All Things Co-op

Unions and Worker Cooperatives are two forms of worker organizations focused on fighting for justice in solidarity. However, Unions and Coops fulfill different functions. What similarities do they share? What can they learn from one another? And how can they work together to achieve the goa of worker emancipation? In this episode of All Thing Co-op, Larry, Cinar and Kevin discuss these questions.

In this episode Kevin, Cinar, and Larry talk with Erik Foreman and David Alexis about their exciting new cooperative - Drivers.Coop - in New York City. Driver.coop was founded to be the alternative to Uber and Lyft. Drivers.Coop will be launching soon and already has over 2500 drivers participating.

In her famous text Reform or Revolution, Rosa Luxemburg spent a short chapter discussing cooperatives, and made a classic critique. In this episode Larry, Kevin, and Cinar take on the critique and try to answer it.

In this episode of All Things Co-op Larry, Cinar, and Kevin attempt to answer the often asked question for anti-capitalists - “What does your future society look like?” While one version of a post-capitalist society is Star Trek, we can wait that long - we need something now. So, starting from the standpoint of an economy based on worker self-directed enterprises they discuss what the government in such a society could look like. They attempt to answer how economic decisions could be made, how things could get built, and how we could distribute the goods and services we produce. If you’ve ever wondered what the future looks like, check out this episode.

Work sucks. But why? Why do we all long for happy hour after work ends? In this episode of the All Things Coop podcast, Larry, Cinar, and Kevin sit down to talk about the theory and lived reality of alienation through the black comedy "Office Space." They discuss the consequences of alienation wider society and how Worker Self Directed Enterprises may be the cure to this pervasive problem. You don’t hate Mondays, you hate capitalism.

Kevin and Cinar talk to Steve Storkan, who self describes himself as "the ESOP 101 guy." He is the Executive Director for the Employee Ownership Expansion Network (EOX) and has been involved with employee stock ownership plans for over 25 years.

Take a look at the YouTube video description box for a full breakdown of topics with time-codes: https://youtu.be/gFVuFcaukcA

Steve Storkan has been involved with employee stock ownership plans for over 25 years, most recently as the Director of ESOP Administration for Alerus Retirement and Benefits where he worked closely with businesses in the creation of an ESOP and the technical administration and compliance required in subsequent years. Steve spent 11 years as a member of the Board of Directors of the Minnesota-Dakotas Chapter of the ESOP Association where also served as Chapter President and VP of Government Relations. Steve holds a Certified Financial Planner (CFP®) designation from the University of Minnesota State Mankato.  

Learn more about EOX: https://eoxnetwork.org/

All Things Co-op welcomes Esteban Kelly, the Executive Director for the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives for a fascinating glimpse into the work of USFWC, and his thoughts on both national and international strategies for growth in the cooperative movement. Esteban talks USFWCs education and training and their advocacy and organizing work, how they measure their success, and much more. 

Learn more about the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives

Esteban Kelly is the Executive Director for the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives, and is an important leader and creative force in solidarity economy and co-op movements. He has served on numerous boards including the USFWC, the US Solidarity Economy Network, the National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA-CLUSA), and the Cooperative Development Foundation (CDF). He is a co-founder of the cross-sector Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance (PACA), and recently worked at the New Economy Coalition as Development Director and then Staff Director.

Hilary Abell of Project Equity joins All Things Co-op to talk about her experiences and take away from almost 2 decades of work in co-op development.

Topics include: The background, mission and work of Project Equity; Abell's thoughts on how the current pandemic and economic crisis contributes to the existing "silver tsunami" and increases the possibility for conversions; Successful conversion examples by Project Equity: pizza, manufacturing; Project Equity's process of identifying potential candidates for conversion; Abell's thoughts on growing the economic sector: the path to scale.

Learn more about Project Equity: https://project-equity.org/

Learn more about the referenced paper by Hilary Abell, "Worker Cooperatives: Pathways to Scale" https://democracycollaborative.org/learn/publication/worker-cooperatives-pathways-scale

Hilary Abell was “bit by the cooperative bug” when she was a worker-owner at Equal Exchange in the 1990s and forever changed by witnessing how Latin American farmers used coops to transform their communities. After a decade of internationally focused community empowerment work, Hilary has worked in coop development in the Bay Area since 2003. As Executive Director of WAGES (since rebranded to Prospera), she led the organization through a period of major growth, resulting in a network of five worker-owned green cleaning businesses that created 100 healthy, dignified jobs for low-income women. Worker-owners increased their family incomes by 40-80%, built assets through robust profit sharing, and gained business skills and social capital. Hilary co-founded Project Equity while writing Worker Cooperatives: Pathways to Scale and consulting for coop development initiatives and nonprofits. For her work with Project Equity, Hilary was awarded Presidio Graduate School’s Big Idea Prize in 2013, an Echoing Green Fellowship in 2014, and a 2016 Local Economy Fellowship. She has her B.A. from Princeton University and her MBA in Sustainable Management from Presidio. In her spare time, she can be found powering up a hill on her road bike or nesting with her wife and three kittens.

Mayor Jesse Arreguin joins All Things Co-op to talk about Berkley's cooperative roots, the legislation that Berkeley adopted in 2016 that provides incentives and support for cooperatives, and how cooperatives are a critical part of a just and equal economic system, and an inclusive recovery from the current pandemic and economic crisis. 

Mayor Jesse Arreguin is the Mayor of Berkeley, California. Berkeley has been a leader in city initiatives assisting worker cooperatives and business operating on cooperative principles. Mayor Arreguin lead the charge to create a program where City’s Revolving Loan Fund (RLF) could be used for the purpose of converting traditional businesses into worker cooperatives.

All Things Co-op welcomes back Michael Peck,Exec Director of 1 Worker 1 Vote and former International Delegate (USA) for the Mondragón Co-operative Corporation (1999 –2019), for a fascinating and inspiring conversation about co-ops, union co-ops and other hybrid ownership models, the critical emphasis on ecosystem building, the inequalities revealed by Covid-19 and how the pandemic shows we need a cultural reset, and the promising snowballing effect of the cooperative movement with bi-partisan support. Peck's wealth of experience and knowledge in the cooperative field enables him to give many concrete examples of initiatives, movements, and practical applications of these ideas all across the country, and from the Mondragon Corporation.

Michael Peck is the Executive Director of 1 Worker 1 Vote, and describes himself as a movement organizer, dedicated to putting more power on the table for workers and to bringing workplace democracy and equity to frontline populations and economies, pushing back on all the embedded structural inequalities that are driving this nation into the disaster zone. He is also a co-founder of The Virtuous Cycle Collaboratory (tvc2) – a MBE worker cooperative & social enterprise whose mission is to “flatten the curves” with virtuous cycles, former International Delegate (USA) for the Mondragón Co-operative Corporation (1999 –2019), board secretary for the American Sustainable Business Council, and Blue Green Alliance corporate advisory board member