This week we’re talking about why community ownership is a vital COVID recovery strategy, how public banking can build the solidarity economy, the national strike in Colombia, Asian American solidarity economies, resources to build your own #PeoplesBudget campaign, and more.
Stories from the Field
Housing for All: As eviction protections come under fire, an estimated 9 million people are at risk of eviction, with Black and Latinx renters most at risk due to underlying inequities. Read this new report from NEC member Policy Link about how community ownership of rental buildings — through models like community land trusts and cooperatives — is a vital COVID recovery strategy to protect neighborhoods and create stable, affordable housing for all.
Public Banks Now: Public banking is a key strategy to building the solidarity economy. As Public Bank NYC puts it, once municipal funds are in the hands of a public bank, “they can be diverted out of extractive industries and into green energy, small businesses, workers’ cooperatives, and community land trusts.” Check out Next City’s new e-book about how organizers across the country are advancing public banking in their cities and states.
Community-Controlled Infrastructure: Back in March, the Biden administration announced a plan to invest $2 trillion to modernize the US’s aging infrastructure. As Thomas Hanna of NEC member The Democracy Collaborative writes, it’s vital that “those investments are made in a way that strengthens, rather than undermines, community control and democratic public ownership.” The Rural Power Coalition is one group organizing to make sure these funds are used to build democratic control and cooperative infrastructure — follow and support their work on Facebook and Twitter.
Solidarity Economies Abroad
Colombia National Strike: Since April 28, tens of thousands of Colombians have taken to the streets in protest of the Duque administration’s regressive tax reforms, escalating police violence, and state repression. Join this People’s Forum NYC event on May 7 to situate the current protests in the context of a larger struggle against neoliberalism and the Colombian people’s fight to achieve a dignified life free of violence.
India COVID Crisis: The scale of the COVID crisis in India is growing into what Arundhati Roy has called a crime against humanity. Read how an agricultural co-op is adapting to meet the desperate need for oxygen, and support urgent local mutual aid efforts.
Asian American Solidarity Economies
People-Powered Budgets
Movement News
- Abolish Intellectual Property
- After a century of dispossession, Black farmers are fighting to get back to the land
- Biden’s First 100 Days Have Been a Tale of Two Presidencies
- Black Economic Self-Determination with Ed Whitfield
- Empire Politician: A Half-Century of Joe Biden’s Stances on War, Militarism, and the CIA
- GOP Criminalizes Dissent with Anti-Riot Laws Targeting Black Lives Matter & Anti-Pipeline Protests
- May Day protesters demand more job protections amid pandemic
- “Monumental Moment”: U.S. Backs Waiving COVID Vaccine Patent Rights After Months of Blocking Talks
- Op-ed: Cancelling Student Debt Would Give Young BIPOC Farmers a Chance
- Texas Fisherwoman Diane Wilson Holds Hunger Strike to Stop Dredging for Oil Exports
- The Apache War Against Copper Mining – “This is an Act of Desecration”
- The True Cost of Closing the Racial Wealth Gap
- The Queer-Led Groups Modeling a New Form of Land Access
- We Are Fighting for a World Where Ma’Khia Bryant Would Have Lived
Podcasts of the New Economy
Artists and culture workers in Vancouver, Canada are using a union cooperative model to organize for greater labor protections in the wake of the pandemic. Hear how the union co-op model “may be the key to challenging precarious work and poverty in arts and cultural sectors.”
Additional Listens
Democracy Paradox – Shari Davis Elevates Participatory Budgeting
Millennials Are Killing Capitalism – The MOVE Bombing
Subvert – Southern Towers tenants stand up: the #ACT4SouthernTowers campaign
NEC on the Gram
Follow NEC on Instagram — @neweconomycoalition — Where we are amplifying this wisdom from Nia K Evans of NEC member org Boston Ujima Project! Watch the full panel from last week’s Post-Capitalism Conference.
Jobs Board
New Listings!
Communications Organizer and Southern Organizer, Resource Generation
Community Organizer, Kentuckians For The Commonwealth
Deputy Director and Narrative Directory, Soulardarity
Development Director – YES! Magazine
Director of Communications, The Center for Cultural Power
Finance Director, Movement Generation
Green New Deal Regional Organizers, Gulf Coast Center for Law and Policy
Loan and Outreach Officer, Cooperative fund of New England – Maine
New Economy Program Manager, Appalachian Voices
Various Positions, Catalyst Miami
Various Positions, KDC Cooperative Solutions
Various Positions, Mijente
Various Positions, Movement 4 Black Lives
Various Positions, UPROSE – Brooklyn
All Jobs
Affordable Co-op Housing Project Associate, UHAB – NYC
Campaign Organizer, New Economy Project
Capital Campaigns Co-Director and Strategic Storytelling Co-Director, Minnow
Co-Director of Leadership Programs, Justice Funders – May 14
Co-Executive Director, Powershift Network
Communications and Outreach Director, Peoples’ Hub
Communications Coordinator, Asian Pacific Environmental Network
Community Broadband Outreach Organizer, Institute for Local Self-Reliance
Culture and Communications Associate, Boston Ujima Project
Development Manager, Project Equity
Executive Director or Co-Director Team, Resource Generation
Grant Writing and Research Intern, NASCO
Media 2070 Campaign Manager, Free Press
National Director and Membership Coordinator, Grassroots Asians Rising
Project Coordinator, MAYDAY Space – May 12
Research Director Action Center on Race and the Economy
Social Impact Data & Research Intern, NASCO
Various Positions, Catalyst Cooperative
Various Positions, Center for Popular Democracy
Various Positions, Dream Defenders
Various Positions, Highlander Center
Various Positions, NDN Collective
Various Positions, PUSH Buffalo
Various Positions, Right to the City
Upcoming Events
Intro to Community Land Trusts with School of Living
Join a one-hour webinar to learn about the nuts and bolts of School of Living’s Community Land Trust model and why Community Land Trusts may be the best land-holding option for intentional communities. (May 11)
Biden and Economic Imperialism
A panel of American and global South activists will analyze Biden’s role in upholding US imperialism beyond the military, focusing on his economic policies–including around trade, investment, finance, climate, and food systems–which underpin the US empire in profound ways. (May 12)
Worker Co-ops vs. COVID: A Real News Special Report
We know that workers have been on the frontlines of the pandemic, too often with no real say in the conditions they’ve had to face and the risks they’ve had to take. Meanwhile, the net worth of American billionaires has grown by over a trillion dollars since the start of the pandemic. How would a more democratic economy have responded in the current crisis? (May 13)
Beyond Sustainability: Cultural Organizing for Social Justice
Join this conversation about how cultural collectives have developed new pathways for grassroots organizing, mutual aid, and creative activism, all while celebrating community resilience and resistance. (May 17)
Remaking the Economy: Core Elements of System Change
NPQ’s latest webinar in our Remaking the Economy series explores a central economic justice organizing question: What does it mean to engage in system change for economic justice? This webinar features three practitioners approaching this question from the standpoints of policy and law; communications and culture; and on-the-ground, co-op organizing. (May 20)
Vision Power Solutions: Community-Driven Planning for Racial and Climate Justice
How do communities define and design for themselves? How do we define our own challenges, identify our own assets and strengths, our priorities, our biggest threats and our unique approaches to resilience, climate, and justice? This 12-week workshop series builds facilitative leadership capacity among facilitators, organizers, leaders, and educators from (and accountable to) Black, Brown, and Indigenous communities. (May 20, 2021 – March 2022)
Pain Pollen: The Story of Cotton
The history of western medicine and herbalism demands that we understand the various ways that these narratives have glorified and exalted an oppressive colonization of both plants and people, while erasing and destroying the lived, land-based, traditional knowledge of indigenous peoples and communities of color. The knowledge share will be a chance for us to consider and listen to the stories of plants, specifically cotton, as an important part of any plant medicine practice. (May 22)
Histories of the Working Class in North America
Hosted by The People’s Forum, this series is driven by a commitment to better understand the history of working class life and struggle in order to learn lessons that can be applied in the class struggle today. (May 25, June 23, July 28)