Reflections Ahead of Labor Day
As Labor Day approaches, we’ve been thinking about the importance of unions to our work.
As you may know, we were inspired by a historic 2009 pact between Mondragon and the United Steelworkers (USW), the largest industrial union in North America. In that agreement, Mondragon and the USW pledged to adapt collective bargaining principles to the cooperative model.
Co-op Cincy formed a few years later in the belief that combining unions and co-ops is a powerful way to generate family-sustaining jobs. By launching co-ops whose workers were unionized, we were the 1st organization to bring the 2009 Mondragon-USW agreement to life.
Unions have a long record of improving the lives of working people in this country. They ended child labor. They fought for a 40-hour work week, health benefits, and compensation for injured workers.
After decades of declining union membership, we're heartened to be seeing a resurgence of collective action around the country. Workers have organized at companies ranging from Starbucks to Amazon.
You might be wondering: Why should co-ops, whose workers already have a vote in key decisions, be unionized?
When a co-op grows, disputes can arise between management and workers. There can also be other conflicts. A union creates a defined space for addressing workplace issues. It's also a reinforcing structure, helping a co-op keep its value intact. In addition, it connects workers to the larger labor movement, helping improve working conditions for all.
Lewis Connell of Sustainergy, a union co-op in our network, said that being in a union ensures each worker has a voice in their “experience as a worker”. And it ensures they can fix any workplace problems, he said. Sustainergy’s workers recently re-negotiated their contract, increasing paid time off, among other improvements.
Lewis Connell (right) of Sustainergy talks with CEO Flequer Vera.
On our Resources page, you can find tools to help support the growth of union co-ops, including our Worker-Owner Workbook and the Union Toolkit for Cooperative Solutions.
We're hosting our 6th Union Co-op Symposium from October 20-21 in Cincinnati to promote the union co-op model (see below for more info).
To help us support the growth of union co-ops, you can also donate today.
More Details on 2023 Union Co-op Symposium
We're still finalizing the schedule for our Union Co-op Symposium, From Dream to Action: The Transformative Power of Co-ops, Labor, and Community, which we're co-hosting with 1worker1vote. The Symposium will take place in-person on Oct 20 and Oct 21 in Cincinnati, Ohio.
Here's info on 3 of the sessions we're planning:
Community Ownership of Solar: How Worker-Owned Solar Installers, Purchasing Co-ops, and Rural Electrics Can Partner To Electrify the Country – Solar power can knit together disparate urban and rural communities and create shared purpose and wealth. In order to make solar this transformative, we have to ensure that everyone, and especially communities that have borne the brunt of the current energy system, have material access to solar. The Inflation Reduction Act has given us many of the tools we need, but it’s up to us to come together and build the solar-powered world we want to live in.
Unleashing Workplace Democracy: The Power of Labor and Co-ops Together – Worker-ownership is a proven strategy for achieving many of the goals of the labor movement, as well as for creating resilient, family-sustaining jobs that workers own and control. What is stopping us from having unions embrace union co-op development as one of the essential tools for rebuilding the labor movement? What is stopping the cooperative movement from fully joining forces with the labor movement to overhaul our economy and put people before profits?
Mutualism: Learning from Emilia Romagna, Mondragon, and Quebec to Energize the Solidarity Economy – By connecting with the wisdom of long-established cooperative ecosystems as well as the fresh perspectives and experiences of budding cooperative ecosystems, participants will share their questions, learnings, and insights on how to deepen and catalyze our regional ecosystems in a way that helps consciously shape a future where the planet and people thrive.
See our Symposium page for more info on our dream sessions:
Co-op Cincy Selected to Host Young African Leader
We're proud to share that we have been selected to host Arindo Akweni, a Fellow from the Democratic Republic of Congo, in the Professional Development Experience (PDE) component of the U.S. Department of State’s Mandela Washington Fellowship for Young African Leaders from August 7 to September 1.
Arindo is an agricultural engineer who holds a PhD in crop production and food processing from the University of Zululand in South Africa. During his Fellowship, he will deepen his understanding of the cooperative business model, agricultural practices, and grant writing while helping support food-related cooperatives.
Arindo said, “As an agricultural expert, I intend to contribute to changing the sad narrative of my country which is known to possess the largest fertile lands in the world and a lot of business opportunities but is still ranked among the poorest countries in the world with the highest rate of food shortage and poverty.”
Stanford Intern Joins Team for Summer
We’re very excited to have Lola McAllister interning with us this summer. Lola studies Anthropology and Spanish at Stanford University, where she lives in a co-op on campus. She’s been involved in various activities and communities throughout her time there, from hosting a social entrepreneurship speaker series to consulting for social enterprises to teaching English as a second language to Spanish-speaking workers.
She is working on a senior thesis about worker cooperatives and the experience of worker-ownership, which is what brings her to Co-op Cincy and Cincinnati! This summer she is working with our co-op coaches and interviewing worker-owners in our network.
New Book Explores Mondragon-Style Economic Practices
ICYMI, the book Humanity @ Work & Life: Global Diffusion of the Mondragon Cooperative Ecosystem Experience is out!
The book explores how solidarity and innovation can forge Mondragon-style, sustainable economic practices.
It's edited by Christina A. Clamp, a professor of sociology and the director of the Center for Cooperatives and Community Economic Development at Southern New Hampshire University, and 1worker1vote Executive Director Michael A. Peck.
Our co-directors, Kristen Barker and Ellen Vera, have a chapter in the book, as do many of the presenters at our Union Co-op Symposium.
Sustainergy CEO Joins Clean Energy Event
Flequer Vera, CEO of Sustainergy, participated in a Sustainable Finance Hub event as part of the Midwest Regional Rally Up earlier this summer.
The gathering convened sustainable investors, labor and community leaders, and business partners to foster a collaborative approach to best position the Midwest-Upper Appalachian region to compete for the historic clean infrastructure funds ushered in by the Biden Administration and Congress.
Movement
After the parent company of Anchor Brewing announced that Anchor would close, a group of employees began exploring an alternative: keeping the brewery open as a worker co-op.
An article in The Seattle Times profiles a worker cooperative in Washington state and a new state law that will help businesses seeking to transition to the worker-owned model.
Earlier this year, Ra Criscitiello, Deputy Director of Research at SEIU UHW, wrote about the power of combining unions and cooperatives!
