Change Agent

Cooperative businesses provide a new-old model for job growth

Co-ops worldwide represent much more than hippie grocery stores: They're a fast-growing way to do business better in fields from finance to agriculture to industry.

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European nations, for the most part, have developed a system that supports cooperative business without interference. Canada has also been highly successful at fostering cooperative growth. But for many nations, co-ops can appear risky, regulation can be lacking – or, quite simply, the government may have an interest in controlling its citizens’ actions.

A cooperative future

UN Secretary General Ban-Ki Moon calls cooperatives “a unique and invaluable presence in today’s world. Cooperatives are a reminder to the international community that it is possible to pursue both economic viability and social responsibility.”

Nowhere is that statement more apt than in the United States, where cooperatives are etched into the public consciousness as hippie grocery stores.

According to Dr. Carley, this is a dangerous misconception: “Unfortunately, in the US, there is a highly vested interest in maintaining the mythology that values have to be compromised to make money and that they have no place in the workplace. What we know now is that when personal and organizational values are aligned, profits, share prices, stakeholder loyalty, innovation, and more go up.”

The UN's goal for the United States is to rebrand cooperatives – and it may get some help. In 2009, the United Steelworkers (USW), North America’s largest industrial trade union, announced a new affiliation with Mondragón. The goal: to help steelworkers purchase and run their own mills cooperatively, focusing on sustainable business and environmentally sound practices.

In 2000, poverty expert Barbara Peters visited the town of Mondragón. She labeled it a “town without poverty” – and also noted the absence of “extreme wealth.” Peters immediately made the connection between this small town in Spain’s industrial region and the suffering Rust Belt of North America. If the USW’s new plan succeeds, cooperatives may be able to reinvent faltering towns, even as they reinvent their own image for American workers.

Ultimately, the key to equal employment and fair wages may be as simple as taking control of our own economic realities, stepping up and sharing the responsibility for our future. The United Nations thinks you’d be a great boss – don’t you?

• Jessica Reeder is the cofounder and managing editor of Love and Trash, and a contributor to Burning Blog and Shareable.net, where this article originally appeared.

• This article was originally published at Sharable Magazine.

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