelphia – are, by the way, the nation’s largest co-op sector.

Health coperatives are a growing segment of the movement . On Friday March 25, in New York City, I visited the Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA) -- a nationally recognized, South Bronx-based owner home care agency. CHCA now anchors a national cooperative network generating over $60 million annually in revenue and creating quality jobs for over 1,600 individuals.

Such economic impact is the norm. Coops are unique, but they aren’t small.  Overall, U.S. cooperatives account for more than $3 trillion in assets, over $500 billion in revenue, $25 billion in wages and benefits – and nearly one million jobs.

Cooperatives are good neighbors. Often cooperatives provide funds for community fairs, health centers, fund drives, and the like. As a result of working together in cooperatives, members better understand how to unite in solving community problems. And leaders developed in cooperatives – as we have seen at Weavers Way -- also become leaders in other community organizations.

As Co-Chairman of the Congressional Urban Caucus, I have set the cooperative movement high on my agenda for the 112th Congress. I have met with national co-op leaders, and my staff is developing approaches that support their legislative goals. Whatever else may be the temper of the current Congress, the cooperative movement offers great prospects – to use the proper word - for bipartisan “cooperation.”

Congressman Chaka Fattah visiting the offices of Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA) in New York City. Featured in this picture are Congressman Fattah, CHCA President Michael Elsas along with four home health aides – Isabel Manjarrez, Margarita Pillot, Marva Diggins, and Gail Porter.

Via the Canadian Worker Cooperative Federation

Quebec Declaration

In the lead-up to the UN International Year of Co-operatives 2012, and on the occasion of the first North American Worker Co-operative Conference (Quebec City, October 13-15, 2011), the Worker Co-op Federations in North America have come together to create CICOPA-North America and have drafted this joint Declaration on the socio-economic future of our communities and on public policy concerning co-operatives.

Who We Are, What We Believe, and the World We Want to Build 

Worker co-operatives are enterprises that are owned and controlled by their workers. Their purpose is to provide their member-owners with a work environment which facilitates their professional and human development, and provides the best wages and benefits possible within the capacity of their businesses. Worker co-ops are run democratically on the principle of one member - one vote.  

Worker co-operatives around the world embrace and accept the seven Co-operative Principles recognized by the International Co-operative Alliance and the Co-operative Values: self-help, democracy, equality, and solidarity. In the tradition of their founders, co-operative members embrace the ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility and caring for others.

Together, members of worker co-operatives work for the establishment of a new mode of socio-economic development with a human face, in which economic, social and cultural needs of human beings will always have priority over the requirements of capital. We envision a co-operative economy whose goal is to serve the needs of the people who build it rather than the capital that finances it. Together, members work for the establishment of a new mode of sustainable socio-economic development that is just for all, and compatible with the ecological sustainability of our planet.

Our co-operative federations have the mission to help worker co-operatives build a new world with a just and caring human face. The five worker co-op federations in North America signing this Declaration pledge to do everything possible, in accordance with our values, to accomplish this mission,

•  by facilitating the creation of new worker co-operatives,
• by facilitating the harmonious development of our co-operative members,
• by partnering with all organizations sharing this vision and the will to act for the emergence of this new mode of equitable, sustainable socio-economic development, and
• by urging governments to use the worker co-operative model to contribute to this better future.

The Six Components of Coherent and Effective Public Policy to Encourage the Creation and Development of Worker Co-operatives

In order to urge governments to help create this better future, we call for coherent and effective public policy favouring the creation and development of this new model of socio-economic development, with the following six components. 

1. Recognition: Recognize the relevance of and provide for the eligibility of worker co-operatives in government programs and policies in all ministries and government agencies.

2. Development: Facilitate the creation and development of worker co-operatives by working in partnership with their federations, notably by helping them to fulfill their mission of promoting worker co-operation, education for economic democracy and technical assistance in the creation and development of worker co-operatives.

3. Capitalization: Facilitate the capitalization and financing of worker co-operatives by the establishment of dedicated co-operative development funds in partnership with the co-operative movement, as well as by favourable tax policies.

4. Legislation: Adopt a specific law governing the operation of worker co-operatives, or specific provisions on worker co-operatives in the case of a broader law on co-operatives.

5. Conversions: Propose the co-operative solution as an alternative to the risk of the imminent closure of thousands of companies following the retirement of their owners from the baby boomer generation and the lack of potential buyers expected; set up programs to help the succession of these companies to their employees through one or other of the various legal forms of co-operatives controlled by their employees.

6. Government Procurement: Strengthen the network of worker co-operatives by giving priority in purchasing their goods and services.

Signed by

• Canadian Worker Co-operative Federation
• United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives
• Le RÉSEAU de la coopération du travail du Québec
• La Fédération québécoise des coopératives forestières
• La Fédération des Coopératives des Paramédics du Québec

CICOPA is the international organization of worker co-operatives, affiliated with the International Co-operative Alliance. CICOPA-Americas is its regional organization in the Americas, and CICOPA-North America, covering worker co-ops in Quebec, the rest of Canada and the United States, is the sub-regional entity.

A collaboration between the Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives and UMass Amherst students and faculty, the UMass Amherst Cooperative Enterprises Collaborative (UMCEC) is dedicated to further learning and research about worker cooperatives, and to foster partnerships between academics and cooperators in the Pioneer Valley.

Previously:

• UMass Amherst Partners with Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives on Applied Research Program

Immanuel Ness reports, via the Luxembburg Gesellschaftsanalyse und Linke Praxiz, on the 2011 Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy.

"The Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy (ECWD) held its biannual conference in Baltimore, Maryland from 8-10 July, focusing on the effort to expand and consolidate a national network of worker cooperatives. The meeting was attended by more than 200 participants who were committed to expanding the conference for workers democracy in the US and Canada. At a time when organized labor in the US is at its unprecedented nadir, a central theme emerged from the conference: As traditional trade unions are declining it is vital to build new forms of worker organization rooted in the concept of democracy and equality. 

The ECWD brought together leading activists and participants from the North American cooperative movement to discuss the state of cooperatives, new initiatives, and potential obstacles to forging worker democracy and economic control in the region. The conference brought together a diverse group of cooperatives engaged in new organizing efforts.

The original goal of the conference was to share experiences and knowledge on new developments facing cooperatives in the US and Canada, expand opportunities to marginalized communities, and developing an agenda to maintain and develop the cooperative movement in the US through working-class solidarity.

Michelle Matos y Cristina Hernandez de Cooperativas de la Accion de Mujeres para Obtener Seguridad Economica. Workshop California Cooperative Conference April 8-9, 2011 Berkeley, California

Via JJ Noire's Mighty Small Films

"After years of waiting on a Brooklyn street corner trying to land jobs cleaning houses, Teresa Bucio decided there had to be a better way to earn a living.  Like dozens of Latina immigrants, Ms. Bucio, 33, used to stand at the corner of Division and Marcy Avenues in Williamsburg every morning, hoping to be hired.  The intersection — a bare cement triangle overlooking a sunken stretch of the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway — is an unusual all-women day labor site where residents of the heavily Hasidic neighborhood find people to clean their homes. Ligia Guallpa, an advocate for day laborers who has assisted women at the site for years, estimated that some 200 women congregated there over any given week, and many of them are illegal immigrants.

But work is by no means guaranteed. Before the Sabbath or Jewish holidays, the demand for cleaners increases; on other days, many women never leave the corner.  So some of them decided they would take matters into their own hands and start a business.  “If they pick you up for two or three hours, that’s good,” said Ms. Bucio, who moved to the United States from Michoacán, Mexico, with her sister in 1997. “And if not, in any case, you go like you arrived, with empty hands.”

Last November, the Bucio sisters founded the Apple Eco-Friendly Cleaning cooperative with a handful of women whom they met at the Williamsburg hiring site. The group advertises on recycled paper and makes its own cleaning products, forgoing harsh chemicals for ingredients like lemon juice, glycerin, borax and fruit oils. The women taught themselves to make the cleansers and refined their recipes through a combination of Internet research and trial and error.  “When we say we’re from a company with a business card, they treat you differently from the time you arrive,” Yesenia Bucio, 32, Teresa Bucio’s sister, said. “I feel very good, very happy and I have very high self-esteem.”"

Watch video at the New York Times:

Related

• Apple Eco-Friendly Cleaning Cooperative joins 2011 Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy
  

Mike Leung offers another thoughtful look at worker cooperative economic structure, this time exploring startup losses.  

Abstract
This paper examines the losses in the startup phase of a worker cooperative. The startup operating losses are shown to translate into capital losses for the founding members, which are ignored or misinterpreted under the standard accounting treatment. The losses mean the fixed price buy-in (capital contribution) is inherently equal, as later members experience no reduction of their investment. The startup losses raise fundamental questions about the interpretation and implementation of core values like worker ownership, and what qualifies as a valid (non labor based) return on capital.

Worker Cooperative Startups
Worker cooperatives are worker owned, democratically managed businesses. Worker ownership means that members appropriate any profit or loss the coop incurs. Outside investors are limited to a fixed rate of return. Democratic management means one member, one vote in the governance of the cooperative, giving the workers control. The standard worker cooperative model has internal capital accounts comprised of member investments, a collective reserve account of unallocated retained earnings, debt, and preferred equity (non-voting, non-convertible, fixed value, fixed return shares).  This paper focuses on the special case of a worker cooperative startup. Startup worker cooperatives are expected to have an initial operating loss. After the startup period worker cooperatives are generally expected to be profitable, barring unforeseen circumstances.  Worker cooperatives create a unique investment situation where initial members are required to make an investment that is expected to decline in value, something unprecedented in mainstream finance.

Related

• Abolish Human Rentals
• Mike Leung Analyzes Worker Cooperative Capital Structure
• Mike Leung Interviews David Ellerman about Human Rental and the Inalienable Rights of Labor