This week, we're sharing the first chapter of the new book Global Cooperative Economics and Movements: A Research Companion. In it, co-op researchers from across the globe look at how cooperative movements have developed in different parts of the world, and trace the various ways in which they have pursued a common goal: to make people's lives better. 

Then, the Working People podcast interviews two of the organizers and founding worker-members of Pittsburgh's new media cooperative, the Pittsburgh Progress. Formed by striking journalists and supportive community members, the multi-stakeholder co-op is "dedicated to looking out for, and telling the stories of, the working-class people who form the heart and soul of our diverse communities."

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Cooperatives and Social Transformation

An assessment of the global cooperative movement and its diverse trajectories

by Mark J. Kaswan, Patrick Develtere, Zhao Li, Sizwe Mkwanazi, Colombia Pérez Muñoz
We are encouraged to see the new developments, which in important ways reflect a return to the origins of the cooperative movement in seeking to transform communities to make them more just, more sustainable, and more interconnected. We also recognize three key challenges. The first is the need to involve young
people in building community capacity, networks, and connections to build toward the future.

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How Journalists and Readers Started a Media Co-op in Pittsburgh

by Working People
In this episode of Working People, we discuss the birth of the Pittsburgh Progress, and what it means for working people in and beyond Pittsburgh, with Steve Mellon and Natalie Duleba, both former strikers at the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and both founding worker-members of the newly launched Pittsburgh Progress.

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Cooperative Director Training

UW Center for Cooperatives — We’re excited to introduce Board Ready: A Training Series for New Co-op Directors—a revamped cooperative director training program, now expanded into a five‑part series delivered fully online. This updated format makes it easier than ever for directors from every cooperative sector to participate, learn, and grow...

Can worker control guide the world past a neoliberal crisis?

Co-op News — Worker buyouts are not new – and Co-op News’s recent interview with Bruno Roelants touched on the success of Italy’s Marcora Law, which facilitates such transfers. But Azzellini argues that WREs are transformative not just for workers and organisations, but communities and wider democracy too. He and co-author Marcelo Vieta add a class-analysis dynamic to the re-emergent labour question, drawing on a range of contemporary case studies from around the world...

The Cooperative Movement in Century 21

Academia.edu — The cooperative movement was one of the first social movements of modern times, with roots at the beginning of the industrial revolution, and was an integral part of the early labour movement. The movement for worker cooperatives, workplace democracy, and social enterprises is resurgent around the world today. The cooperative movement of the present and near future operates primarily in the spaces that the corporate system cannot and will not fill...

Worker Cooperatives, Economic Inclusion, and Structural Inequality: U.S. and Italy Compared

SSRN — This article reviews and compares the literature from the U.S. and Italy about whether worker cooperatives foster economic inclusion of marginalized workers and whether worker cooperatives challenge or enhance structural inequality. The Author categorizes the various scholarship addressing these issues and analyses the resultant themes. Two questions warranting further research are proposed. First, how can Labor & Employment Law and Cooperative Law be designed or interpreted to work in tandem to provide dignified terms and conditions of employment? Second, how can internal industrial relations of worker cooperatives best be structured to challenge rather than enforce structural inequality?...

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