Examples of co-ops in mainstream media

News and announcements
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Creating a post for people to post examples they come across of non-co-op people talking about worker co-ops in the “real world”. As a way to help us understand how to promote and communicate about worker co-ops better.

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debunking economics podcast talking about worker co-ops:

Interesting take, they start with Mondragon, and focus a lot on innovation (workers being able to share ideas) and the reduction in conflict between the workers and the capitalist roles in a business becuase they merge. Also talk about the UK’s largest worker co-op John Lewis! Sorry Suma :smiley:

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Sorry Leading Lives, surely? :slight_smile:

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Good messaging abut what is wrong with investor owned businesses.
Elements of worker co-operativism in there, although capital requirements inevitably lead platform co-ops towards multi-stakeholder co-ops rather than pure worker co-ops.

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The latest podcast from Upstream, is titled Prefigurative Politics and Workplace Democracy and it includes a discussion about worker co-ops, you can listen to it via the iframe from LibSyn at this URL:

Or via Spotify.

Prefigurative politics, building the new within the old, exercising our muscles of collectivity and collaboration—muscles that have grown weak and atrophied under capitalist hegemony—these are all ideas and practices that play a crucial role in our revolutionary movements. And examples of prefiguration can and do take many interesting and inspiring forms—one of these forms is worker self-direction, or worker cooperatives.

In today’s episode we’re talking prefiguration and worker self-direction—and we’ve split the episode up into two parts so that we can dive deeply into both. Part one of our conversation takes a deep dive into the concept and practice of prefigurative politics, which is, simply put, the attempt to implement the world that you want to live in, now. And we’ve brought on the perfect guest to talk about it.

Saio Gradin teaches Politics at Kings College, London and is a community organizer and educator who has spent twenty years running workshops, campaigns and organizations for global justice. They are the author of the book, Prefigurative Politics: Building Tomorrow Today, published by Polity Books.

Part two of our conversation is going to take a deep dive into one form of prefiguration—worker self-direction—specifically, we’ll exploring the ins and outs of working at a self-directed not-for-profit, which is structurally similar to a worker cooperative, but we’ll get into more those details in the conversation. The point is, we’ll be talking about what it’s like to work in a democratically-run organization. And to have that conversation, we’ve brought on Nicole Wires. Nicole is an organizer and the Network Director for the Nonprofit Democracy Network and a worker-member of the Sustainable Economies Law Center.

In this episode, we explore the concept of prefiguration and how it compares and contrasts to other revolutionary strategies. We explore examples of prefiguration in history and today and why prefigurative politics are an important component of our revolutionary movements. In part two we take a deep dive into the process and practice of prefiguration specifically in the context of worker self-direction, exploring the benefits and challenges of being part of a self-directed organization, the different types of decision-making processes utilized by certain worker-run firms, and how worker cooperatives—and the many forms they take—fit into a broader ecosystem of individuals and organizations striving to live their values in a world dominated by the logic of capital.

Further Resources