Reading, PA – Reading could get its first workers cooperative next year in its push to foster an alternative business model that competes with Wall Street. The co-op would be an employee-owned firm composed mostly of apprentices being trained in building demolition, deconstruction (razing all or some of a building, but reusing its parts) and weatherization, said Lawrence P. Murin, special…
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Union co-op group taking root in Cincinnati | Cincinnati Enquirer
College Hill farm is first of several planned worker-owner initiatives to include pipe fitting, manufacturing Zeke Coleman, laid off from his previous job in the food industry, has found a living wage and his passion in an emerging local jobs program that has attracted international attention. Coleman, 33, of Hamilton, is one of 10 worker-owners of the Our Harvest Food…
More Than Zucchini | AFL-CIO Our Values @Work
By Kenneth Quinnell A couple of unions and a worker-owned co-op are teaming up to grow a new sustainable farming model in Cincinnati, and Stephen Dienger couldn’t be happier. An apprentice farmer at the Our Harvest Cooperative, he came to the co-op in 2012 after working at farms in St. Louis and Cincinnati, where he developed a specialty in sustainable…
How to Democratize the US Economy | The Nation
A long-term plan to renovate the American dream begins at the local level and scales up. This article is adapted from Gar Alperovitz’s What Then Must We Do? (Chelsea Green). by Gar Alperovitz Everyone knows the United States faces enormous challenges: unemployment, poverty, global warming, environmental decay—to say nothing of whole cities that have essentially been thrown away. We know…
A Formula for Reawakening Labor: Capitalism, Communities and Cooperatives | Huffington Post
By Frank Islam and Ed Crego Based upon the rhetoric at the quadrennial labor convention held in Los Angeles this week, it appears that the labor movement will be trying new things and working diligently to break out of the daze we described in our most recent blog. Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO, in his keynote address at the…
Can Unions and Cooperatives Join Forces? | Truthout.com
An Interview With United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard By Amy Dean United Steelworkers President Leo Gerard talks to Truthout about the challenges and opportunities of a new labor model: the union co-op. As the economic crisis festers for many long-term unemployed and underemployed people, the idea of worker-owned and worker-run cooperatives has become ever more appealing as a possible pathway…
More US unions are now running their own businesses | MSNBC
A handful of American unions aren’t content to just negotiate with the boss—instead, they’re cutting the boss out of the equation entirely. For example, the United Steelworkers union (USW) is starting a handful of co-ops across the rust belt in collaboration with the Basque Mondragon Corporation; a sprawling federation of cooperative businesses, in which all of the workers have an…
Why Unions Are Going Into the Co-op Business | Yes! Magazine
“Too often we have seen Wall Street hollow out companies by draining their cash and assets and hollow out communities by shedding jobs and shuttering plants,” said United Steelworkers (USW) President Leo Gerard in 2009. “We need a new business model that invests in workers and invests in communities.” Gerard was announcing a formal partnership between his 1.2-million-member union and…
Worker Ownership For the 21st Century? | The Nation
It may not be the revolution’s dawn, but it’s certainly a glint in the darkness. On Monday, this country’s largest industrial labor union teamed up with the world’s largest worker-cooperative to present a plan that would put people to work in labor-driven enterprises that build worker power and communities, too. Titled “Sustainable Jobs, Sustainable Communities: The Union Co-op Model,” the…
