In this week’s New Economy Roundup, we’re talking about building democracy beyond elections, how tenants are evicting their landlords, the youth building agroecology movements in Latin America, and it’s #RadicalRealEstate week!
Stories from the Field
#VoteAnd #CoopsVote: NEC member organization the @US Federation of Worker Cooperatives put it beautifully: “As cooperators, we understand deeply that democracy is more than a vote. That real democracy is an inclusive, communal practice…. Co-ops shape democracy within and beyond the workplace. Voting is *one* aspect of that.” We say, #voteAND organize where you’re at. Build co-ops. Build workplace democracy. Build real democratic and community-controlled infrastructure. The time is now to build a people’s economy.
#KeepPeopleInTheirHomes: America’s 5,000 credit unions are cooperatively-owned “movement banks” that started during the last Great Depression, amidst another unprecedented market and governmental failure. Today, credit unions count 110 million Americans as member-owners, have $1.7 trillion in assets, and have accumulated a rainy day fund of member-owned capital worth $56 billion. Join NEC member organization We Own It in calling on credit unions to use this rainy day fund to begin emergency lending to #KeepPeopleInTheirHomes.
#EvicttheLandlords: Don’t miss this must-read in NY Times Magazine featuring Right to the City Alliance, NEC member People’s Action, and Renters United for Justice: “In our vision of the world, there isn’t a profit motive connected to housing, period. Housing is truly a public good… The end goal isn’t simply to transform all renters into homeowners, each family on its own mortgage, but to reform the fundamental way we live by decommodifying housing.” Join NEC member organization, the Sustainable Economies Law Center from Oct 26th – 29th for a whole week of legal workshops on how we decommodify & democratize land and housing. It’s Radical Real Estate Week!
Solidarity Economies Abroad
Local Revolutions: After researching throughout downtown Belo Horizonte, Brazil, the collective Kasa Invisivel occupied three buildings which had been abandoned for twenty years. Now housing a free library, cinema, urban garden, and offering space for movements, collectives, and unions that do not have their own headquarters to hold internal meetings or open events, the spaces have also served a huge need during the COVID pandemic: housing homeless families. Learn about how these efforts continue to adapt and are looking for international mutual aid support.
Youth Agroecology Education: The IALAs (Latin American Institute of Agroecology) is an initiative of the global peasant movement, La Via Campesina to train young people in the principles and practices of agroecology. In this video, we learn more about the experiences of graduates from IALA Ixim Ulew in Nicaragua through the eyes of Migdalia Cruz, a young woman from Jinotega, a coffee growing department in northern Nicaragua. Watch her testimony.
Greater Challenges, Greater Solidarity: In advance of the 2021 Global Social Economic Forum (GSEF) taking place in Mexico City, “Great Challenges, Greater Solidarity: Power of Community and SSE as a Path for Transformation” is a virtual forum covering topics like youth organizing in the Social Solidarity Economy (SSE), to indigenous organizing and technology. Check the full program to plug-in with the global movement for a solidarity economy here.
Is Our Economy Making Us Sick?
“Mental health has never been discussed more widely, and yet mental health issues are on the rise. It will come as little surprise that the pandemic has made existing health inequalities worse — poor housing and employment conditions, unreliable wages and high levels of debt all have a detrimental impact on our health, including our mental health. And our experience of mental health is also heavily impacted by factors such as race, gender and disability. Only by looking at these big structural problems can start to see a way out of the mental health crisis.” The latest edition of New Economics Foundation (NEF)’s New Economics Zine is out and couldn’t be more relevant: it’s all about the intersections of mental health and the economy.
Movement News
- How Black Co-Ops Can Fight Institutional Racism
- Fannie Lou Hamer’s Pioneering Food Activism Is a Model for Today
- How to become a lawyer without going to law school
- Just Transition: Learning From the Tactics of Past Labor Movements
- National Farm Groups Push for Increased Black Land Ownership
- The Political Economy of Saving the Planet
- Winona LaDuke and Leah Penniman in Conversation
- Don’t Let Amazon Get Any Bigger
- How Moms 4 Housing Changed Laws and Inspired a Movement
- There’s No Such Thing as Ethical Grocery Shopping
Podcasts of the New Economy
The news often feels overwhelming. And overwhelm doesn’t generally encourage action. News media may not control what happens in the world, but the way they show it to us has a real impact on how we feel about it, and on what we think we can do about it Laura Flanders, the original host of CounterSpin and the former director of the Women’s Desk at FAIR, practices a kind of journalism that’s meant to encourage engagement, not just in the stories it tells, but in the people who tell them. Listen: Counter Spin – Laura Flanders on Journalism of Engagement
Also: Women Rising Radio Project – Women Challenge Capitalism
NEC on the Gram
Follow NEC on Instagram — @neweconomycoaltion — where we’re highlighting case studies from mutual aid efforts across the country, like the St. Louis Mutual Aid Fund, which has redistributed close to $557,000 to 880 people during the pandemic. The NP Quarterly is hosting Remaking the Economy: Mutual Aid, 3 City Case Studies – with case studies from St. Paul, Atlanta and Chicago – next week on October 28th.
Jobs Board
New Job Listings!
Community Organizer, Northern Plains Resource Council
Organizing Director, New Economy Project – NYC
Development Director, New Economy Project – NYC
Temporary Digital Organizer, BlackOUT Collective – Remote – ASAP
Education Coordinator, People’s Forum – NYC – Oct 24
Facilitator for People of Color Caucus (contract), Kentuckians for the Commonwealth – Oct 26
Frontlines Communications Coordinator, Climate Justice Alliance – Oct 30
Loan Outreach Officer, Cooperative Fund of New England – Oct 31
Organizing Director, Debt Collective – NYC – Nov 9
Various Positions, Audre Lorde Project
Various Positions, Center for Popular Democracy
Director of Partnerships and Administrative Coordinator : Monument Lab – Philadelphia or Eastern US – Oct 31
Vice President, Programs, Solutions Project – Oakland or Remote – Oct 30
Narrative Strategist, Real Food Real Stories – San Francisco area – Rolling
Buen Vivir Fund Manager, Thousand Currents – Remote – Oct 30
All Jobs
Communications Coordinator, Beautiful Trouble – Remote
Digital Communications Assistant, Center for Partnership Studies – Oct 23
Director of Affordable Housing Development, Urban Homesteading Assistance Board – New York, NY
Director of Communications & Strategic Initiatives, PUSH Buffalo – Nov 6
Director of Investment, Boston Ujima Project – Boston, MA
Executive Director, Class Action – Boston/Remote
Grants and Contracts Manager, Democracy at Work Institute – Oakland, CA/Remote
Just Transition Organizer, Justice Funders – Bay Area – Oct 30
Marketing & Communications Coordinator, East Bay Permanent Real Estate Coop – Bay Area
Network Liaisons, Allied Media Projects – Detroit – Oct 30
Participatory Planning & Research Associate, Bronx Cooperative Development Institute – Oct 30
Senior Organizer, Action Center on Race and the Economy
Senior Manager: Individual Giving, Demos – New York, NY
Senior Policy Analyst: Economic Democracy, Demos – New York, NY
Various (Organizing, Community Development), PUSH Buffalo – Buffalo, NY
Upcoming Events
40th Annual E.F. Schumacher Lecture: Land as a Commons: Building the New Economy
Jodie Evans and George Monbiot will speak addressing the topics of land access, the problems generated by a concentration of ownership, and ways of creating a more fair and equitable system. (Oct 25 – Online)
Platform Cooperatives Now!
Platform cooperatives are a tool for creating quality jobs and a democratic digital economy on a large scale. This course, running from October through January will cover all things platform co-op — from theory to practice and incubation. (Begins Oct 26 – Online)
Study Groups & Local Co-op Development
In 2016 the Philadelphia Area Cooperative Alliance (PACA) launched the 20 Book Clubs, 20 Cooperative Businesses initiative to grow Philadelphia’s co-operative economy, particularly for Black, Brown, and immigrant working class and poor communities. In this workshop, we will discuss and explore the uses and forms of study for building strong co-operative ecosystems. (Oct 26 – Online)
Black Trust: Chuck Turner Arts & Lecture Series
Join us for the next event in Ujima’s #BlackTrust series with Dr. Caroline Hossein: The Black Social Economy: Valuing the Informal. (Oct 26 – Online)
Radical Real Estate Week
Decommodify, decarbonize, and rematriate the land! Join NEC member organization The Sustainable Economies Law Center from Oct 26-29 for a whole week of workshops and legal advice on how we build democratic, community ownership of land and housing. (Oct 26-29 – Online)
Sick & Tired National Day of Action
Over 50 years ago, Fannie Lou Hamer, said “I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired,” and 50 years later those words could not ring more true. Join the Frontline Coalition a week before the election as we rally our communities to show we are ready to not just vote Trump out but to get one step closer to the justice we all deserve. (Oct 27 – Online)
A House of Our Own
House of Our Own is a 25-minute film from 1975 that follows two groups of tenants organizing to create HDFC co-ops. The film will be followed by a discussion led by UHAB about what we have to learn from the ingenuity of the early homesteaders. (Oct 28 – Online)
Remaking the Economy: Mutual Aid, 3 City Case Studies
NPQ’s latest webinar in our Remaking the Economy series look at the past, present, and future of mutual aid. In the midst of COVID-19, mutual aid networks have emerged across the country. What is mutual aid? And how does it connect with broader movements for economic democracy and a solidarity economy? (Oct 28 – Online)
How Black Farmers Reclaimed Economic Power with Cooperatives
Hear from the Federation of Southern Cooperatives and Jessica Gordon-Nembhard about the history of Black farmer cooperatives, the role they have played in food and economic sovereignty, the challenges they face in the modern economy, and opportunities for growth. (Online – Oct 27)
Beyond the Election: What Comes Next?
Join Left Forum and Democracy at Work for a round-table discussion with Cornel West, Laura Flanders, Chris Hedges and Richard Wolff. (Online – Oct 27)
U.S. Militarism + Climate Justice
This fall, Power Shift Network is launching a series of critical conversations to examine the links between systems of U.S. sanctioned state violence, such as U.S. Militarism, Immigration Systems, White Nationalism, and their impacts on our movement for climate justice. Join the inaugural conversation about the ways that U.S. militarism emboldens the climate crisis. (Oct 29 – Online)
NASCO Institute 2020: Choose Your Own Future
Since 1977, NASCO’s Cooperative Education & Training Institute has been widely recognized as one of the most important training and networking opportunities available to members, directors, staff, and managers of group-equity cooperatives. Join this year’s virtual NASCO Institute, focused on bringing together cooperators to bring to life the future we want to see. (Nov 5-8 – Online)
Making Money Make Change 2020
This year Resource Generation will be offering Making Money Make Change as a two-day virtual conference. We’ll connect around what it means to have class privilege while fighting for racial and economic justice in 2020, and generatie visions of a future in which wealth, land and power are equitably shared. (Nov 13-14 – Online)