This Guide is for worker-owners, cooperative developers, lawyers, technical assistance providers and others thinking about expanding worker cooperative businesses. We focus specifically on expansion through licensing and franchising.
The development of worker cooperative child care providers, from centers to in-home providers to nannies, should be included as part of a long-term strategy to address affordable childcare in New York City. This report, co-authored by DAWI and FPWA, spells out key recommendations that the Mayor’s office and City Council could implement to increase access to child care while increasing the quality of child care jobs.
The Workers to Owners 2017 Annual Impact Report, produced by the Democracy at Work Institute, introduces the Workers to Owners Collaborative catalyzing a wave of business conversions to employee ownership at a moment of generational opportunity. Led by a core practitioners group and convening the business, cooperative, community development, finance, and nonprofit sectors, the Collaborative advances worker cooperative conversions as a strategy for good jobs and equitable economic development.
This is an exciting time to be engaged with worker cooperatives. The worker cooperative model has stood the test of time; its foundations have been in place since 1844, when the Rochdale Pioneers developed their creative response to the suffering of displaced workers during the Industrial Revolution. Since 2008, the Great Recession has inspired more and more workers, advocates, and community developers to bring their creativity and energy to the next generation of the cooperative movement, fueling an explosion of co-op-related discussion and initiatives.
