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This week we’re talking about the 100th birthday of the Public Bank of North Dakota, a Puerto Rican feminist collective who helped spearhead the historic #RickyRenuncia protests, and the #ReparationsNow toolkit from the Movement for Black Lives!
PS: NEC is hiring an “Individual Giving Manager” to join our development team!
Stories from the Field
Rethinking Work: Until recently, four-day workweeks seemed too good to be true. The past few years have seen trade unions, progressive organizations and various businesses in Europe transitioning to a shorter work week to boost employee morale, productivity and reallocate time to workers. Think tanks like NEC member organization, The Democracy Collaborative are now strategizing and planning the gradual transition to reduce working hours in the US. Click here to read what the future of work might look like.
What Will The Economy Be When It Grows Up?: “Economy” and “growth” are words synonymous with one another. A growing economy is seen to be a healthy one, but for whom? Nothing in nature grows forever, and an economy which seeks to thrive and not harm the planet or people shouldn’t be any different. NEC member organization, Post Growth Institute fellows Katherine Trebeck and Jeremy Williams talk about their new book The Economics of Arrival here.
Happy 100th Birthday to Bank of North Dakota: On Sunday July 28th, the Bank of North Dakota (BND) founded in 1919, celebrated its centennial. The BND is owned by the people of North Dakota, is more profitable than Wall Street banks, and escaped the economic crash of 2008. “In the years since the financial crisis, vibrant campaigns for public banks have emerged all across the country, seeking to resist corporate domination and elite control and build new, more equitable and sustainable institutions.” Learn more about the historical roots and contemporary fight for public banks across the country!
Solidarity Economies Abroad
Caribbean Rising: Since 2017, the activist organization Colectiva Feminista en Construcción were some of the first to criticize now ousted governor Ricardo Rosselló and had been continually pushing him on gender-related issues for years. “Something that these protests have shown us is a change in the consciousness of the people.” Read the interview here and follow-up piece about keeping the organizing energy alive via Mother Jones.
Europe takes two big steps toward decentralized energy: In what’s being called “the climate game changer,” European Union lawmakers approved new rules allowing communities to consume and sell their own renewable energy. This past June, the European parliamentary elections delivered strong results for the Green Party who are expected to support the transition towards renewable and community-owned energy. Read the full article here from Shareable.
Free The Land
Did you know that between 1920 and 1992 the number of Black American farmers declined from 925,000 to only 18,000? Yes Magazine recently profiled the resurrection story of Shirley Sherod and “New Communities,” which was the largest tract of Black-owned land in the United States and the country’s first community land trust — a nonprofit organization to hold land in perpetual trust for the permanent use of rural communities. Read the piece in full here and this recent piece in Essence about freeing the land!
Artists Unite for a Green New Deal
Join NEC member organization, the US Department of Arts & Culture (USDAC) for “Artists Unite for a Green New Deal”—a summer call series for anyone looking to get informed, inspired, connected, and engaged.
The Green New Deal is an ambitious proposal that flips our fear of climate change on its head—a proposal rooted in a broad vision of social, economic, and racial equity that turns this emergency in to an opportunity to revitalize our own society and infrastructure, build the foundation of true sustainability, and address longstanding inequalities.
As artists and cultural workers, we know it’s our job to envision the better world we know is possible—and to invite others to help bring it into being. Join the USDAC for a three-part series of calls with artists, organizers, and thinkers to unpack the policy and science behind a Green New Deal, and to co-create cultural strategy for climate justice. Sign up here!
Movement News
Scientists Want to Make Harming the Environment a War Crime
If We Forget Appalachia’s Radical History, We Will Misunderstand Its Future
Economic Update: Worker Co-Ops Rising
What Barcelona’s Social and Solidarity Economy Can Tell Us About Building Equitable Cities
Workers of the World on Getting By in an Era of Wrenching Change
What Role do Cooperatives and the “Solidarity Economy” Play in Class Struggle?
My Frantic Life as a Cab-Dodging, Tip-Chasing Food App Deliveryman
Can Employee Ownership Preserve Legacy Businesses in Communities of Color?
Atlas of Utopias 2019: Bronx Cooperative Development Initiative
Rashida Tlaib: Minimum Wage Should be $20 an Hour, Not $15
The Survival of Sevananda, Atlanta’s Only Co-op Grocery Store
Has the Time Come for City-Run Public Banks?
Are Community Land Trusts ‘The Future of New York City’?
Seven Principles For Building A Fairer Economy
Participation Points: What HR Can Learn from Worker-Owned Cooperatives
Coal Miners Block Train Tracks in Protest of Company’s Bankruptcy Gaffe
Small Family Farms Aren’t the Answer
NEC on The Gram
Follow NEC on Instagram – @NewEconomyCoalition – where we’re amplifying the Movement for Black Lives new #ReparationsNow Toolkit. 100+ pages of history, definitions and activities to work through this summer! THIS IS HOW.
Job Board
Campaign Manager, Black Futures Lab – Oakland, CA
CED Adviser/Senior Adviser, Research (Housing and Neighborhoods) – CED, Atlanta, GA
Communications Strategist, Action Center on Race and the Economy – Location is flexible
Cooperative Housing Specialist, Vermont, CDI – North/West Vermont
Communications Director, The Laura Flanders Show
Digital Engagement Organizer, Corporate Accountability – Boston, MA
Director Advising Department, Way to Win – Remote/Austin, Texas
Deputy Director & Communications Director, Beneficial State Foundation – Oakland, Sacramento or Fresno – Aug 16
Felipe Floresca Fellowship, Emerald Cities Collaborative – Various Cities – Aug 4
Individual Giving Manager, New Economy Coalition – Cambridge, MA
Learning Manager, The Prosperity Agenda – Seattle, Philadelphia, or remotely
Major Gifts Coordinator, Corporate Accountability – Boston, MA
Marketing & Communications Manager, Recompose, Seattle, WA
Metrics & Impact Analyst – Democracy at Work Institute, New York, NY, Aug. 5
National Storytelling Coordinator – The Canadian CED Network, Toronto, Aug. 1
Network Vibrancy Coordinator – The Canadian CED Network, Toronto, Aug. 1
Press Officer, Corporate Accountability – Boston, MA
Program Director – The ICA Group, Boston, Northampton or NYC, Aug. 5
Senior and Associate Project Officers, The Working World – New York, NY – Aug 5
Senior Staff Attorney, New Economy Project – New York, NY
Supervising Producer & Communications Director, The Laura Flanders Show
US Digital Campaigner, 350.org – Various locations (DC area preferred)
Various Positions, Democracy Collaborative – Washington, DC
Upcoming Events
Learn How To Become Your Own Boss, Start A Cooperative Business
In this 6 week process you will learn how to take your dreams to reality, formulate business ideas on paper, how to file and structure your business in a cooperative way, take steps to moving more into action and so much more! Don’t miss the chance of being apart of something great! Taking back our communities, building more businesses, and starting legacies that can be passed down to the generations that follow. See you there!! (August 1 – North Richmond, CA)
Affordable For Whom? Convening
Hosted in partnership with NEC member organization NESRI, Affordable For Whom? is a two-day convening focused on the development and preservation of housing that is permanently affordable to the communities to whom our organizations are accountable. (August 2-3 – Long Island City, NY)
Free Fred Brown! is a devised theatre piece about a young black man who becomes the reluctant face of a movement while in prison for “theft of services” from the regional gas company. Fred is from Uptown, a frontline community at the epicenter of economic, racial, and climate justice, in a rust-belt city that is identical to Buffalo, NY. When a surprise snow storm wreaks havoc on the region, Uptown suffers most and demands explanations: What happened? Who is responsible, and how do we make sure it doesn't happen again? Free Fred Brown! is a peek into the lives of the individuals who make a community what it is. Who knows, maybe you'll find a bit of yourself in the performance. (August 3 & 4 – Buffalo, NY)
2020 Fossil Fuel Divestment Day Mass Info Call
Join Divest Ed for a 2020 Fossil Fuel Divestment Day (F2D2) webinar and learn how your campus campaign can join the national escalation next Spring! Led by Divest Ed Summer Program Fellows who have been busy organizing the national escalation, we will be reviewing the principles, narrative, timeline and phases outlined for Fossil Fuel Divestment Day 2020 actions and campaign participation. (August 5 – Webinar)
Mapping Our Futures: Economics and Governance Series
This participatory, popular education series will help participants understand the fundamental forces of the current economic and governance systems, envision a democratic, just, and sustainable future, and strategize toward building the new solidarity economy we all deserve. This series provides an introduction to Highlander’s Mapping Our Futures curriculum and lifts up innovative strategies from across the globe that are advancing new economies and shifting the ways groups organize themselves, govern their work together, resist capitalism’s structurally designed inequities, and transform people’s lives and conditions. (Various dates – Webinar)
Rethinking Racial Justice in the Wake of Obama and the Era of Trump
This panel will discuss what organizing strategies and infrastructure are needed to leverage the approach up to and beyond leverage the 2020 election and the political context after the election. (August 10 – Martha's Vineyard, MA)
Decolonizing Our Hearts, Minds & Movements
This gathering, led by and held for Indigenous, Black, and Latinx Peoples, is both a leadership exploration and a healing retreat focused on mindful decolonization strategies intended to help undo the legacy of colonization in each of us and within our practice of activism. Throughout the week the group will be joined by guest presenters Leah Penniman, Sachem Hawkstorm, Naftali Duran, David Ragland and Stephanie Morningstar. (August 18-23 – Rhinebeck, NY)
Second International Congress on Cooperativism and Solidarity Economy
The National Network of Researchers and Educators in Cooperativism and Solidarity Economy (REDCOOP) and the Chapingo Autonomous University call on researchers and teachers focused on the study and teaching of the ESS, to public officials of any of the three levels of government, to cooperatives and associates of ESS companies and, to the general public, to participate in the work of the Second International Congress Analysis and Evaluation of the institutionalization processes of the Social and Solidarity Economy in Latin America, which will occur at the Chapingo Autonomous University. (August 28 & 29 – Chapingo, Mexico)
Open Buffalo: Justice Leadership Institute
NEC member organization, Open Buffalo are now accepting applications for their newest Leadership Development initiative, the Open Buffalo Justice Leadership Institute (JLI). Apply today for this FREE community leadership workshop offered September 6th – 8th, 2019 and you will gain community organizing skills, find power in your personal story and have the ability to make systemic change within your community! (September 6-8 – Buffalo, NY)
Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy (ECWD)
The ECWD, founded in 2002, is a conference that builds awareness of worker-owned businesses while strengthening existing worker co-ops. For 17 years, the ECWD has forged relationships between democratically-owned businesses, labor institutions, and cooperative resource organizations to expand workplace democracy. The ECWD has been convened every two years in the Eastern United States, and was last hosted by Baltimore in 2011. As a signal of our growing alignment, this will be the first year that the program is organized directly by the US Federation of Worker Co-ops, this country’s national grassroots membership organization for worker-owned cooperatives. (October 18-20 – Baltimore, MD)
North American Students of Cooperation (NASCO) Institute 2019
Cooperatives have long embodied self-help and mutual aid. This year’s theme will encourage us to take a look at how we have built cooperatives with and for our whole community. This theme will delve into the hard work of community organizing as well as the mindfulness it takes to co-create with existing communities when starting a new cooperative. We are seeking workshops on community-based projects, building cooperatives with communities resources, leveraging cooperative spaces to meet community needs and participatory processes. (November 8-10 – Austin, TX)
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