Who Should be the Next Guest on Punchcard?

News and announcements
1

Some of you may already have seen or listened to an episode of Punchcard, a podcast and video series I’ve been working on with the support of workers.coop. The podcast explores the world of worker cooperatives, spotlighting members’ stories, motivations, challenges, and sharing practical lessons for other worker coops to learn from.

I’ve got a great lineup of speakers already, but would appreciate the collective’s help to cast the net a bit wider. If you know someone who has a unique experience or perspective on worker coops then please share their name and why you think they’d be a great fit.

Who We’ve Featured So Far:

  • Sam Nordland – Building workers.coop the UK’s Worker Coop Federation
  • Ignacio (Nacho) Gomez – The Rise & Fall of Black Cat Café
  • Owen Powell – 3 Keys to Strengthen Cooperative Democracy
  • Beau Bullman (Suma) – How to Make Decisions with 200 Members
  • Rebecca Kemble – A Warning from the US Worker Coop Federation

And here are some upcoming episodes in the works:

  • Ai Van (Bread Coop)– What Can Worker Coops Learn from Corporate Capitalists?
  • Elle Glenny (Tipping Point UK) – Classism in Worker Cooperatives
  • Taylor Lemelle (Not/Nowhere) – Forcing Philanthropy into Redistribution
  • Abbas (Third Sector Accounting) – Leaving a Big Corporate for a Worker Cooperative
  • Kristina (Yalla) – The Worker Coop with Employees in Palestine and Europe

Drop your suggestions below

Support us by contributing as little as £1 per month at opencollective.com/workerscoop/projects/punchcard

Listen, follow & rate Punchcard on workers.coop/podcast, Spotify, Apple Podcasts & Youtube or wherever you get your podcasts

3 Likes
2

Someone from the Black Cat Worker Collective in Aberdeen? See this post, which mentions Collectivist Ansynd — this is something I’ve not heard of before and I’d be interested in knowing more!

Worker cooperatives come in two forms, the reformist hierarchal kind that function similarly to most other businesses, and the subversive anarchal [definition: non-hierarchal] that aim to supplant capitalism. The latter are often referred to as worker collectives, and are the subject of this guide.

Ansynd is an organisational praxis: a theory, method, and practice for organising without hierarchy. It’s an abbreviation of anarcho-syndicalism, which literally means “unions without hierarchy”, where union is in the sense of people being united by a common purpose.

An Introduction to Collectivist Ansynd | Black Cat Worker Collective

2 Likes
3

I’d be interested in hearing interviews with lots of workers.coop activists, for example:

1 Like
4

Alice McClarnon from Belfast Cleaning Co-op/Trademark Belfast

4 Likes
5

@CoopAlex from union-co-ops:uk.

2 Likes
6

Hi Caleb ,
I’m really enjoying Punchcard! All the guests so far have been super interesting.
Keep up the good work! We need more episodes. I’m going to your funding page now ; )

3 Likes
7

Happy to do an interview if comrades wish that

2 Likes
8

Building on this contribution, @Caleb have you thought about having multiple voices on a theme rather than an episode length one-to-one interview. Makes it more about exploring the issue than one person, provides potential for contradictory views, and you could gather the content for several themes from each person at the same time. I appreciate it’s a different format, more like investigative journalism (e.g. Panorama, Dispatches) than talkshow (Graham Norton etc).

4 Likes
9

Hi all thanks for replying. I’ll incorporate these suggestions into the schedule.
Please keep the suggestions coming as you think of/ meet interesting worker coopy people

@gneissgrrrl I’d love to do them more regularly. 12 a year doesn’t feel like enough, but gotta start from somewhere

@NathanBrown interesting proposal, but it would be a different show, that would require more work coordinating more people etc, so something to think about in the future

3 Likes