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In this week’s roundup, we’re talking about reparations — and a real world example of how they might work. Plus: The US can learn a thing or two from Quebec’s booming co-op economy, the war being enacted on the planet, and #BuyTwitter is up for a vote! There are lots of events and energy coming up in the month of April – are we missing anything? Write us!
PS – Don’t forget to find us on Instagram at @NewEconomyCoalition and tag us on stories in your community where a New Economy is being built!
Stories from the Field
Reparations: Chicago is the first city to offer reparations to victims of police violence and could provide a model that goes beyond settlements. As part of the effort, the city offers victims free community college, a community center dedicated to survivors and their families, and the implementation of curriculum on the torture scandal in Chicago Public Schools. Read how they’re doing it here.
Divest from DAPL: While efforts to halt the Dakota Access Pipeline suffer in court, the push to move funding out of the pipeline continues and is gaining steam. Last week the Netherlands-based financial institution, ING, announced that it has sold off its $120 million share of DAPL. Read about the divestment and learn how you can #MoveYourMoney.
#BuyTwitter: Twitter has a chance to become a user-owned co-op. In April and May, Twitter shareholders will be voting on a resolution to study the advantages of converting to democratic ownership. You can read more about why Twitter (and other online platforms) should be people’s networks here and learn how to help here.
Tech Solutions in Appalachia: As part of Eastern Kentucky's economic shift away from the previously coal-dominated extractive industry, community members are working to create new, tech-based co-ops to help create a just transition. Read how they're doing it here.
Solidarity Economies Abroad
CLT’s in Rio: Brazil’s favelas are facing a gentrification crisis of their own with no adequate affordable housing to compensate for the thousands of impoverished families that are displaced. This article from RioOnWatch explores the possibility of turning favela’s into Community Land Trusts, a strategy used to combat gentrification in the US.
Working World: Since the mid-90’s, more than 300 Argentine businesses have been occupied and converted into co-ops in the face of the country’s tumultuous economy. Now, with a new president in place, co-ops face uncertainty. Read more here.
Fostering Co-ops: In Quebec, co-ops and non-profit businesses account for 8 – 10% of GDP. Here’s what the US can learn from our neighbors to the north about creating a more equitable economy.
“We’ve got to come to something more rational than what we have now….there is no virtue in maximizing consumption. You want to maximize satisfactions, and you want to get them with minimum consumption.”
— E.F. Schumacher, economist in Upstream Podcast’s ‘The Call for a New Economy’ featuring people and organizations on the cutting-edge of the new economy movement, including our Communications Director, Eli Feghali!
Movement News
Resistance Watch:
- Protest Groups Unite As “The Majority” For Massive Actions Across The Country
- Trump’s Budget Blueprint Sees Cuts for Co-ops and Credit Unions
- 'Paris in Georgia': Political Salons Spring Up Across US in Push Against Trump
- Jeff Sessions: No More DOJ Funding for Sanctuary Cities
More Reads:
- Trump Declares War on The Planet in Real-Life Remake of The Purge
- TeamHuman.FM Talks to Fairphone Founder on Ethical Tech’s Future
- Worker Cooperatives in the US Raising Labour Standards
- How Mignon Clyburn, the FCC’s Lone Democrat, Is Fighting to Save Net Neutrality
- The Underground Railroad for Refugees
- The West Coast Will Determine the Fate of the Fossil Fuel Industry
Job Board
Development Manager, Shareable, San Francisco
Director for North America, EDGE Funders Alliance, Northeast
Grassroots Organizer (Contract), Friends of the Earth, Flexible
Legal Director (and other positions), Demos, New York, NY
Program Coordinator, Community Economics Alliance of NYC, New York
Accounting and Operations Associate and Publications Manager, Corporate Accountability International, Boston
Community Energy Specialist, PUSH Buffalo, Buffalo, NY
Development Director, Massachusetts Avenue Project, Buffalo, NY
Program Associate, Democracy Collaborative, Washington D.C.
Multiple Positions, Oke USA, West Bridgewater, MA
Marketing and Communications Director, Post Carbon Institute, Flexible
Upcoming Events
Multiply & Mobilize: A Webinar Series
Three online sessions from NEC member Anti-Oppression Resource and Training Alliance (AORTA) designed to support organizers, activists, facilitators, and movement-builders in deepening their analysis of the current political moment and gaining strategies for strengthening our movements from local to national levels. (Online, March 30 – May 25, 2017)
Join an amazing group of women entrepreneurs to learn the tools and strategies for raising capital on your own terms. The event is for you if you want to raise the right money from the right investors. (Oakland, CA, March 30 – April 1, 2017)
CO-UP: A Community Teach-in for Cultivating Economic Justice
Be one of 300+ engaged, spirited people at this teach-in designed to cultivate economic justice in the Philadelphia-area. You'll meet community organizers, cooperators, activists, artists, farmers, bookkeepers, construction workers and more — all of them building economic control block by block as they start cooperative businesses. (Philadelphia, April 1, 2017)
Social Justice, Economic Democracy & Human Rights
This conference put on by NEC member Cooperation Jackson will address the underlying roots of racial inequality and inequity in Jackson and the state of Mississippi – namely the lack of self-determination and economic sovereignty. This conference will discuss how a people-centered human framework, grounded in the promotion of Economic, Social, and Cultural rights can be used to alleviate injustices through the promotion of grassroots organizing, participatory democracy, and a solidarity economy. (Jackson, MI, April 4, 2017)
#RevolutionOfValues Day of Creative Action
A call for artists, creative organizers, concerned citizens, and all community members to join together with NEC member US Department of Arts & Culture on April 4th, 2017, to draw inspiration from and breathe new life into the prophetic words of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., strengthening our commitment to speak truth to power and sparking creative action in the year ahead. (Multiple Locations, April 4, 2017)
Beyond the Moment: Uniting Movements from April 4th to May Day
More than 50 partners representing Black, Latinx, the indigenous, LGBTQ, refugees, immigrants, laborers and the poor will collaborate from April 4 through May 1, International Worker's Day, when they'll launch massive protests across the country. The action will go beyond moments of outrage, beyond narrow concepts of sanctuary, and beyond barriers between communities that have much at stake and so much in common. (Multiple Locations, April 4th – May 1st)
#Vision4BlackLives Webinar Series
Movement for Black Lives have started a six month educational webinar-series based on the different demands in the Vision for Black Lives platform. Each month, which started in February, we will be elevating a different category of the platform, and hosting a webinar about that topic. Tune in to the next session on April 12th, for a conversation on Invest/Divest. (Online, February – July, 2017)
Another world is not only possible–it’s already here. NEC member, Cooperative Economics Alliance of New York City (CEANYC), aims to strengthen and expand community-led, democratically-controlled initiatives — from worker, financial and consumer co-ops to community land trusts and gardens, mutual housing, and low-income housing co-ops. Learn about the long history of solidarity economy efforts in New York City and ideas for continuing to fight and build. (New York City, April 22, 2017)
If you want to strengthen democracy where it matters most…in our communities, our schools, our workplaces and local economies, our military, our government, our media, our constitution…you will find something inspiring. Join us at the third national Democracy Convention. (Minneapolis, August 2 – 6, 2017)
View all NEC member events on our website »
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