All Things Co-op

In this episode, Kevin speaks with Rodney North, a member of the DC Cooperative Stakeholder Group, a co-op consultant, and a former co-op member for many years. Rodney and Kevin discuss a number of issues related to a coop, how one becomes a co-op consultant, and a little about the DC cooperative stakeholders group.

Cinar and Juan Ried of the Tightshift Labor Cooperative in Washington D.C. talk about the challenges of cooperative enterprises generally, and the added challenges of creating a labor cooperative specifically designed for citizens returning from time incarcerated. Juan gives background on his story and why the cooperative model is the right one for re-integrating folks back into the community and doing real development of communities that have been historically and presently marginalized and criminalized.

In this episode, we sit down with John Duda from the Democracy Collaborative to discuss successful cooperative economies such as the Emilia Romagna region in northern Italy.

In this episode of our podcast, Kevin and Larry discuss and explore ways in which worker coops and socialist movements can work together to promote freedom, cooperation, and economic justice.

Kevin and Larry discuss the potential benefits of the Main Street Employment Act, which, among other things, enables the U.S. Small Business Administration to provide loan guarantees to small business and worker owned and operated cooperatives to purchase a firm which is going out of business. The SBA is gathering information how to improve the ability of worker owned and operated coops to purchase these businesses. The podcast identifies key changes which will improve the ability of cooperatives to participate in this process known as “conversion.”

In this episode, we speak with Michael Peck, the US representative of Mondragon—the largest worker co-op in the world—about the history of Mondragon, how it became one of the most successful enterprises in Spain, and lessons we can take away in the movement to build worker owned co-ops in our own communities.

[Episode 3]

In this episode of our podcast, Cinar chats with Ben Winter of Pedal People—a worker owned coop in Northampton Mass that uses bicycles to transport goods and provide services. We discuss how the worker co-op started and its success over these past 16 years.

[Episode 2]

Hosts Kevin Gustafson and Larry Fenster talk about themselves and why they are collaborating on this new podcast about worker cooperatives.