This week, we honor this year's four inductees to the US Cooperative Hall of Fame: Estelle Witherspoon, Lori Capouch, Randy Lee, and Tom Webb.
Then, Kristin Wiksell looks at five Swedish worker cooperatives and considers in what ways they serve as "constructive resistance" to the capitalist market economy, by spreading knowledge of alternative ways to organize economic activities.Â
2025 Cooperative Hall of Fame Inductees
by Cooperative Development Foundation
Estelle Witherspoon helped transform economic reality for Black women artisans and their families in Wilcox County, Alabama. As founding member and Board President of the Freedom Quilting Bee (FQB), she oversaw its markets and sales for over 20 years until her retirement.
Worker Cooperatives for Social Change
by Kristin Wiksell
This section explores Swedish worker co-ops’ possibilities of constructive resistance by enacting economic businesses differently to typical ways associated with capitalist systems. A recurrent pattern in the empirical material is that this realisation is represented by the co-ops as a display or proof that co-ops function, and that their cooperative principles can offer an alternative to the dominance of capitalist ideals.
A Look at Weaver Street Market as a Third Space
The Daily Tar Heel — To the community, Weaver Street Market is more than a grocery store, it’s Carrboro’s unofficial front porch. On any afternoon, the patio outside fills with students, families and longtime residents. Some eat lunch under the broad oak trees, while others read, talk, listen or play...
Is Group Health still a Cooperative?
Tone Madison — Members unanimously approved a resolution that, by October 17, our cooperative “shall notify GHC Workers United and SEIU Wisconsin of the co-op’s intent to voluntarily recognize the bargaining unit democratically chosen by GHC workers.” Members also unanimously passed four other transparency resolutions demanding that GHC share how much it has spent on union-busting lawyers and consultants...But later that week, the GHC Board of Directors sent an email to members that calls GHC’s cooperative values into question. The Board reminded members that any member vote on the union issue would be advisory, merely “encouraging” the Board to take action...
Five Elements of Collective Leadership
Nonprofit Quarterly — Collective leadership is a process. It is dependent on the relationships among the parts in the system, whether that system is two people working together; a classroom, team, board, or organization; or a system initiative. In collective leadership, the way the group works together makes it different from a more traditional model of leadership. How the group works together and the unique results that are possible only when this happens differentiate a group that is sharing leadership from one that is not...
Like what you find on GEO?
Make a Donation Today!
Your tax-deductible contribution ensures that GEO can continue to provide independent grassroots content about the cooperative and solidarity economy movements.
Got something to say?
Let us know. Send your comments, suggestions, rants and article submissions to editors@geo.coop.
Follow us on Social Media
Mastodon: social.coop/@GEO_Collective
BlueSky: @geocollective.bsky.social
FB: facebook.com/GEOCollective
Instagram: instagram.com/grassrootsecon
Â
Our mailing address is:
Grassroots Economic Organizing
P.O. Box 115
Riverdale MD 20738-0115
