Author(s):
Jim Johnson and Brent Emerson
this guide is about worker cooperatives: businesses owned and controlled by the people who work in them. The worker-members own the business and return its profits to themselves based on how much they work for the co-op. They control the co-op, perhaps by electing a Board of Directors which makes policy and hires managers to organize their work. This hierarchical structure is common in medium and large worker co-ops, just like the other co-op sectors. But small worker co-ops are usually run collectively.