Can You Support Our Work?
This Labor Day, will you donate to help us combine the best of the labor and cooperative movements?
With your support, we can enable more workers to thrive in businesses that are both jointly owned and unionized.
On this Labor Day, we recognize the contributions of workers and the labor movement. As we wrote in a recent blog post, unions have a long record of improving the lives of working people.
We’re thrilled that there’s been a recent resurgence of unions. However, this comes after decades of declining union membership and growing economic inequality.
We believe combining unions and co-ops is a powerful way to create an economy that works for everyone. If you think so too, you can donate to support our work. You can also sign up for our upcoming Union Co-op Symposium here in Cincinnati.
One business that uses the union co-op model is Sustainergy, the second oldest cooperative in our network. We’ve supported Sustainergy’s growth through business coaching and loan access.
As a cooperative, Sustainergy is owned and operated by its worker-owners. As a unionized workplace, the workers can negotiate with the appointed CEO to improve their working conditions.
Kristen Barker of Co-op Cincy (center) and Austin Williams of Sustainergy (right) during a recent coaching session.
Austin Williams, a worker-owner at Sustainergy who was recently elected Vice-President of the United Steelworkers Local 14734, said that being in a unionized cooperative (or union co-op) means workers have all the information they need to ensure the company is making the best possible decisions, including about working conditions. Recently they re-negotiated their collective bargaining agreement and increased paid holidays, among other improvements.
Being in a union also connects them to the larger labor movement, he said, enabling them to support workers around the country.
“We’re entering precarious and very conflict-heavy times,” Austin said. “And if we don’t build institutions that can survive that, we’re going to be really struggling.”
“I hope that this integration of organized labor and the co-op model can be a step forward. And it may not be a step forward immediately. But it’s at least a step in a different direction. And with experimentation and patience, I hope we can really change things.”
Please Donate Now to help us support the union co-op model.
As a nonprofit, our work is funded by grants and donations. Your gift will go toward coaching and loan access for union co-ops like Sustainergy.
*Please consider making a monthly recurring gift.
Sincerely,
Ellen Vera
Co-Director
Co-op Cincy
