COOPERATIVE

A worker cooperative is an organization owned, self-managed, and dedicated to its members. A good definition that can be found in the animation below is: ”a worker cooperative is like a business, only instead of being controlled by the boss’s boss’s boss, it is controlled democratically, by the workers themselves.”

There are many different types of cooperatives. A grocery coop is a consumer cooperative, which allows members to join together to purchase goods in bulk. These cooperatives can be a great way to use purchasing power to support local farmers and food producers.

A worker cooperative is a business that is owned and managed democratically by the workers themselves.

Different worker cooperatives have different ways of managing work, making decisions, and dividing profits. There are many options.

On the other hand, the pay for CEOs in the US in 2020 was 351 times more than the pay for workers. That’s a 1,322% increase since 1978. Maybe it’s better to ask whether CEOs work 351 times harder than their workers?

Worker cooperatives exist today in many different industries, and can be any size. Taharka Brothers is a small worker cooperative in Baltimore with about 25 employees that produces and sells ice cream with flavors like Honey Graham, Key Lime Pie, and Matcha Mochi.

The Mondragon Corporation in Spain includes more than 250 separate companies in the areas of Finance, Industry, Retail, and Knowledge, with about 81,000 employees.

New York has many successful worker cooperatives, and the number has increased dramatically since the beginning of the pandemic in early 2020.

Brooklyn’s Sunset Park neighborhood has  worker cooperatives of house cleaners, home health aides, tutors, dog walkers, childcare, and more.

Many low-wage workers have very few benefits, even if their employer is a wealthy, multinational corporation.

Worker cooperatives allow members to focus on people and not just profits. For example, the US’s largest worker cooperative is Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA) in the Bronx. At the start of the pandemic when many “essential workers” felt abandoned by their employers, CHCA’s in-home caregivers could rely upon their organization to keep them safe on the job.

Young people are real workers. They can be exploited in their jobs just like anyone!

Members of worker cooperatives all believe in more democratic workplaces, but they are an incredibly diverse group. 99% of worker cooperative members in New York describe themselves as women of color.

Many freelancers in the gig economy are highly exploited, and joining a worker cooperative can improve their working conditions.

Rideshare drivers should consider signing up to drive for The Drivers’ Cooperative, which takes only about half the commission that other apps take from their drivers.

Even house cleaners who have already organized themselves into groups of workers can increase their salaries by an average of $5 per hour by using the worker-owned Up & Go app.

It depends on whether you believe that the government should support democracy in the workplace.

Even if you do not believe that the government should be directly connected to businesses,  worker cooperatives reduce inequality by paying fairer wages and letting members become business owners.

Worker cooperatives face challenges that other businesses do not have to deal with. There are many laws and regulations today that give businesses unfair advantages against cooperatives.

For example, it is much more difficult for a worker cooperative to apply for a business loan at a bank.

The process for giving out government contracts is complicated, but there are some ways for community members to influence how the government spends its budget.

For example, participatory budgeting allows community members to vote on how to use part of the City Council District budget for community projects:

Participatory budgeting is a program in many of New York’s City Council districts that allow community members to control how about $1 million is spent on community projects.

In 2018, participatory budgeting controlled only .05% of New York City’s $89 budget. This is about $1 million per City Council district, and it is not enough to support even small cooperatives.

However, in Porto Alegre, Brazil, where this program first happened, participatory budgeting controlled 21% of the city’s budget in 1999. This is a much larger amount.

Participatory budgeting is not only building a playground or fixing a public school bathroom. It is also about empowering community members to be more involved in the local political process.

Shahana Hanif, the Council Member from Brooklyn’s 39th District, also points out that participatory budgeting is a democratic process that anyone can be involved in, even someone who is younger than 18, a non-citizen, or undocumented.

Here is a video from Borough President Antonio Reynoso about starting a participatory budgeting in Brooklyns’ 34th District:

Several local officials have supporter the worker cooperative movement in New York.

For example, Council Member Shahana Hanif, from Brooklyn’s 39th District, has a set of policies to support worker cooperatives, including starting a bank to make it easier for cooperatives to get loans, increasing education about cooperatives, and building more cooperatives to generate solar polar.

However, the best support for worker cooperatives would be more government contracts.

Besides the government, very large nonprofit organizations also have the budget to give contracts to worker cooperatives. These are called “anchor institutions.”

For example, a hospital or university could give contracts for cleaning or laundry to a local worker cooperative instead of a business.