Cooperatives
A cooperative is a legal entity owned by a group of people who come together voluntarily for their mutual benefit. Cooperatives are formed by members who want to accomplish a common goal together which may be business oriented or not. These people usually join hands to fulfill their common economic, social, or cultural needs, a task that would be hard to accomplish if one was left to handle it alone.
The members who form a cooperative are the ones who are responsible for the day-to-day operation of the organization, and all the members have the same share of control meaning that all decisions affecting the cooperative are made together by all the members. Members share equal voting rights regardless of the amount of capital they put into the enterprise.
The cooperative movement is, by its nature, a grassroots self-help movement – a way for people to challenge the status quo and take practical action to improve society from the bottom up. Cooperative values and principles, however, have wider application to the way society is organized. Cooperatives bring people together in a democratic and equal way. Whether the members are the customers, employees, users or residents, cooperatives are democratically managed by the 'one member, one vote' rule.
Source: https://assets.party.coop/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/09171701/ownership-matters-final-3mm.pdf
We agree with the 2014 Vermont Progressive Party Platform:
"Promote cooperatives, worker-owned businesses, public benefit corporations and publicly owned enterprises as alternatives to huge profit-driven multinational corporations."
We agree with the 2016 Green Party Platform:
"We support redesigning our work structures to encourage employee ownership and workplace democracy."
"We call for an economic system that is based on a combination of private businesses, decentralized democratic cooperatives, publicly owned enterprises, and alternative economic structures. Collectively, this system puts human and ecological needs alongside profits to measure success, and maintains accountability to communities."
"Production is best for people and planet when democratically owned and operated by those who do the work and those most affected by production decisions. This model of worker and community empowerment will ensure that decisions that greatly affect our lives are made in the interests of our communities, not at the whim of centralized power structures of state administrators or of capitalist CEOs and distant boards of directors. Small, democratically run enterprises, when embedded in and accountable to our communities, will make more ecologically sound decisions in materials sourcing, waste disposal, recycling, reuse, and more. Democratic, diverse ownership of production would decentralize power in the workplace, which would in turn decentralize economic power more broadly."
"We encourage public support for producer and consumer co-operatives, community kitchens, Community Supported Agriculture, urban agriculture, and community farms and gardens."
We agree with the 2016 Republican Party Platform:
"The employer-employee relationship of the future will be built upon employee empowerment and workplace flexibility. We therefore endorse employee stock ownership plans that enable workers to become capitalists, expand the realm of private property, and energize a free enterprise economy."
We agree with the For a People's Party Platform:
"Democratize the workplace by encouraging the creation of worker cooperatives. Modern corporations are completely undemocratic. Workers don’t share in the ownership of the company, elect leaders from amongst themselves, or have any say in the company’s direction. Unelected investors and executives hoard the wealth that the workers produce, leaving them just enough to survive and continue generating profits. Our ancestors brought democracy to government and now we must extend it to the workplace, where we spend much of our waking lives. Working people should participate in management of the corporations that they contribute to just like they participate in the management of the country where they live. Worker cooperatives build unions directly into the fabric of the corporation."
We agree with Kirstin Gillibrand:
https://www.gillibrand.senate.gov/news/press/release/gillibrand-visits-rochester-to-announce-bipartisan-co-op-and-employee-ownership-legislation
The Co-operative Party (United Kingdom) has a slightly different approach to cooperatives. They have published a PDF document explaining why "Ownership Matters", which can be downloaded below...
CONGRESSIONAL COMMITTEES:
RESOURCES:
Click on the link below to learn more...
https://consumerfed.org/consumer-cooperatives/
Click on the link below to learn about cooperatives in America...
http://www.CooperativeParty.com/cooperatives-in-america
https://consumerfed.org/consumer-cooperatives/
Click on the link below to learn about cooperatives in America...
http://www.CooperativeParty.com/cooperatives-in-america
