This week, John Abrams, author of the co-op classic Companies We Keep, joins the Next Economy Now podcast to discuss his new book, From Founder to Future: A Business Road Map to Impact, Longevity, and Employee Ownership, and to reflect on his long and fruitful career as a member of South Mountain Company.
Then, Marcos Antenor Morais writes about the intrepid women of Brazil's Rede Mulheres do MaranhĂŁo (MaranhĂŁo Women's Network), a group of producers and vendors on the Carajás Railway who joined their efforts to realize the benefits of cooperation. Among their many other activities, the Network has developed a sophisticated custom app to help the members coordinate their increasingly large and complex organization.Â
Reshaping Work and Life Through Co-Operative Models
by LIFT Economy
Founders often invest decades of heart and soul into their endeavors, yet many lack a clear succession plan. In this conversation with John Abrams, author of From Founder to Future, we explore how founders can strategically pave the way for a more equitable future through the worker co-op model and how work can influence every area of life.
How Many Dreams Fit Inside a Train Car?
by Marcos Antenor Morais
The Rede Mulheres do Maranhão (RMM) – Women’s Network of Maranhão – is a cooperative made up of 16 solidarity enterprises, bringing together more than 200 members. Their activities include the production of sweets and honey, processing and cracking of babaçu nuts and cashew nuts, baking, vegetable and greens cultivation, and clothing manufacturing. Many of these enterprises are based in communities located along the Estrada de Ferro Carajás (Carajás Railway), one of the largest freight and passenger railways currently operating in Brazil. It spans over 892 kilometers and transports more than 120 million tons of cargo—mostly minerals—and 350,000 passengers annually.
Addressing the movement's dependence on Big Tech by growing our autonomous technology ecosystem
MayFirst — The goal of Cutting the Cord is to provide an initial road map for reducing our movement’s dependence on Google in particular and Big Tech in general. It provides a political overview of the reasons for moving away from large corporate technology services and a deeper understanding of the obstacles facing activists and organizers motivated to make the move, while providing information to help autonomous technology providers better meet their needs...
ICA & CICOPA Statement on Informal Work
ICA & CICOPA — Many people work in informal, unstable jobs or without proper rights and protections. As the International Labour Organization (ILO) holds its 113th International Labour Conference, there is a strong call to find new and practical ways to help these workers move into safe, secure, and fair jobs...
Revisiting Argentina’s Recuperated Factories
Academia.edu — The struggle of Argentina’s recuperated workplaces forms part of a wide range of capillary attempts to overcome the democratic deceits of capitalist production and hierarchical intra-company governance, and it simultaneously provides “a possible answer to marginalization, structural unemployment and unequal income distribution” (Auinger, 2009) related to post-Fordist accumulation. In the creation of an alternative social order, workers’ struggles such as those of the recuperated factories will play a key role, as success will heavily depend on the strength and the potential of a well-organized global workforce...
Sociocracy in the Higher Ed Classroom
Sociocracy for All (YouTube) — In this presentation, Juan Pablo will share how “Students for Environmental Justice” used Sociocracy as a subversion of the traditional, hierarchical classroom model. In exposing the intrinsic, but invisibilized, governance and decision-making processes of the classroom, this group was then empowered to take ownership of their collective class– from the curriculum at the foundation of it, to the grant money that would fund their community outreach projects around climate justice...
A quick tour of the Beanchain
Beanchain Coffee (YouTube) —A quick tour of the Beanchain Coffee, a "worker directed" coffee shop in Mesa, Arizona.
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