Worker cooperatives

Worker cooperatives



Transformative Characteristics

Worker cooperatives provide a clear and intuitive example of the democratic economy in action, and a building block of enterprise design that can be incorporated into higher-level structures. According to Esteban Kelly, executive director of the USFederation of Worker Cooperatives, “worker cooperatives may be the most coherent alternative to capitalism as we know it because they put capital at the service of labor rather than the other way around.” At the same time, worker cooperatives, because they are real businesses operating under real market and capital constraints, provide a valuable platform for educating and empowering their member-owners to play a larger role in the democratic management of the economy. Real world experiences—like the 70,000 worker Mondragon network in the Basque country, or the thousands of worker cooperatives clustered in Italy’s Emilia Romagna region, have also shown that significantly higher concentrations of democratic workplaces are possible with the proper support and incentive ecosystems. These cooperative economies have demonstrated the ability to provide stable, long-term opportunities for inclusive growth and to support high degrees of technical innovation.

Examples
COOPERATIVE HOME CARE ASSOCIATES (THE BRONX, NEW YORK)

Founded in 1985, CHCA is the largest worker cooperative in the US, with over 2,000 employees. In a sector (home care) often characterized by exploitative and precarious working conditions, CHCA’s democratic ownership structure provides a powerful platform to protect and empower its workforce, largely composed of women of color.

NAMASTÉ SOLAR (BOULDER, COLORADO)

Founded in 2005, Namasté transitioned to a worker cooperative structure in 2011. Today, it employs 170 people and has installed more than 5,000 solar systems with a combined capacity of more than 75 megawatts—a significant share of total generation capacity in the state of Colorado. With a six-to-one pay ratio between highest- and lowest-paid employees, Namasté has consistently been recognized as a “best workplace.”

Challenges

Worker cooperatives can in some circumstances develop into narrowly profit-focused businesses at the expense of larger commitments to community and solidarity, a tendency amplified by a financial and technical support ecosystem that is underdeveloped compared to the one enjoyed by “normal” businesses. Scaling up access to mission-oriented sources of capital, developing more robust networks of mutual support, and implementing co-op-friendly public policies are all critical success factors for the continued growth of the worker cooperative sector that all lie largely outside the control or purview of individual worker cooperatives.

More Resources
The Democracy at Work Institute provides in-depth and cutting edge research on and for worker cooperatives.
The ICA Group is a nonprofit worker cooperative development agency with over four decades of experience.