On March 9th, 2010 a story titled, "Worker co-operative: from hippy fringe to economic mainstream," was broadcast on Crosscurrents from KALW News. The story features Melissa Hoover, former bookkeeper for Woodshanti, and current Executive Director of the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives. In the piece, Melissa is quoted as saying, "that perception of co-operatives as a sort of countercultural, utopian, seventies alternative is really changing, I think. Worker co-operatives in particular, may used to have been seen as a way for middle class people to create an economic alternative so that they didn’t have to get a regular job working in a corporation or something like that. And I think the difference now is that many people are seeing worker co-operatives as a way for poor and working people to join the economic mainstream." As manufacturing jobs have left the U.S., places like Oakland are forced to search for ways to fill the economic void. "It’s not easy to think about how to create ownership opportunities for people of limited means". For ideas, they’ve been looking to a network of worker co-operatives called Mondragon, which is located in an economically depressed region of Spain. She believes the key to Mondragon's success is that while it is a competitive company, it has core principles that supersede making a profit. Namely, democratic rule, employee ownership, and long term sustainability. Hoover believes that over the next 20 years we will see, "a cross-pollination between the worker co-operative world and the principles that are so appealing to people and the actual practical know-how of working in the market."
Listen to the full broadcast here.
Listen to the full broadcast here.
