The beginning of a year is always a good time to review the fundamentals. That goes double this year, because it seems quite timely to reaffirm our commitment to democracy. So, what is a worker co-op, and why would you want one? A worker co-op is a business in which all the owners are workers,… Read More »(Re-) Introduction to worker co-ops: you can do this!
Between the pandemic, the economic collapse, the racial injustice, the Presidential campaign, the wildfires, the hurricanes, and the countless Zoom calls, this year can’t end soon enough. Still, the threat of the murder hornets turned out to be overblown, so there’s that. MCDC had a successful year, in spite of the many challenges. We gave… Read More »Happy holidays, and goodbye, 2020!
Collective Courage is a landmark work on the African-American cooperative experience. In hard times — which is to say, pretty much always — African Americans have depended on each other to get by. But it wasn’t until Dr. Jessica Gordon-Nembhard wrote this book that it was possible to get a detailed historical overview of exactly… Read More »Reminder that Collective Courage Book Club starts tomorrow
Iron Roots is a restaurant in development. Its name speaks to how deeply embedded it will be in the community. The members of this co-op got to know each other through having come to Worker Justice Wisconsin to complain about wage theft or working conditions at their respective workplaces. WJW recommended starting a cooperative restaurant… Read More »Iron Roots restaurant
The City of Madison recognizes that small, locally-owned businesses are struggling under the pandemic, and businesses owned by people of color even more so. To address this, it has announced its Small Business Equity & Recovery Grant (SBER). As small businesses, worker co-ops are eligible, provided they meet the requirements. Here are the most important… Read More »New small business grants from the City of Madison!
Looking for employment opportunities or internships? Want to work in an established, innovative sector that prioritizes people over profit? JOIN US on November 18th, 2020 @3:30pm for a virtual career fair with cooperative employers and researchers such as Land O’ Lakes, 40 Square, Landmark, Equity and the Wisconsin Farmers Union. MCDC’s own Charity Schmidt will… Read More »Wisconsin Co-op Career Fair
Not long ago, the UW Center for Cooperatives published the largest study to date on co-ops with Latinx members. It was carried out and authored by Esther West, with the collaboration of Dr. Jessica Gordon-Nembhardt, the author of Collective Courage (see our earlier post on her book). Here’s an excerpt from the Executive Summary… The… Read More »Latinx co-ops in the US
Voting is at the core of every worker cooperative. We vote on pretty much everything. It’s not the fastest way to get things done, but it does result in the fairest and wisest decisions. Looking back over the last several years, we see decisions and policies that haven’t been the fairest or the wisest. We… Read More »Today’s the day! But so is every day.
It’s a well-known conundrum that child care is very expensive, and yet child-care workers make very low wages. Co-ops are good at solving such problems. If you’re in child care, or you might like to be, this is the video for you. It’s a modified version of MCDC’s Co-ops 101 webinar geared specifically to this… Read More »Our latest video is on how to form a child-care co-op!
The best-known of the cooperative principles is Principle 6, “Cooperation among cooperatives.” So, it only made sense that when MCDC started talking with the South Central Wisconsin Hemp Cooperative about processing, marketing, and distributing hemp products, that we would form another co-op. Fast-forward to today, and the Madison CBD Co-op is about to incorporate. Here… Read More »The Madison Cannabis Co-op
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