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THE PLAN

What? Who?

- visiting workers co-ops with links to community organising/grassroots economic organising - ie, those who are actively trying to promote the workers co-op model and support people in disadvantaged communities to set them up.

- meeting with various people from the US Federation of Workers Co-ops and the Democracy at Work Institute. Particularly with a view to learning about their training programmes: how the curricula are worked out, where the funding comes from, what the governance/links between DAWI and the Federation are - which elements or programmes would be relevant to and replicable in the UK?

I want to find out about projects/institutions/mechanisms that

- make workers co-ops and the worker co-op movement more resilient

- work in the overlap between co-ops and community organising

- raise the profile of worker ownership and control

- connect co-ops into alternative economic systems, eg LETS and crypto currencies

- embed politics in workers co-ops and workers co-ops in political activity. I'm personally most interested in ecological and anti-consumption politics and how to reconcile that with making a living.

I can bring information and experience of:

  • the UK workers co-op movement over the last 5 years

  • the Radical Routes network of radical co-operatives over the last 20 years. RR is a federation of radical co-operatives working for social change. It is a mutual aid network, mostly run by work contribution of the members, which operates on a consensus decision-making basis through quarterly general meetings. It offers loans to member co-ops, as well as skills training, advice, support, inspiration and solidarity. http://www.radicalroutes.org.uk/aims-and-principles.html

  • newly acquired information about the integrated co-operative economies being developed in Catalunya, and the local and global infrastuctures they are developing to extend their reach

  • experience of living in a small, urban, communal housing co-operative over 24 years and working in a small collective printers workers co-op since 2000, including thoughts on how separately and together the two co-ops have contributed to a growing ecosystem of co-ops in our area.

  • Using the equity of existing housing co-ops to support the growth of new ones.

  • Being a worker co-operator, co-op activist and co-op development advisor at the same time, with a focus on helping co-ops work out how to embody their values and principles in their working practices and identities.

Outcomes during the tour

  • to produce case studies and interviews in blog and video format - this serves the purposes of providing a structure to the visit, creating something that I hope is of use to the host co-op/organisation in terms of having an outside perspective, having a format that enables comparison of different co-ops and is of use to UK co-ops in understanding similarities and differences. And last, but not least, putting faces to names and making the stories human, resonant and accessible.

  • to produce reports for Co-operatives UK and the Workers Co-op Council and articles for UK publications and forums: Co-op News/ the workers co-op Loomio Group/ other publications as relevant (eg Peace News, New Internationalist, Stir to Action, Red Pepper, etc). I assume there will also be US and Canadian media that will be interested.

  • to share information I have about the UK co-op movement/Radical Routes and CIC/FairCoop in seminars and talks and

  • to host real-time online discussions between people I'm with and co-operators back in the UK/Barcelona.

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