This week we’re talking about the PNW heatwave and how solidarity economy organizers are preparing for climate migration; $1.5M in city funding for cooperative housing in NYC; solidarity with Palestine; global movements for seed sovereignty; a new manifesto we’re launching with Climate Justice Alliance and Movement Generation, and more!
PS: Enjoy the New Economy Roundup? Become a member of our Solidarity Circle for $5/month to help strengthen our grassroots funding base and keep the Roundup going strong!
Stories from the Field
PHOTO: The NYC Network of Worker Cooperatives
Climate Crisis and the Solidarity Economy: The climate crisis is knocking loudly again, as record temperatures in the Pacific Northwest this week have melted power cables, cracked roads, and left frontline communities and workers particularly vulnerable to the heat. Youth climate activists were arrested this week for demanding government action, while mutual aid organizations continue to rise up to meet their communities’ needs. Read how NEC member Cooperation Jackson and others in the “Network for Land and Liberation,” are organizing to help Black and brown communities migrate and adapt in the face of a changing climate by building the solidarity economy.
Community Controlled Housing in NYC: Last week, the CDC announced they would extend the eviction moratorium one more month, through the end of July. But with seven million renters behind on rent, our communities need long-term solutions. For example, this week New York City Council allotted $1.5 million in city funds to create permanently affordable housing through land trusts and cooperative ownership in NYC’s Black, brown and immigrant communities! Learn about the campaign via NEC member the New Economy Project, and then get more tools to decommodify housing by tuning into events with NEC member the Sustainable Economies Law Center all month long.
Queen City: We want to congratulate India Walton for winning the Democratic mayoral primary in Buffalo, New York last week! India was a critical and vital force on the ground in Buffalo for our 2016 conference, CommonBound and in 2018/2019, she was a NEC Movement Voices Fellow, where she met and collaborated with The Laura Flanders Show for the episode Making Buffalo: Our City. Congratulations India!
Solidarity Economies Abroad
PHOTO: Sandra Mehl
A French ‘Fast’ Food Bank: Solutions sprout in unexpected places. Like in an abandoned McDonalds in the city of Marseille, France, which workers occupied and transformed into a community food bank last year. This month, the government in Marseille announced it would buy the building to prevent its closure by police. Read how the food bank has become a “defacto social center” for workshops and events, and how the community plans to turn it into a jobs training hub in the future.
#SaveSilwan: This week, Israeli authorities began the demolition of 100 homes in the neighborhood of Silwan, threatening 1,500 Palestinians with forced displacement to make way for a theme park. Tell your representatives to stop funding Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, and read how intersectional organizing and worker solidarity have helped drive a groundswell of international support for Palestinian liberation.
Seed-Sharing around the World: From Brazil to Palestine to India, communities are resisting corporate seed patents and building food sovereignty by saving and sharing seeds through co-ops and libraries. In Brazil, members of Movimento dos Trabalhadores Rurais Sem Terra created their own organic seed co-op called Bionatur. In India, an organization called Navdanya has intervened to establish over 100 seed banks and educational programs. Read more about these seed sharing projects from around the world via NEC member Shareable.
Creative Wildfire Manifesto
The time for a Just Transition to regenerative solidarity economies is now! NEC is collaborating with Climate Justice Alliance and Movement Generation on a collective call to action to restore governance to the people and re-root economic decisions locally. Read and endorse the Creative Wildfire Manifesto, and share the Request for Proposals / Call to Create with artists and cultural workers in your community.
Join Our Solidarity Circle
Movement News
- Agrarian reform and queer rights go hand in hand
- American apartheid and the wealth gap: How white supremacy drives inequality
- Collective Creative Action from Music Industry Songwriters, The Pact
- From Black Lung to BlackRock: Striking Alabama Coal Miners Protest Wall St. Financiers of Warrior Met
- In West Dayton, Ohio, a Food Co-op Heralds a “Black Renaissance”
- Let Users Own the Tech Companies They Help Build
- Mariame Kaba: Rooting Out Our Culture of Harm
- Supreme Court Ruled Against Enslaved Children Even as US Celebrated Juneteenth
- To End Racial Capitalism, We Will Need to Take on the Institution of Policing
- The Unequal Distribution of Covid Vaccines is a Preview of the Coming Climate Apartheid
- You Can Have Billionaires or You Can Have Democracy
Podcasts of the New Economy
“Seeds back, land back!” On the latest episode of the Red Nation podcast, Kayleigh Warren and Chasity Salvador discuss the reclamation of Pueblo farming practices, climate change, and the importance of food and seed sovereignty. Listen now.
Additional Listens
Breakthrough News – Striking Alabama Miners Bring Fight to Wall Street
CounterSpin – Jaisal Noor on Worker Co-Ops
Frontiers of Commoning – Katherine Gibson & the Community Economies Research Network
NEC on the Gram
Follow NEC on Instagram — @neweconomycoalition — where we’re reminding you that another world isn’t just possible — it’s already happening! From cooperative farms to mutual aid networks to health care co-ops, communities are already building the new systems we need in the shell of the old.
Jobs
New Listings!
Community & Partnerships Manager, Climate Advocacy Lab
Finance & HR Manager, Grassroots Global Justice Alliance
Labor Climate Organizer, Labor Network for Sustainability
Public Bank Campaign Organizer, New Economy Project
Program Director, Community Purchasing Alliance
Various Positions, Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives
Various Positions, Ironbound Community Corporations
Various Positions, The Gulf Coast Center for Law & Policy (GCCLP)
Various Positions, CERO Cooperative
All Jobs
Capital Campaigns Co-Director & Strategic Storytelling Co-Director, Minnow
Chief Marketing and Storytelling Officer, Color of Change
Co-Director, Director of Organizing, Resource Generation
Co-Executive Director, Partners for Dignity & Rights
Communications Consultant & Outreach Coordinator, Class Action
Communications Director, Working Partnerships USA
Communications Manager, San Francisco Rising
Content and Engagement Manager & Associate, Center for Economic Democracy
Lead Environmental Justice Curriculum Designer and Facilitator, The New School
Managing Director, Urban Oceans Lab
Membership Director, US Federation of Worker Cooperatives
Partnerships & Marketing Associate, RiseBoro
Program Director, Community Purchasing Alliance
Reinvest Campaign Organizer, Climate Justice Alliance
Senior Data Scientist, Development Director, Harmony Labs
Senior Manager, Project Equity
Senior Researcher, Corporate Accountability
Software & Data Engineer, Data Wrangler & Analyst, Catalyst Cooperative
Various Positions, Action Center on Race and the Economy
Various Positions, Center for Popular Democracy
Various Positions, Dream Defenders
Various Positions, Equal Exchange
Various Positions, Movement 4 Black Lives
Various Positions, NDN Collective
Various Positions, PUSH Buffalo
Various Positions, Urban Homesteading Assistance Board (UHAB) – NYC
Upcoming Events
Collective Kitchen: A Conversation About Building Power and Community Through Food
Join NEC member CoFED and Design for the Commons in an event to exchange experiences around communal eating. Participants will virtually visit each other’s kitchens to share experiential knowledge and develop their food sovereignty toolkits –– and receive a collective cookbook post-workshop! (July 7 – Online)
Transformative Funds – BIPOC-led Financing
Join the East Bay Real Estate Cooperative, Oweesta Corporation, Seed Commons and more to learn how BIPOC-led transformative investment funds are using lived experience, knowledge, community networks and partnerships to make finance available in, for and by communities and businesses of color. (July 7 – Online)
Strikes to the Streets
“In this six-week Political Education Series designed for young people, attendees will engage with information concerning the ways “big money” fuels the climate crisis. Organizers will be offered tools and resources on how to mobilize a shift in power within their respective communities, all in efforts to construct an economy that sustains and regenerates Earth’s natural resources for all walks of life.” (July 7-August 16 – Online)
Radical Real Estate Law School – Interdependence Month
This July, the SELC’s Radical Real Estate Law School invites you to journey into a world where we begin to rethink everything – the law, real estate, finance, jobs, and more – through a lens of interdependence. Events will be a mix of conversation, storytelling, contemplation, imagination, and practical workshops. (July 7-29 – Online)
Social Housing: A Pathway to Housing for All?
The pandemic has created a terrible eviction crisis, which the federal government is trying to address with emergency rental assistance. But how do we reduce the precariousness of housing in the long run so that a public health crisis or other disaster doesn’t snowball into displacement? Many people are calling for more social housing as part of that solution. What does that mean? What will it take to make it happen?” This 90-minute in-depth webinar, jointly organized by NPQ and Shelterforce, brings together four leading voices in the field to discuss these issues. (July 15 – Online)
Children’s Justice Camp at Highlander Center
We’re excited to announce registration is open for 2021 Children’s Justice Camp! Due to ongoing safety concerns from COVID-19, the 2021 offering for Children’s Justice Camp will be completely online. This year’s camp has been planned by the first Black Steward of Children’s Justice Camp, Cherizar, and the first Teen Directors Macaiah, Mason, Leilani, and Temo. (July 19 – 23, Online)
The Economics of Queerness
“We will hear from QTBPOC activists and artists who are challenging the economic system through building cooperatives and community wealth building models, creating radical alternative community spaces for healing, developing ideas and spaces that challenge our culture of scarcity and using art to reimagine queer economic futures.” (July 29 – Online)