List of worker cooperatives Puns

Mondrogon is the best known but I've heard they've become less and less cooperative over time. There are many other great examples, please list if you know of them.

I like the idea of worker cooperatives. According to Wikipedia, > A worker cooperative is a cooperative that is owned and self-managed by its workers. This control may mean a firm where every worker-owner participates in decision-making in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one in which management is elected by every worker-owner who each have one vote.

I've heard that there are a lot of power company worker cooperatives. But have had trouble finding them. Does anyone know a good resource for finding a list of them in US? Also, are most power company cooperatives consumer cooperatives? Because I found more of those than worker cooperatives. I've tried US Federation of Worker Cooperatives list and Google without much luck.

Comment below with your thoughts

And before you flame this post, don't think every IT person has it made. It can be very very difficult to break into the industry without the right connections.

I recently read The AutoDesk File and I encourage you to do the same, at least the first 3 pages.

I want to hear what everyone thinks, if it could be a successful way to crowdsource labor in the modern age and give back the profits to the member-owners.

This idea came to me after looking into Worker Cooperatives and wondering if that structure could thrive in our current situation where so much of our work can be done remotely and asynchronously.

I see this argument thrown around a lot by literals who are skeptical of their proven advantages simply because they aren’t as widespread. Would be nice to have all the reasons for their smaller scope listed as well as any logical problems with the argument at hand.

Advocating/denouncing socialism, capitalism, communism, or any other economic school of thought is irrelevant to the question. I am explicitly asking why you dislike the concept of worker cooperatives only and am uninterested and will not reply to any other rhetoric.

So I’ve been an avid cook all my life, I come from a greek family of food industry folk, graduated a culinary community college program in 2019 and since then I’ve been trying to start a probiotic food worker cooperative. I’ve had gut illness since birth and I’m very passionate about food security, workers rights and using probiotic food specifically to achieve these goals. 😊🦠

The more I have learned about probiotic bacteria over the years the more I have somewhat accidentally pieced together what I call a political theory based on the movement of probiotic bacteria. It’s essentially just a form of biomimicry (link definition below) also inspired adrienne maree brown‘s book Emergent Strategy and Margaret Wheatley’s Leadership & The New Science. SO onto my point

I’ve been working on this idea of creating an interconnected web of workers hoping to create unions, and worker hoping to create cooperatives. My reasoning here is they have their own pros and cons respectively but fit together like a puzzle it creates a situation where we all have the resources to genuinely have solidarity for eachother and build a collective power, think of it like the chamber of commerce but run by the people who actually wake up and do the work every day. Imagine that lol

Benefits of Worker Cooperatives & Unions working together

• a lot of working people have good business ideas but cannot invest in them because we are all poor and do not have capital, a unique advantage of the enemy

• Not everyone wants to start a cooperative, and not everyone works at a company ripe for unionization. This way everyone can contribute something, even if it’s just the community supporting us by buying our goods.

• Workers can be paid for their community input unlike now where if you want to contribute you have to do it for free, just simply impossible for a lot of us because we are already overworked and experiencing poverty

• We can do more to support our union friends! Unions have a lot of HEAT on them that worker coops don’t really have, union busting law firms make thousands a day to target individual people. It’s disgusting and there needs to be an local organization greater than the union itself to support them. Bringing sandwiches to the picket line simply will not cut it! A union having a greater band of support that doesn’t include only people that work there helps us be more prepared for those fights.

• Like I mentioned before with the chamber of commerce, in a c

I'm entering the job market soon and have decided I only want to work for a company like this.

Also, I'd rather patronize these over capitalist enterprises.

If there are any lists that compiles these, I'd love to see it. Sorry if this has been asked before or isn't right for this sub. There doesn't seem to be too much going on in /r/coops.

I'm looking for a complete list of all the worker cooperatives in the US and possibly Canada. I know the USFWC has a list of their members but that it isn't a complete list since not all worker cooperatives in the US are members. Anyone have an idea?

Hey I'm rewriting a paper I did in Uni on Chinese investments in renewable energy sources and in my old paper I only covered investments coming from the Sino public sector and lightly touched on investments being made by top-down private enterprises. I was hoping to expand worker cooperatives as an additional point of discussion in my research and wanted to know of any good sources on this thanks!

We’ve all heard of Mondragon, but what are some other examples of large and long-lasting Worker Coops?

What would you think of the workers democratically electing their leadership and thus having a say in what is done with their surplus value?

I realize that’s 3 questions in one post, but I’m very curious and can’t find much info online. I’m grateful for whatever information anyone has. Thanks in advance :)

I am talking specifically about market socialism which is focused on worker cooperatives.

Worker cooperatives in a market may still want to make as much profit as possible for their workers. This means they want the cheapest possible inputs to their production process. This may mean sourcing from countries where wages are lower.

They would still want to stop workers in those countries from unionizing or creating cooperatives. And if those countries are market socialist, the cooperatives in wealthy countries would want to stop worker cooperatives in poor countries from creating cooperative unions/federations so that they can bargain for a larger share of the value of their work.

Moreover, many worker cooperatives may fail from market competition, this would create unemployment, which creates a reserve army of labor, which means workers have less bargaining power when looking for jobs, which potentially means lower wages and precarity.

They may still have low wage workers by subcontracting to cooperatives which offer the cheapest labour.

After reading about and experiencing the exploitative working culture in our society today and seeing the growth in the r/antiwork members, I decided that I am going my own way and not working for anyone else ever again. I will start a business, but not just any business, a worker cooperative.

A the bottom of this post is a link outlining the definition of a worker cooperative from institute.coop and this quote below includes a brief explanation from usworker.coop :

"Worker cooperatives are values-driven businesses that put worker and community benefit at the core of their purpose. In contrast to traditional companies, worker members at worker cooperatives participate in the profits, oversight, and often management of the enterprise using democratic practices. The model has proven to be an effective tool for creating and maintaining sustainable, dignified jobs; generating wealth; improving the quality of life of workers; and promoting community and local economic development, particularly for people who lack access to business ownership or sustainable work options."

TLDR: I am seeking people who would like to become a worker-owner with me, and start a new business together. I am seeking like-minded individuals who value democracy, desire a culture of ethical business practices, and want to take control of our labor instead of having our agency concentrated into the hands of very few individuals. Please message me and we can create a group to get started and establish the type of company we will start and why, as well as establish our worker-owner criteria, guidelines, and profit distribution methods. institute.coop "What is a Worker Cooperative?"

EDIT: I want to make a clarification on why I do not state a specific business to start here, I was initially going to suggest a business type that I had in mind, but fundamentally this is a group endeavor so I wanted to come to an agreeance as a group to decide on the industry we would get into and the company we start together, based on both societal needs and our shared skillset.

Hi everyone! Dunno if it will sound a little random, perhaps too comprehensive, but I would like to find examples of (real) cooperatives or non hierarchical (self managed) experiments, for those moments when people discredit the idea, saying things like "this doesn't work!", "it's utopia" and so on..as if there were no way for a non-hierarchical organization to function.

I do know some experiences like these...but not many. actually, just a few. Wonder if you people could help me with this, giving me other examples. I would accept videos, texts, anything...

Thank you!

The Wikipedia-tier summary of what a worker cooperative is:

>A worker cooperative is a cooperative that is owned and controlled by its workers in an egalitarian fashion. This control may mean a firm where every worker-owner participates in decision-making in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one in which management is elected by every worker-owner who each have one vote.

They've famously emerged in Argentina, Spain, Italy and France but have not made much of an impact in the English-speaking world. Although centre-left political parties are increasingly coming around to support them from my knowledge.

But, what do you think?

Basically the title. I know REI for example is a cooperative but there isn’t necessarily unanimous democratization, per se. What’s makes REI different from other businesses that maintain full democratization of its workforce from the blue collar occupations within it, to white collar management occupations within it?

Thanks!

I personally don't, but I think it should be encouraged/incentivized. Interested in hearing other opinions.

Please do not respond with rhetoric outside of the topic of discussion.

After reading about and experiencing the exploitative working culture in our society today and seeing the growth in the r/antiwork members, I decided that I am going my own way and not working for anyone else ever again. I will start a business, but not just any business, a worker cooperative.

A the bottom of this post is a link outlining the definition of a worker cooperative from institute.coop and this quote below includes a brief explanation from usworker.coop :

"Worker cooperatives are values-driven businesses that put worker and community benefit at the core of their purpose. In contrast to traditional companies, worker members at worker cooperatives participate in the profits, oversight, and often management of the enterprise using democratic practices. The model has proven to be an effective tool for creating and maintaining sustainable, dignified jobs; generating wealth; improving the quality of life of workers; and promoting community and local economic development, particularly for people who lack access to business ownership or sustainable work options."

TLDR: I am seeking people who would like to become a worker-owner with me, and start a new business together. I am seeking like-minded individuals who value democracy, desire a culture of ethical business practices, and want to take control of our labor instead of having our agency concentrated into the hands of very few individuals. Please message me and we can create a group to get started and establish the type of company we will start and why, as well as establish our worker-owner criteria, guidelines, and profit distribution methods. institute.coop "What is a Worker Cooperative?"

EDIT: I want to make a clarification on why I do not state a specific business to start here, I was initially going to suggest a business type that I had in mind, but fundamentally this is a group endeavor so I wanted to come to an agreeance as a group to decide on the industry we would get into and the company we start together, based on both societal needs and our shared skillset.

I personally don't, but I think it should be encouraged/incentivized. Interested in hearing other opinions.