Ways Forward 4 Conference: January 2016

How can we build an economy for people, not profit? It can be done from the bottom up, as new businesses are set up; and it can emerge through transformation of existing private businesses, many of which already recognise the strong social benefit of trading but don’t yet self-identify or promote themselves as social businesses. But what about those organisations or services currently ...

Mutuals could be a Trojan horse for privatisation, warned Matt Wrack, general secretary of the Fire Brigade Union. One of the keynote speakers at Ways Forward 4, Mr Wrack argued that sometimes co-operatives and mutuals can get captured by the market conditions. [caption id="attachment_101662" align="alignleft" width="180"] Matt Wrack[/caption] The private ownership of public ...

Green Party MEP Molly Scott Cato has called for a new economic model that has co-operation at its heart. One of the keynote speakers at the Ways Forward conference, she said the global capitalist model was broken. “We need to argue for social ownership – that is a key part of the new economy we need to build,” she said. The conference was taking place while world leaders were meeting in ...

As well as looking at the UK’s co-operative movement, the January 2016 Ways Forward conference in Manchester broadened its scope to the Middle East. An afternoon workshop chaired by journalist and Kurdistan correspondent John Hunt, featured an illuminating discussion with Alan Semo, a representative of the PYD (Democratic Union Party) from Rojava, northern Syria. The PYD is the largest ...

The closing event of the Ways Forward conference featured prominent speakers from the co-operative community presenting their views on 'people's power' in the workplace. Chaired by Martin Meteyard from conference organiser Co-operative Business Consultants (CBC), the five speakers spoke on a range of topics from the local to the international. [caption id="attachment_101579" ...

What are the advantages of worker co-operatives, as well as the pitfalls to be avoided? Delegates at the Ways Forward conference in Manchester discussed the topic. Maria Young, from the web design and development collective Agile, described what working co-operatively meant to their enterprise. “Happy clients means a happy workforce. We get to redefine what ‘fair’ means,” she explained. ...

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell guaranteed to give workers the right to own a stake in their enterprises if Labour returns to government. Speaking at the Ways Forward conference in Manchester on Thursday, Mr McDonnell said a future Labour government would seek to grow co-operatives as well as enable employees the first chance to buy their companies in the case of them being closed down or ...

Executive capture is not a modern phenomenon. Members were complaining about their society managers in the 1850s. In those days it wasn’t sophisticated boardroom power struggles, just managers running off with the takings. But the theme is the same. If a co-operative is an association of people set up to provide for their needs, how can we ensure our employee managers are really running ...

As we explore the signs of a new economy, I’m reminded that co-operation in the UK has always been about communities of people coming together to support one another to get the things they need, whether food, or housing, or access to education or learning. And there are all sorts of situations where local communities are coming to together to do just that. Governments are fond of ...

What do we mean by “an economy for people not profit”? Fundamentally, it’s an economy operating for the common good, rather than for private benefit. People might previously have thought that that’s what we already had, though recent events have made it clear that we don’t. Large and powerful corporations are badly letting us down, and lots of people have suffered. Oil spills, ...

Shadow chancellor John McDonnell will join co-operative and union leaders, activists, writers and politicians at an open conference to discuss the challenges and opportunities for co-ops in the 21st century. Ways Forward 4: Building An Economy For People Not For Profit will take place on 21 January 2016, bringing together trade unionists, co-operators, activists from social enterprises and ...