Projects & Publications

Research on Worker Cooperative Development

We have a 3-year grant from the Kauffman Foundation to compare entrepreneur support organizations that help worker cooperatives and single founder businesses to identify the most effective approaches to aiding the firms and what they might learn from one another. We have been interested in doing this research to help answer questions about what the best models are for the development of new worker cooperatives.

Strategic Corporate Research and Campaign Planning

We worked with the environmental group Earthworks to train them and partners groups on strategic corporate research and campaign planning.

Georgia Cooperative Development

The Georgia Cooperative Development Center (GCDC) provides assistance to startup and existing cooperative businesses across the state of Georgia. Research Action worked with GCDC to evaluate and improve their cooperative training academy.

Central Brooklyn Food Democracy Project

The Central Brooklyn Food Democracy Project seeks to create good jobs, access to healthy, sustainably created food, and support for healthy food preparation rooted in the diverse cultures of Central Brooklyn residents through a consumer owned, black-led grocery store and worker owned food enterprises. For three years Research Action served as project evaluators and contributed collaboratively developed research that created opportunities for organizational learning.

Cooperative Education

We supported the Bronx Cooperative Development Initiative’s Economic Democracy Learning Center’s planning of a network of youth, educators, schools and school leaders who co-created a curriculum and approach to nurturing cooperative values in schools and youth groups. The community-based nonprofit sees education at all levels as an essential part of the movement to build an equitable, sustainable, and democratic local economy that creates wealth and ownership for low-income people of color.

Organization Project Evaluation

We worked on a three year project with a cooperative legal group to evaluate a number of their key programs.

Food Justice Research

We conducted research to help a food justice organization develop new strategies to grow in the future as they reassess their mission. This involved interviews with stakeholders, outreach to community capital groups, and food justice sector research.

Research on the Atlanta City Detention Center

Working with community groups, we provided background research on the history and budget of the Atlanta jail to inform a campaign arguing for alternatives uses for the facility. Read our report.

Media Coverage

Prison Food and Health Care Report

We worked with the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) – Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee to survey over 100 prisoners about serious food and health care problems in prisons.  Read the report.

Media coverage:

New York State Cooperatives

We worked with the Cooperative Development Institute, the Data Commons Cooperative and the Cooperative Economics Alliance of New York City to create a directory of cooperatives and other solidarity economy entities throughout the state.

BELTLINING: Gentrification, Broken Promises, and Hope on Atlanta’s Southside

We produced this report with the Housing Justice League of Atlanta that involved a large-scale participatory action research project and an analysis of census demographic data to determine the effects of the Atlanta Beltline development on housing affordability and neighborhood cultural and social identity.  We determined that the Beltline is bringing gentrification to historically Black neighborhoods and displacement of long-term, low-income residents.

Media coverage:

Union Cooperatives

We worked with the New York City Network of Worker Cooperatives (NYCNOWC), CUNY’s Murphy Institute and the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives (USFWC) to promote alliances between labor unions and worker-owned coops.  See our original informational brochure on union coops, and the newer updated version.

No Piece of the Pie

We worked on a report in collaboration with the Food Chain Workers Alliance on wages and working conditions for 22 million workers in the low-wage food industry, using government data and worker interviews.  Read the report.

Media coverage:

Union Membership Survey

We worked with a professors’ union on a survey of their adjunct members to learn about their health care needs in preparation for upcoming collective bargaining. We obtained a high response rate and found actionable information for the union.

SUNY and Sweatshops: How is SUNY Enforcing its Apparel Anti-Sweatshop Policy?

This report describes an investigation into how well the State University of New York (SUNY) is enforcing its five year old anti-sweatshop policy which is meant to deal with working conditions in the supply chain of its licensed apparel.  Read the report.

Media coverage:

The Crisis in Our Schools: A Report on Working and Learning Conditions in New York City’s Public Schools

This report discusses a survey done by the Movement of Rank & File Educators (MORE) caucus of United Federation of Teachers members in New York City to find out more about their working conditions and students’ learning conditions. Read the report.

Media coverage:

From Herndon Homes to Two Georgia Domes

The online exhibit focuses on two of Atlanta’s Westside neighborhoods, English Avenue and Vine City, over a hundred year period, with special attention paid to the last twenty-five years, and includes oral history interviews, recent and historical media, and other archival items. Visit the exhibit.