Cooperativism at Work Worker-owned Cooperatives Across the World

Introduction

1. Worker and social cooperatives within the wider cooperative movement: importance, evolution and the making of universal standards

2. Uralungal Labour Contract Cooperative Society: a century of excellence

3. Kigro Recyclers Worker Cooperative: bringing workers out of the informal economy

4. At-Tawafouk cooperative: the unusual story of a Moroccan worker cooperative for waste collection and processing

5. From workers' struggle to workers' control through a cooperative: the VIOME case in Greece – a cooperative born in the years of the Greek socio-economic crisis

6. Introduction to the French worker cooperatives (SCOP)

7. Ethiquable: the path to cooperative fairtrade

8. Parcs & Sports: an emblematic worker buyout 40 years ago, today an innovative business

9. Quonex Alsatel: an ICT business taken over by its staff

10. Ardelaine: a local development cooperative

11. Worker cooperatives in Spain: a review of their impressive growth over the last decades

12. Agresta Cooperative Society: a relentless search for forestry solutions to achieve a more liveable society, applying the cooperative principles

13. Gredos San Diego Cooperative Society: education is "the basis for achieving, among all of us, a more supportive, innovative society, capable, fair and free"

14. The Mondragon Group: one of the most important examples of entrepreneurial cooperation between cooperatives

15. Italian social cooperatives: a reality emerging from worker cooperatives

16. Cauto Social Cooperative: "do, learn, share"

17. GOEL Social Cooperative Consortium: successfully struggling against the Calabrian mafia

18. A unique support system for worker buyouts: the Marcora Law and CFI

19. The national worker cooperative background in the United Kingdom

20. Calvert’s North Star Press Ltd: how a printing shop was reborn

21. Vägen Ut! (the way out): a "social worker cooperative" for work integration

22. The worker cooperative movement in Japan: history and background

23. Central Worker Cooperative: combining services of general interest and work integration of disadvantaged persons

24. Creators 440Hz: the democratic way of living – from democratic education to democratic work

25. Worker cooperatives in South Korea

26. Happy Bridge cooperative: becoming a worker cooperative through institutionalising and learning

27. Worker cooperative history and context in Canada

28. Pivot: an architectural cooperative engaged in the community

29. Worker cooperatives in the United States of America

30. Cooperative Home Care Associates: worker cooperative development and unionisation hand in hand

31. The Arizmendi Association of Cooperatives: a group of bakery worker cooperatives inspired by Mondragon

32. Uniforja: a story that has been built up for 24 years by workers in a self-management system

33. La Diaria cooperative: Uruguay’s second daily newspaper

34. Networks of IT worker cooperatives in Argentina and globally: FACTTIC and PATIO

Conclusions

Biography

Bruno Roelants is a consultant on cooperatives and international development. He is the former Director General of the International Cooperative Alliance (April 2018–February 2023). Previously, he was Secretary General of CICOPA as of 2002 and of its regional organisation CECOP CICOPA-Europe as of 2006.

"Our future lies in economic democracy and equal participation, not in oligarchy and plutocracy. This major book shows why this is possible and how this can be achieved. A must read".

Thomas Piketty, Professor of Economics at the School for Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences, Associate Chair at the Paris School of Economics (PSE) and Centennial Professor of Economics in the International Inequalities Institute at the London School of Economics (LSE)

"This book, beautifully edited by Bruno Roelants, is an important contribution that forces the reader to think. To address the grand challenges of present times, Cooperativism at Work suggests turning to an alternative economic system in which the prosocial inclination of economic agents are reinforced. The 32 authors from 15 countries provide compelling evidence that it is possible and well within our reach. Many efforts have been made in recent times to lay down the pillars of an economy based on the culture of care, true value creation, and solidarity – as this book widely documents. Cooperativism at Work is a must read for all those – academics, business leaders, policy-makers – who are convincingly interested in triggering off a deliberate process of social reconfiguration of our market economies".

Stefano Zamagni, Professor of Economics, University of Bologna, Italy

"This important work presents case studies of worker coops around the world. Beyond providing invaluable information, it enables and stimulates crucial questions about alternative economic structures, past, present and future. Long yearned-for democratic re-organisations of workplaces are now on history's agenda, this time as worker cooperatives: preferred alternatives to capitalism's hierarchical enterprise organisation".

Richard D. Wolff, Professor Emeritus of Economics, University of Massachusetts, USA