Worker cooperatives are found in numerous industries, including childcare, commercial and residential cleaning, food service, healthcare, technology, consumer retail and services, manufacturing, wholesaling and many others.
Control and Governance
Control is generally exercised on the basis of the one-member one-vote principle. In a
worker cooperative, the majority of its workforce own shares, and the majority of shares are owned by the workforce.
The board of directors for a
worker co-op is elected by, and from within, its membership, in this case, the workers. The board is majority controlled by the workers, though some
worker co-ops have outside directors and advisors serving on their boards. In reality, management structures vary greatly, depending on the desires of the members.
Worker co-ops return profits that are not reinvested in the business to worker-owners in the form of patronage dividends.
(adapted from National Cooperative Business Association,
Worker Cooperatives, visited 2011-01-17)
An International Movement
The model of
workers' cooperatives is encouraged by global justice activists, trade union militants, economic democracy and socialist organizers, green entrepreneurs and cooperative practitioners of all sorts.
A Case in Point: Mondragon International
The Mondragon Cooperative Corporation (MCC) started in 1956 with five workers in a small shop making kerosene stoves. Today it has over 100,000 worker-owners in some 260 cooperative enterprises in 40 countries. Annual sales are pegged at more than 16 billion Euros with a wide range of products--high tech machine tools, motor buses, household appliances, office and home furniture, sport equipment and a chain of supermarkets. MCC also maintains its own banks, health clinics, welfare system, schools and the 4000 student Mondragon University. Mondragon International, based in the Basque region of Spain, is the world's largest
worker-owned cooperative. In 2009, the United Steel Workers Union, North America's largest industrial trade union, announced its collaboration with Mondragon International, promoting sustainable jobs in a sustainable economy.
(adapted from Ivanou, A.,
Exemplary Agreement with Worker Owned Cooperative,
International Metalworkers' Federation (IMF), 2009, visited 2011-01-17)