Tag: Labor Movement

In the 1800s unions and cooperatives were part of the same movement. Today once again, unions are collaborating with cooperatives to save jobs, create new ones, and organize new members.

From the early days of the labor movement, as John Curl makes clear in his excellent book For All the People: Uncovering the Hidden History of Cooperation, Cooperative Movements, and Communalism in America, union members saw cooperatives as vital to their struggle. Unions and cooperatives were part of a growing labor movement that also included myriad political parties, mutual aid societies, fraternal organizations, and secret worker associations.

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At the Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy, held in New York City this weekend, there was a great panel on how unions and cooperatives are increasingly working together and forming union cooperatives. From the panel description:

Under fierce attack from the corporate sector, labor unions are exploring worker co-ops as a way to organize new members, save members’ jobs, create new jobs, and build community alliances. Presenters from NYC, Cincinnati and beyond will share their unions’ experiences with these experiments. Through panels, small group discussions and networking opportunities participants will explore how the co-op business model can help to strengthen and expand our unions.

Speakers included:

• Ellen Vera – National Manufacturing Organizing Coordinator, IUE-CWA; cofounder, Cincinnati Union Co-op Initiative
• Mary Hoyer – cochair, UnionCo-ops Council of US Federation of Worker Co-ops
• David Hammer – ICA Group, consultants to unions on business conversions
• Keith Joseph – 1199SEIU representative for Cooperative Home Care Associates, the U.S.’s largest worker coop
• Arturo Archila – United Steel Workers NYC, helped launch a unionized coop
• Roger Green, director, Bunche-DuBois Center for Public Policy Research, Medgar Evers College

The panel was sponsored by the Union Co-ops Council of the US Federation of Worker Coops, Murphy Institute for Worker Education & Labor Studies-CUNY, NYC Network of Worker Cooperatives, FPWA and 1Worker1Vote.org.

Research|Action helped plan the session and created the informational brochure on union-coops.

Activists in Oakland have been campaigning for new city policies that would assist worker cooperative development. After successfully winning passage of a city resolution in support of cooperatives last fall, they are now pushing for a new law, the Oakland Worker Cooperative Incentives for Growth Ordinance. Supporters will speak in support at the upcoming hearing at City Hall on September 27, and the ordinance is likely to pass in October. It would grant a variety of benefits for registered worker cooperatives including procurement preferences, development funding, tax incentives, streamlined permitting and promotion of business conversion to cooperatives. The Sustainable Economies Law Center, one of the key promoters of the ordinance, says that it will be the first of its kind to offer this level of assistance for cooperatives.

This campaign is one part of a vibrant, growing movement advancing community-oriented, alternative ways of economic development. This includes cooperatives and credit unions, community land trusts, municipal participatory budgeting, local renewable energy and various community organizing initiatives to build local power, all within a grassroots, intersectional and anti-oppression political framework. This kind of work is often referred to as the “new economy” or “solidarity economy.”

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