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In this week’s roundup: creating 50 million worker owners by 2050; using media platform’s as places of protest; and the future of the co-op movement.
Stories from the Field
50 Million Worker Owners: A project of NEC member Democracy Collaborative, Fifty by Fifty aims to build a coalition and movement behind getting to 50 million employee owners by 2050. In an interview with YES! Magazine, Fifty by Fifty’s Marjorie Kelly says, “We think expanding employee ownership can begin to restore democracy. The 99 percent cannot really be empowered as long as the 1 percent owns nearly all the assets.” Read the interview here.
Music Platform Protest: The music industry has a history of disenfranchising artists, but for Resonate, a music streaming cooperative established in 2015, everyone is involved in the service, from the musicians to the labels to the listeners. They own the business together and vote on how to run the cooperative and share profits. Read how they’re beginning to revolutionize how music is distributed here.
A Post-Sandy New Economy: Five years post-Sandy, New York’s spirit of cooperation carries on through the development of a partnership-based community land trust to provide permanently affordable housing citywide, and an effort in the Rockaways that has launched three worker co-ops, with more on the way. Read about the restoration here.
Solidarity Economies Abroad
Seeding Innovation: Stockholm produces the second-highest number of billion-dollar tech companies per capita, after Silicon Valley, and in Sweden overall, there are 20 startups per 1,000 employees— an unusually high number for a country with high taxes. Read here about how they manage high entrepreneurship and robust social services.
Our friends at AORTA, A Bookkeeping Cooperative, TESA & Open Bookkeeping are putting together the toolkit, The Revolutionary Power of Financial Education to strengthen movements organizing for justice and the cooperative economy by increasing the financial literacy of those that make up our movements. Now, they are looking for help sustaining the project. Check it out and consider supporting it if you can.
Movement News
- How Congress Can Pass Tax Reform That Actually Helps the Middle Class
- Chicago Has a #PeoplesBudget. What’s #OurVision? What Will Yours Look Like?
- From Self-Defense to Self-Determination
- Mondragon through a Critical Lens
- Public Shaming and Even Prison for Plastic Bag Use in Rwanda
- Five of the Cleverest Partnerships for Fighting Climate Change
- Bipartisan Support for Employee Ownership
- Reducing the Wealth Divide Through 'Economic Democracy'
- How do I Know if my Bank is Good?
- B The Change Podcast: Transforming Stories of Oppression Into #NowWeOwn
Development Director, New Economy Coalition, (Boston, MA and Others)
Development Coordinator, Green Worker Cooperatives (New York)
Communications Director, Ella Baker Center (Oakland, CA)
Multiple Positions, Lady Parts Justice League (Brooklyn, New York)
Communications Director, Northern Plains Resource Council (Billings, Montana)
Part-Time Digital Strategist, Black Lives Matter Network (Remote)
Various Positions, Cooperative Economics Alliance of NYC Jobs Board (New York City)
Upcoming Events
Worker Co-ops — A Solution for an Economy in Crisis (Online)
In a online panel co-hosted by the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives, the Democracy At Work Institute, the New Economy Coalition, and the The Democracy Collaborative, you'll learn about the worker co-op movement's development over the last few years; newly-released data on successes and growth in employee ownership; how the worker cooperative movement is raising money for the people and by the people; and exciting policy developments in the last year. Join us! (Online, November 20)
Livestream Panel: Redistributing Wealth, Land, & Power
Iimay Ho, Executive Director of Resource Generation, moderates this panel at Making Money Make Change on how young people (18-35) with wealth and class privilege are working toward the equitable distribution of wealth, land, and power. (Online, November 9)
The People’s Disruption: Platform Co-ops for Global Challenges
The first platform cooperativism event in 2015 popularized the idea, and the second event in 2016 brought together co-op and union leaders to push the model forward. This third event will zero in on ways that platform cooperatives can help to address some of the world’s most urgent challenges. The fairer, digital economy we need is already emerging everywhere around us. (New York City, November 10 – 11)
NASCO Institute
The annual NASCO Institute is always a one-of-a-kind opportunity to network with hundreds of cooperative leaders and employers, to caucus about pressing issues, and to work on building an inclusive and accessible cooperative movement. This year's conference theme focuses on the integral role of cooperatives in building grassroots democracy. In a time when our voices do not feel heard on the national scale, our power lies in our local co-operation. (Michigan, November 10-12)
Transform Finance Institute for Social Justice
In its first three years, the Institute has brought together over 100 leaders, majority people of color, serving over 5 million individuals collectively. Over three days, participants learn how capital works, explore its relationship with communities, and imagine what it could do instead if grassroots leaders and activists were at the helm. For capital to become a force for good, we need social justice leaders like you to devise ways to engage with it and take it back. From NEC member, Transform Finance. (New York, December 8-10)
View all NEC member events on our website »
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