Documents cooperative movement 37 results

"Platform cooperatives that are owned and governed by gig workers themselves have been proposed as a silver bullet to improve these workers' influence on organizational decision-making. However, they remain relatively rare compared with dominant investor-owned platforms. Traditionally, worker cooperatives strive for alternative organizing based on the ideal of workplace democracy but are often faced with unequal participation by members in decision-making processes. To test for participation inequalities, this study used survey data (n = 418) from a network of four platform worker cooperatives in Italy. The results show that members with lower affective commitment towards their cooperative and less social capital among other members are less likely to participate, but that there is no effect of cooperative size and human capital."

"Despite the surge of interest in platform cooperatives, we have a limited understanding of the dynamics of platform worker-member participation in these cooperatives. Drawing on interviews with 21 senior leaders and founders of platform worker cooperatives, we investigate the dynamics of platform worker-member participation, finding that these cooperatives experience some successes and many challenges. We then build theory about how four distinct features of platform worker cooperatives—the facilitation of multihoming, the physically untethered nature of work, the relatively high importance of scale as a strategic imperative, and the relatively low importance of initial platform worker-member investment—influence these participation dynamics. We find that the platform and worker cooperative organisational models are in tension with one another when brought together within a platform worker cooperative, leading to positive and negative effects on participation."

"State-socialist academics have been highly sceptical of worker co-operatives. Following the Webbs' classic studies, they assume that capitalist market competition renders them either inefficient or undemocratic. The experience of the British co-operative co-partnership (COCP) movement, from the late nineteenth to the early twenty-first century, suggests a more optimistic reading, with implications for future alternative forms of work organization. COCP worker co-operatives were long-lived and participative, while advancing other social goals, such as good wages and working conditions, union membership and better housing. This article introduces the theory of COCP, stressing the stakeholder model and the predominance of employee representatives. Next, I establish Leicestershire as a major regional centre for both shoemaking and COCP, linked to the wider institutions of consumer co-operation. Six co-operatives are discussed: three Leicester city societies, Equity, Anchor and Self-Help; and three village societies, Barwell Sperope, Glenfield Progress and Sileby Excelsior. The article concludes that footwear COCP was a relatively successful small-scale endeavour, not subject to the fatal contradictions predicted by the Webbs. The movement died out because the bureaucratic ‘spirit of the age' in the British co-operative and wider labour movement, turned against these initiatives from below, which therefore failed to rejuvenate."

"Traditional labour movements are in trouble almost everywhere. They have been severely enfeebled by the political and economic changes of the last forty years. Their core consists of three forms of social movement organisations: cooperatives, trade unions and workers' parties. All three organisational types are in decline, though this is an uneven development with vast differences between countries and regions. We are living through a transitional stage in which old organisational structures no longer seem to work well, while new structures are still in their early stages."

"In Argentina, con il default del 2001, molte imprese finirono in bancarotta. Queste pagine analizzano i problemi derivati dalla chiusura delle fabbriche, quando i lavoratori, costretti a pensare a soluzioni innovative per potersi garantire il proprio lavoro, invece di abbassare le braccia e tornarsene a casa, decidono di "occupare, resistere e produrre". Le imprese recuperate rappresentano una particolare forma di cooperativa che nasce come risposta spontanea alla distruzione dell'economia reale. Gli operai prendono in mano l'impresa che aveva interrotto la sua attività per fallimento e ricominciano la produzione in assenza del vecchio proprietario. In molti casi, con il passare del tempo, i tribunali hanno attribuito la proprietà agli occupanti. I lavoratori si organizzano intorno al principio di equità, valore che si riflette nella gestione democratica dell'impresa e nella creazione di una autogestione organizzativa orizzontale e paritaria. In questo periodo di crisi globale, le fabbriche recuperate rappresentano un diverso modello di produzione, una proposta alternativa nelle relazioni umane e del lavoro e, forse, un importante contributo per salvare l'Europa."

"With more than 15 per cent of the workforce self-employed (some 4.6 million) and projections that this is set to grow this year, the rise of freelancing signals a fundamental shift in the nature of work. Some, driven by the lure of freedom, are choosing to go self-employed; others are going freelance out of necessity. Changes to the labour market mean that zero hours contracts, part-time work and ‘portfolio' careers are becoming more and more the norm.

The Not Alone report looks at recent trends in self-employment, both here in the UK and across the world - and how the co-operative and trade union movements can serve and protect the growing 'precariat'."

"Scandinavian countries are known for having a high adoption of cooperative models of work design. This article investigates the role of parity labour market associations, termed intermediary cooperative associations, in the dissemination of these models. Findings are based on an examination of the Centre for the Development of Human Resources and Quality Management (SCKK), a social partnership-based organization that funds workplace development projects at state workplaces, and of nine participative development projects that received financial and logistical support from the SCKK. These projects increased union and management commitment to partnership-based approaches to problem-solving, despite their ambiguous results for both groups. This suggests that intermediary cooperative associations help to enhance the normative legitimacy of participative work practices through the provision of resources and ‘best practice' management approaches. "

"De nombreux domaines de notre patrimoine commun sont aujourd'hui
en état de siège : l'eau, la terre, les forêts, les pêcheries, les organismes vivants, les oeuvres créatives, l'information, les espaces publics, les cultures indigènes... Pour proposer une réponse aux multiples crises, économiques, sociales et environnementales que connaît la société actuelle, David Bollier invite à revenir sur cette notion de « communs ».
Ceux-ci doivent être appréhendés plus seulement comme des ressources dont tout le monde a la libre jouissance, mais comme un système de gouvernance associé à leur gestion.
L'auteur s'efforce de montrer comment les communs peuvent remédier à nos maux économiques en mettant en avant une
théorie plus riche de la valeur que l économie conventionnelle.
Car cette approche implique de nouveaux modèles de production, des formes plus ouvertes et responsables de participation des citoyens ainsi que des cultures et des technologies
innovantes. Une initiative dynamique et collective dont témoignent les actions des différents mouvements des « gens
du commun » à travers le monde, venant d'Inde, d'Italie, d'Allemagne,
du Brésil, des États-Unis..., déterminés à construire des alternatives vivantes et fonctionnelles.
Cet ouvrage devrait permettre d'éclairer et de promouvoir le
sujet des communs aussi bien auprès des académiques et des mouvements sociaux que des décideurs et des législateurs."