Aaron Dawson and Joe Marraffino of the Democracy at Work Network spoke to members of emerging Occupy Wall Street cooperatives last weekend about the nuts and bolts of worker cooperative finance, governance and law. The emerging cooperatives are groups that rose to meet the needs of the movement and operated democratically out of principle. Now looking to the next phase of development, the groups were looking for some practical tips. The groups included the Occupy Kitchen, as well as Screen printing and Printing groups, and are supported by the Worker Co-operative Working Group. Other conversations between the Occupy and worker cooperative communities have happened in Oakland, and a statement of support made by the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives.
Following the presentation was a panel of worker-owners to talk about their experiences, including
- Joshua Stephens, Just Walk – lesstalkmorewalk.com
- Jon Goldberg, Palante Tech – palantetech.com
- Joel Frank, Green Worker Cooperatives – www.greenworker.coop
- Adam Trott, Collective Copies and VAWC – collectivecopies.com, valleyworker.org
More detail and resources from the event are available at the event-sponsoring SolidarityNYC website.
Aaraon and Joe’s presentation:
Adam Trott’s presentation on the Valley Alliance and creating meso-level organization:
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