The International Organisation of Industrial, Artisanal and Service Producers’ Cooperatives
In a new study that provides the first comprehensive understanding of the global worker cooperative landscape, the International Organization of Industrial, Artisanal and Service Producers’ Cooperatives (CICOPA) finds, based on data from more than 25 countries that worldwide 111,000 enterprises employ over 2.9 million people across a number of industries, from manufacturing and social work to real estate and education.
This article in the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s Magazine Communities & Banking, highlights the Wellspring Upholstery Cooperative, a new worker-owned business supported by over fifteen anchor institutions and community-based organizations in Springfield, Massachusetts. Established by the Wellspring Collaborative, a network of worker-owned companies modeled after the Evergreen Cooperatives in Cleveland and Mondragón Cooperative Cooperation in Spain, the upholstery cooperative will leverage the purchasing power of anchor institutions to employ ex-offenders and the underemployed.
In a recent report sponsored by the Metcalf Foundation, ecological economists Peter Victor and Tim Jackson outline conditions for a green economy at a community scale. Questioning the nature of prosperity itself, the authors explore necessary changes in the organization of business to promote economic stability, social justice, full employment, and lasting (environmental sustainable) prosperity. They describe community-based companies and finance alternatives, including the Evergreen Development Cooperative Fund, and how they contribute to local self-reliance, community resilience, and democratic engagement.
The objective of this conference is to promote and support the development of Cooperative Enterprises and Development in the City of Jackson, MS.
The Conference is Sponsored by the Malcolm X Grassroots Movement, Community Aid and Development Incorporated, Mississippi Association of Cooperatives, Fund for Democratic Communities, and the City of Jackson Mayor Chokwe Lumumba.
The Boston Center for Community Ownership was founded in 2012, the International Year of Cooperatives, to support grassroots efforts to start cooperative businesses. Worker-Owned, Consumer-Owned, and hybrid cooperatives have the potential to: Read more about Boston Center for Community Ownership...
Democracy Collaborative co-founder Gar Alperovitz and Senior Researcher Thomas Hanna discuss the challenge of sustaining and building participatory decision-making structures and organizations within a corporate capitalist system. They note the recent bankruptcy filing of Fagor Electrodomésticos Group, the principle company of the Mondragon Corporation, as an impetus to confront the institutional incompatibilities between the free market and cooperative forms.
