Cooperative Development

We believe that a big part of fighting for the world we want to live in must include creating spaces where working people can share their skills and dreams for that new world, in response to the dispossession that they have suffered. 

 

Our long range vision has always been to create institutions that directly represent the interests of working people. We believe that democratically-run worker coops offer a powerful way to do that, organizing our own labor and building economic power. 

In partnership with TESA, we offer workshops and classes focused on cooperative economics. Members learn about the history of worker cooperatives and explore different models that other low-wage workers and immigrants are using to start their own businesses. They also gain important nuts and bolts skills in coop governance, financial literacy, business management, conflict resolution, and more.

Our goal is to support our members in developing the resources that they need to form democratically-run worker cooperative businesses where they can become their own bosses. Many of our members already have experience running businesses and cooperatives in their own countries. Here, they often lack the linguistic resources and capital to navigate starting their own enterprises. 

 

Our long-term goal is to be part of forming a network of worker coops that operate as sister organizations which can share resources, do business with one another, and offer complimentary services as part of a local solidarity economy. Our cooperative development program has  intentionally grown slowly. We have supported farmworkers in becoming farm owners. In the years to come, we want to support many other low-wage workers in gaining the resources they need to fully own the fruits of their labor. We see our work as part of building the new economy, rooted in democracy and ecological richness.

 

So far, we have supported the development of two worker coops, which we continue to work with closely as sister organizations. Read more about them here:

 

  1. Just Words (an interpretation and translation cooperative focused on language justice)

  2. Riquezas Del Campo (a worker cooperative farm focused on food security)

Riquezas Del Campo Worker Owners