A worker cooperative is a cooperative owned and democratically controlled by its employees. There are no outside or consumer owners in a worker cooperative -- only the workers own shares of the business. Co-op redirects here. ...

Definition of worker cooperative

There are many definitions as to what qualifies as a workers' cooperative. For example, CICOPA, the International Organisation of Industrial, Artisanal and Service Producers’ Cooperatives, gives an 8-page definition in their World Declaration on Workers' Cooperatives, which was approved by the International Co-operative Alliance General Assembly in September 2005. Below is the section on the basic characteristics of workers' cooperatives: The International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) is a non-governmental association representing co-operatives and the co-operative movement worldwide. ...

1. They have the objective of creating and maintaining sustainable jobs and generating wealth, in order to improve the quality of life of the worker-members, dignify human work, allow workers’ democratic self-management and promote community and local development.
2. The free and voluntary membership of their members, in order to contribute with their personal work and economic resources, is conditioned by the existence of workplaces.
3. As a general rule, work shall be carried out by the members. This implies that the majority of the workers in a given worker cooperative enterprise are members and vice versa.
4. The worker-members’ relation with their cooperative shall be considered as different to that of conventional wage-based labour and to that of autonomous individual work.
5. Their internal regulation is formally defined by regimes that are democratically agreed upon and accepted by the worker-members.
6. They shall be autonomous and independent, before the State and third parties, in their labour relations and management, and in the usage and management of the means of production. ^[1]

Many workers' cooperatives also follow the Rochdale Principles and values, which are a set of core principles for the operation of cooperatives. They were first set out by the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers in Rochdale, England, in 1844 and have formed the basis for the principles on which co-operatives around the world operate to this day. The Rochdale Principles are a set of ideals for the operation of cooperatives. ...

Even though there is no universally accepted definition of a workers' cooperative, they can be considered to be businesses that make a product, or offer a service, to sell for profit where the workers are members or worker-owners. Worker-owners work in the business, govern it and manage it. Unlike with conventional firms, ownership and decision-making power of a worker cooperative should be vested solely with the worker-owners and ultimate authority rests with the worker-owners as a whole. Worker-owners control the resources of the cooperative and the work process, such as wages or hours of work. ^[2]

As mentioned above, the majority – if not all - of the workers in a given worker cooperative enterprise should be worker-owners, although some casual or wage workers may be employed with whom profits and decision making are not necessarily shared equally. Workers also often undergo a trial or screening period (such as three or six months) before being allowed to have full voting powers. ^[2]

Participation is based on one vote per worker-owner, regardless of the amount of shares or equity owned by each worker-owner. Voting rights are not tied to investment or patronage in the workers' co-operative, and only worker-owners can vote on decisions that affect them.

As noted by theorists and practitioners alike, the importance of capital should be subordinated to labour in workers' cooperatives. Indeed, Adams et al. see workers' cooperatives as "labor-ist" rather than "capital-ist":

"Labor is the hiring factor, therefore the voting and property rights are assigned to the people who do the work and not to capital, even though the worker-members supply capital through membership fees and retained earnings...Any profit or loss after normal operating expenses is assigned to members on the basis of their labor contribution." ^[2]

Workers' co-operatives have often been seen as an alternative or "third way" to the domination of labour by either capital or the state (see below for a comparison).

In short, workers' co-operatives are organised to serve the needs of worker-owners by generating benefits (which may or may not be profits) for the worker owners rather than returns to (often external) investors with capital. This worker-driven orientation makes them fundamentally different from other corporations. Additional cooperative structural characteristics and guiding principles further distinguish them from other business models. For example, worker-owners may not believe that profit maximisation is the best, or only, goal for their co-operative or they may follow the Rochdale Principles. The Rochdale Principles are a set of ideals for the operation of cooperatives. ...

Profits (or losses) earned by the worker's cooperative are shared by worker owners. Salaries generally have a low ratio difference which ideally should be "guided by principles of proportionality, external solidarity and internal solidarity" ^[2] (such as a two to one ratio between lowest and highest earner), and often are equal for all workers. Salaries can be calculated according to skill, seniority or time worked and can be raised or lowered in good times or bad to ensure job security.

Internal Structure

Worker cooperatives have a wide variety of internal structures. Worker control can be exercised directly or indirectly by worker-owners. If exercised indirectly, members of representative decision-making bodies (e.g. a Board of Directors) must be elected by the worker-owners (who in turn hire the management) and be subject to removal by the worker-owners. This is a hierarchical structure similar to that of a conventional business, with a board of directors and various grades of manager, with the difference being that the board of directors is elected.

If exercised directly, all members meet regularly to make - and vote on - decisions on how the co-operative is run. Direct workers' cooperatives sometimes use consensus decision-making to make decisions.^[3] Direct worker control ensures a formally flat management structure instead of a hierarchical one. This structure is influenced by activist collectives and civic organizations, with all members allowed and expected to play a managerial role. Such structures may be associated with more radical political aims such as anarchism, libertarian socialism and participatory economics.^[4][5] Consensus decision-making is a decision-making process that not only seeks the agreement of most participants, but also to resolve or mitigate the objections of the minority to achieve the most agreeable decision. ... A hierarchy (in Greek hieros = sacred, arkho = rule) is a system of ranking and organizing things. ... Anarchist redirects here. ... Libertarian socialism is a group of political philosophies that aim to create a society without political, economic or social hierarchies - a society in which all violent or coercive institutions would be dissolved, and in their place every person would have free, equal access to tools of information and production, or... Participatory economics, often abbreviated parecon, is a proposed economic system that uses participatory decision making as an economic mechanism to guide the allocation of resources and consumption in a given society. ...

Some workers' cooperatives also practice job rotation or balanced job complexes to overcome inequalities of power as well as to give workers a wider range of experiences and exposure to the different jobs in a work place so that they are better able to make decisions about the whole workplace. The Mondragon Bookstore & Coffeehouse is a good example of a workplace that does this. In leadership development, an approach to management development is job rotation where an individual is moved through a schedule of assignments designed to give him or her a breadth of exposure to the entire operation. ... A Balanced job complex is a collection of tasks within a given workplace that is balanced for its equity and empowerment implications against all other job complexes in that workplace. ... Look up Power in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ...

History of worker cooperatives

Historically, worker cooperatives rose to prominence during the industrial revolution as part of the labour movement. As employment moved to industrial areas and job sectors declined, workers began organizing and controlling businesses for themselves. Workers cooperative were originally sparked by "critical reaction to industrial capitalism and the excesses of the industrial revolution." (Adams et al 1993: 11) The formation of some workers co-operatives, such as those by the Knights of Labour in 19th century America, were designed to "cope with the evils of unbridled capitalism and the insecurities of wage labor" ^[2]. A Watt steam engine, the steam engine that propelled the Industrial Revolution in Britain and the world. ... The labour movement or labor movement is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working people, to campaign in their own interest for better treatment from their employers and political governments, in particular through the implementation of specific laws governing labor relations. ...

Most early worker co-ops did not adhere to clear cooperative structures or ideologies. Starting in the 1830s, worker cooperatives were formed by hat makers, bakers, and garment workers.

In the United States there is no coherent legislation regarding worker cooperatives nationally, much less Federal laws, so most worker cooperatives make use of traditional consumer cooperative law and try to fine-tune it for their purposes. In some cases the members (workers) of the cooperative in fact "own" the enterprise by buying a share that represents a fraction of the market value of the cooperative.

When the current cooperative movement resurfaced in the 1960s it developed mostly on a new system of "collective ownership" where par value shares were issued as symbolic of egalitarian voting rights. Typically, a member may only own one share to maintain the egalitarian ethos. Once brought in as a member, after a period of time on probation usually so the new candidate can be evaluated, he or she was given power to manage the coop, without "ownership" in the traditional sense. In the UK this system is known as common ownership. Common ownership is a principle according to which the assets of an enterprise or other organisation are held indivisibly rather than in the names of the individual members. ...

Some of these early cooperatives still exist and most new worker cooperatives follow their lead and develop a relationship to capital that is more radical than the previous system of equity share ownership.

In Britain this type of cooperative was traditionally known as a producer cooperative, and, while it was overshadowed by the consumer and agricultural types, made up a small section of its own within the national apex body, the Cooperative Union. The 'new wave' of worker cooperatives that took off in Britain in the mid-1970s joined the Industrial Common Ownership Movement (ICOM) as a separate federation. Buoyed up by the alternative and ecological movements and by the political drive to create jobs, the sector peaked at around 2,000 enterprises. However the growth rate slowed, the sector contracted, and in 2001 ICOM merged with the Co-operative Union (which was the federal body for consumer cooperatives) to create Co-operatives UK, thus reunifying the cooperative sector. Co-operatives UK (formally known simply as the Co-operative Union) is the peak co-operative union (that is a federation of co-operatives) in the United Kingdom. ...

Political Philosophy of workers' cooperatives

The advocacy of workplace democracy, especially with the fullest expression of worker self-management, such as within workers' cooperatives, is rooted within several intellectual or political traditions: Workplace democracy is the application of democracy in all its forms (including voting systems, debates, democratic structuring, due process, adversarial process, systems of appeal, and so on) to the workplace. ... Workplace democracy is the application of democracy in all its forms (including voting systems, debates, democratic structuring, due process, adversarial process, systems of appeal, and so on) to the workplace. ...

• The alleviation of alienation in the workplace, especially in regard to Marxist thought
• The encouragement of Participatory or Direct Democracy
• Radical but popular-democratic strategies for the overthrow of capitalism, for example, several strains of anarchist thought.
• Autonomy and self control, especially within anarchist thought.

Workers' cooperatives are also central to ideas of Autonomism, Mutualism, Syndicalism, Participatory economics, Guild socialism, Libertarian socialism as well as others. Marxs theory of alienation (Entfremdung in German), as expressed in the writings of young Karl Marx, refers to the separation of things that naturally belong together, or to antagonism between things that are properly in harmony. ... Marxism is the political practice and social theory based on the works of Karl Marx, a 19th century philosopher, economist, journalist, and revolutionary, along with Friedrich Engels. ... Participatory democracy is a broadly inclusive term for many kinds of consultative decision making which require consultation on important decisions by those who will carry out the decision. ... Direct democracy, classically termed pure democracy,[1] comprises a form of democracy and theory of civics wherein sovereignty is lodged in the assembly of all citizens who choose to participate. ... For other uses, see Capitalism (disambiguation). ... Anarchism is a generic term describing various political philosophies and social movements that advocate the elimination of hierarchy and imposed authority. ... Anarchism is a generic term describing various political philosophies and social movements that advocate the elimination of hierarchy and imposed authority. ... Raised fist, stenciled protest symbol of Autonome at the Ernst-Kirchweger-Haus in Vienna, Austria Autonomism refers to a set of left-wing political and social movements and theories close to the socialist movement. ... Theory and practice Issues History Culture By region Lists Related Anarchism Portal Politics Portal ·        Mutualism is a political and economic theory or system, largely associated with Pierre-Joseph Proudhon, based on a labor theory of value which holds that when labor or its product is sold, it ought to receive... Syndicalism refers to a set of ideas, movements, and tendencies which share the avowed aim of transforming capitalist society through action by the working class on the industrial front. ... Participatory economics, often abbreviated parecon, is a proposed economic system that uses participatory decision making as an economic mechanism to guide the allocation of resources and consumption in a given society. ... Guild socialism was a British political movement in the 1890s-1920s that wanted to give each local workplace sovereignity. ... Libertarian socialism is a group of political philosophies that aim to create a society without political, economic or social hierarchies - a society in which all violent or coercive institutions would be dissolved, and in their place every person would have free, equal access to tools of information and production, or...

Trade Unions

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Unions are often unnecessary in worker cooperatives as the workers have direct control over the management and ownership of the business - they are negotiating with themselves. Some worker cooperatives still choose to become members of local unions to demonstrate their support for the labor movement and to working conditions that have resulted from years of struggle. While an unusual situation, there is no contradiction in doing so. Worker cooperatives that join unions often benefit from the trade that comes their way from the community of union members and those who support unions for political reasons^{[citation needed]}. The labor contract negotiated becomes the baseline of benefits due to the membership and guarantees to the community that the working conditions are not unfavorable. Union membership also guarantees that the worker cooperative will not operate on the basis of typical small business sacrifice, where owner(s) sometimes work overtime to keep their business afloat and expect similar sacrifices of their workers. Union membership for worker cooperatives gives the enterprise a legitimate standard of operations.^[6] The Lawrence textile strike (1912), with soldiers surrounding peaceful demonstrators A trade union or labor union is an organization of workers who have banded together to achieve common goals in key areas such as wages, hours, and working conditions, forming a cartel of labour. ... The labour movement or labor movement is a broad term for the development of a collective organization of working people, to campaign in their own interest for better treatment from their employers and political governments, in particular through the implementation of specific laws governing labor relations. ...

Firms converting to worker ownership may benefit from union membership because a union provides an experienced structure for integrating the needs of business with democratic influence from workers on management decisions.^[6]

Worker cooperatives in Europe

Worker co-operation is well established in most countries in Europe, with the largest movements being in Italy, Spain and France.

The European Cooperative Statute, which has been in force since 2006, permits worker cooperatives to be created by individuals or corporate bodies in different EU countries. It is a loose framework which devolves much detail to the national legislation of the country in which the European Cooperative Society (ECS) is registered. It permits a minority of shares to be held by 'investor members' which are not employees. The Council Regulation on the Statute for a European Company of the European Union (adopted October 8, 2001; OJ L 294, 10/11/2001, pp. ...

Spain

One of the world's best known example of worker cooperation is the Mondragón Cooperative Corporation in the Basque Country.^[7] Mondragón Cooperative Corporation (MCC) is a group of manufacturing and retail companies based in the Basque Country and extended over the rest of Spain and abroad. ... Pays Basque) see Northern Basque Country. ...

UK

In the United Kingdom, the Labour Party's enthusiasm for worker cooperatives was at its highest in the 1970s and 1980s, with Tony Benn being a prominent advocate. A number of such co-operatives were formed during the 1974 Labour Government. However, this usually took place following the bankruptcy of a private firm in a desperate attempt to save the jobs at risk, and the change in ownership structure was usually unable to resist the underlying commercial failure. This was true in particular of the best known, the Meriden motor-cycle cooperative in the West Midlands which took over the assets of the ailing Triumph company, although there were instances of successful employee buy-outs of nationalised industries in the period, notably National Express. The Labour Party has been, since its founding in the early 20th century, the principal political party of the left in the United Kingdom. ... Anthony Tony Neil Wedgwood Benn (born 3 April 1925), formerly 2nd Viscount Stansgate, is a British socialist politician. ... Triumph Motorcycles is an English motorcycle manufacturer, originally based in Coventry. ... National Express coach on route 561 National Express is the brand under which the majority of long distance bus and coach services in the United Kingdom are marketed, and also the company that manages this network and operates some of the services. ...

Under UK law there is no special legal structure for a "co-operative"^[3]. As noted by Catalyst Collective, an organisation which helps set up and register co-operatives in the UK, "Co-ops are registered under either the Company Acts, or the Industrial & Provident Societies Acts (IPS)" ^[8]. A number of model rules have been devised to enable cooperatives to register under both acts; for workers' cooperatives, these rules restrict membership to those who are employed by the workplace. According to Radical Routes, "[m]ost [workers'] co-operatives are incorporated bodies" which limits the liability if it fails and goes into liquidation."^[3] Radical Routes is a United Kingdom based co-operative of co-operatives. ...

In North America

USA

The United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives is the only organization in the U.S. representing worker cooperative interests nationally. There are local networks and federations throughout the U.S. in the San Francisco Bay area, Minnesota, Portland, Oregon, and Boston, Massachusetts, and the Pioneer Valley region of New England.^[9] The U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives was founded at the U.S. Conference of Democratic Workplaces in Minneapolis, May 2004. ... Nickname: Location of Portland in Multnomah County and the state of Oregon Coordinates: , Country State Counties Multnomah, Washington, Clackamas Incorporated February 8, 1851 Government  - Type Commission  - Mayor Tom Potter[1]  - Commissioners Sam Adams Randy Leonard Dan Saltzman Erik Sten  - Auditor Gary Blackmer Area  - City 376. ... Boston redirects here. ...

Canada

Worker co-ops in Canada are represented by the Canadian Worker Co-op Federation(CWCF). Members of the CWCF are found throughout English Canada^[10].

Ontario has its own federation with well-developed standards^[11][12]. Quebec has a distinct worker co-operative history, and is presently organised into a number of regional federations.

South America

Venuezuela

See also List of Venezuelan Cooperatives. This is the list of all those organizations clasifieds on his working areas: // Atabapo Express RL List of Venezuelan Companies SUNACOOP Website Category: ...

The Chávez government in Venezuela has a policy of financing worker cooperatives, resulting in a growing number in that country. ^{[13] [14]} Hugo Rafael Chávez Frías (pronounced ) (born July 28, 1954) is the current President of Venezuela. ...

Argentina

In response to the economic crisis in Argentina, many Argentinian workers occupied the premises of bankrupt businesses and began to run them as worker-owned cooperatives. As of 2005, there were roughly 200 worker-owned businesses in Argentina, most of which were started in response to this crisis. ^[15] The documentary film The Take is the best-known document in English about this phenomenon. The Argentine economic crisis was part of the situation that affected Argentinas economy during the late 1990s and early 2000s. ...

See also recovered factory. A recovered factory (fábrica recuperada) is a company in which its workers have taken over control, commonly after mass redundancy or intentional bankruptcy by the managment. ...

Asia

India

India owns the largest co-operative in the world which is also a more progressive worker co-operative. They are running Indian Coffee Houses in the country. The Coffee Houses in India were started by the Coffee Board in early 1940s, during British rule. In the mid 1950s the Board closed down the Coffee Houses, due to a policy change. The thrown-out workers then took over the branches, under the leadership of A. K. Gopalan and renamed the network as Indian Coffee House. This history is recorded in Coffee Housinte Katha, a book in Malayalam, the mother tongue of A. K. Gopalan. The author of the book is Nadakkal Parameswaran Pillai one of the leaders of the ICH movement. Indian Coffee House shop at Thampanoor,Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala The Indian Coffee House is a restaurant chain in India, run by a series of worker co-operative societies. ... Ayillyath Kuttiari Gopalan Nambiar, popularly known as A. K. Gopalan or AKG, was an Indian communist leader. ... Malayalam (മലയാളം ) is the language spoken predominantly in the state of Kerala, in southern India. ...

Comparing Characteristics of Corporations, State-Owned Enterprises, and Worker Cooperatives

There are significant differences between ends and means between firms where capital controls labour, or firms where the state controls both labour and capital. Worker-ownership has been described as "a third way." These distinctions are easily seen when measured by essential elements of commerce: purpose, organization, ownership, control, sources of capital, distribution of profits, dividends, operational practices, and tax treatment. The following chart compares the commercial elements of capitalism, socialism, and cooperative worker-ownership. It is based on US rules and regulations. ^[2] This article is about financial dividends. ...

A corporation (usually known in the United Kingdom and Ireland as a company) is a legal entity (distinct from a natural person) that often has similar rights in law to those of a Civil law systems may refer to corporations as moral persons; they may also go by the name... Nationalization is the act of taking assets into state ownership. ... This article is about financial dividends. ...

See also

• Employee-owned corporation
• Industrial democracy
• Workers' control
• Workers' self-management
• Workplace democracy
• Economic democracy

Employee-owned corporations are generally a model of ownership of a corporation where the corporation is owned in part or whole by the employees who work for it. ... Industrial Democracy is an economic arrangement which involves workers making decisions, sharing responsibility and authority in the workplace. ... Workers control is participation in the management of factories and other enterprises by the people who work there. ... Poster for the Movimiento Nacional de Empresas Recuperadas (MNER), at a worker-recovered print shop, Chilavert Artes Gráficas in Buenos Aires, Argentina Worker self-management (or autogestion) is a form of workplace decision-making in which the employees themselves agree on choices (for issues like customer care, general production... Workplace democracy is the application of democracy in all its forms (including voting systems, debates, democratic structuring, due process, adversarial process, systems of appeal, and so on) to the workplace. ... Economic Democracy is a philosophy that suggests a transfer of socio-economic decision-making from a small minority of corporate shareholders to the much larger majority of public stakeholders. ...

Workers' cooperative thinkers

Michael Albert (born April 8, 1947) is a longtime activist, speaker, and writer, is co-editor of ZNet, and co-editor and co-founder of Z Magazine. ... George Douglas Howard Cole (September 25, 1889 - January 14, 1959) was an English journalist and economist, closely associated with the development of Fabianism. ... Robert Alan Dahl (b. ... Sam Dolgoff (1902-1990) was an American anarchist and anarcho-syndicalist. ... Charles Gide (1847–1932) was a French economist and notable ideologue of the cooperative movement in the first third of the 20th century. ... David Griffiths is a Co-operative economist, who has contributed a number of books and articles on the subject of unemployment,[1] the history of Victorias Co-operative movement,[2] and social care co-operatives[3] amongst other subjects. ... There have been several people named William King: William King (1663-1712), English poet. ... Naomi Klein (b. ... Rob Oakeshott is an Australian politician. ... For other uses, see Robert Owen (disambiguation). ... Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen (May 3, 1818, Hamm - May 11, 1888, Heddesdorf, currently known as Neuwied, Germany) was a German cooperative leader. ... The Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, founded in 1844, is usually considered the first successful co-operative enterprise, forming the basis for the modern co-operative movement. ... David Schweickart is an American mathematician and philosopher. ... Ernst Friedrich Fritz Schumacher (16 August 1911 – 4 September 1977) was an internationally influential economic thinker with a professional background as a statistician and economist in Britain. ... An editor has expressed a concern that the subject of the article does not satisfy the notability guideline or one of the following guidelines for inclusion on Wikipedia: Biographies, Books, Companies, Fiction, Music, Neologisms, Numbers, Web content, or several proposals for new guidelines. ... Beatrice Webb Martha Beatrice Potter Webb (January 2, 1858 - April 30, 1943) (also called Beatrice Webb) was a British socialist, economist and reformer, usually referred to in the same breath as her husband, Sidney Webb. ... Categories: UK Labour Party politicians | British MPs | Peers | Secretaries of State for the Colonies (UK) | 1859 births | 1947 deaths | People stubs ... William Foote White at home in Cayuga, New York, 1996. ... Kevin Carson is a contemporary American individualist anarchist and author. ...

Videos about workers' cooperatives

• Anarchism in America
• Five Factories: Workers' Control in Venezuela - Directed by Dario Azzellini and Oliver Ressler
• The Take

Anarchism in America is a 1983 documentary, directed by Steven Fischler and Joel Sucher, and produced by Pacific Street Films. ... The Take is a Canadian documentary film released in 2004 by the wife and husband team of Naomi Klein and Avi Lewis. ...

External links

• Cicopa - International Cooperative Organization
• US Federation of Worker Cooperatives
• Network of Bay Area Worker Cooperatives - (NoBAWC, pronounced "No Boss")
• History of Work Cooperation in America
• Beyond Capitalism: Leland Stanford's Forgotten Vision
• Papers on political economy arguing in favor of worker cooperatives by David Ellerman
• Worker cooperative forum
• Collectives, Workers' Cooperatives, and the IWW
• Worker Cooperatives Mapped on Platial.
• Federation of Workplace Democracies-Minnesota
• Worker Co-ops on the National Cooperative Business Association
• Article on difference between worker cooperatives and unions in Dollars & Sense magazine
• Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives
• Green Worker Co-op
• Are workers' co-operatives schools of democracy? A case study of two UK workers' co-operatives by Edward Griffith-Jones
• Power in Utopia? Analysis of two UK workers’ co-operatives through Steven Lukes’ three-dimensional lens by Rebecca Napier-Moore
• A short history of co-operatives in the UK by Molly Scott Cato
• A Cooperative manifesto by Tim Huet
• News from Mondragon by Tim Huet

The Network of Bay Area Worker Cooperatives (NoBAWC - pronounced No Boss) is a network of worker cooperatives dedicated to building workplace democracy in the San Francisco Bay Area. ... Dollars & Sense is a magazine dedicated to providing left-wing perspectives on economics. ... An editor has expressed a concern that the subject of the article does not satisfy the notability guideline or one of the following guidelines for inclusion on Wikipedia: Biographies, Books, Companies, Fiction, Music, Neologisms, Numbers, Web content, or several proposals for new guidelines. ...

References

1. ^ CICOPA (2005) World Declaration on Workers Cooperatives, approved by the ICA General Assembly in Cartagena, Colombia, on 23 September 2005
2. ^ ^{a b c d e f} Adams, Frank and Gary Hansen (1993) Putting Democracy To Work: A Practical Guide for Starting and Managing Worker-Owned Businesses, Berrett-Koehler Publishers, Inc, San Francisco
3. ^ ^{a b c} How to set up a Workers Co-op by Radical Routes
4. ^ South End Press http://www.southendpress.org/about
5. ^ Haymarket Cafe http://haymarketcafe.org/
6. ^ ^{a b} Bell, Dan "Worker-Owners and Unions --Why Can't We Just Get Along?" http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?ItemID=11132
7. ^ Smith, Julia. BC Institute for Co-operative Studies "The Most Famous Worker Co-operative of All…Mondragon" [1]
8. ^ What is a workers' co-operative by Catalyst Collective
9. ^ Ajowa Nzinga Ifateyo "The United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives Has Issued a Call for Membership" http://www.geo.coop/USFedMembership.htm
10. ^ Canadian Worker Co-op Federation "Members" http://www.canadianworker.coop/english/4/index_e412.html
11. ^ Ontario Worker Co-op Federation "What is a Worker Co-op?" http://www.ontarioworker.coop/what_is_a_worker_coop.htm
12. ^ Canadian Worker Co-op Federation "What is a Worker Co-op?" http://www.canadianworker.coop/english/4/index_e431.html
13. ^ Michael Parenti, 'Good Things Happening in Venezuela', Z Magazine.http://www.thirdworldtraveler.com/Parenti/GoodThings_Venezuela.html
14. ^ Betsy Bowman and Bob Stone, 'Venezuela's Cooperative Revolution,' dollars & sense http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archives/2006/0706bowmanstone.html
15. ^ Benjamin Dangl, 'Occupy, Resist, Produce: Worker Cooperatives in Argentina' http://upsidedownworld.org/coops_arg.htm