{"id":410,"date":"2019-04-10T06:00:33","date_gmt":"2019-04-10T06:00:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/?p=410"},"modified":"2019-04-12T13:32:25","modified_gmt":"2019-04-12T13:32:25","slug":"the-power-of-worker-cooperatives-in-building-a-democratic-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/2019\/04\/10\/the-power-of-worker-cooperatives-in-building-a-democratic-economy\/","title":{"rendered":"The Power of Worker Cooperatives in Building a Democratic Economy"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"http:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/wort-1024x768.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-415\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/wort-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/wort-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/wort-768x576.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/04\/wort-1320x990.jpg 1320w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>Alderperson Rebecca Kemble recently hosted WORT\u2019s A Public Affair show with a panel of guests discussing the power of worker cooperatives. Rebecca has been a cab driver at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.unioncab.com\/\">Union Cab Cooperative<\/a> for nineteen years and is a fierce promoter of worker co-ops here in Madison, across the country, and abroad, including in her former role as President of the <a href=\"https:\/\/usworker.coop\/home\/\">U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives<\/a>. She now sits on the Common Council and advocates for the City&#8217;s initiative to form worker co-ops that address income inequalities and racial disparities, the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/\">Madison Cooperative Development Coalition (MCDC)<\/a>. She was joined by Ruth Rohlich of the City&#8217;s Office of Business Resources, who oversees that initiative, and Charity Schmidt, Cooperative Developer with MCDC and the <a href=\"https:\/\/uwcc.wisc.edu\/\">UW Center for Cooperatives<\/a>. <br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Rebecca was also joined by Georgia Allen, Josezette Bridges, and Geraldine Perry of the newly incorporated home-care agency, <a href=\"https:\/\/soaringindependent.com\/\">Soaring Independent Cooperative<\/a>. Additionally, Mariela Quesada Centeno of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.micentro.org\/\">Centro Hispano<\/a> called in to talk about the Roots 4 Change Cooperative, a co-op of <a href=\"http:\/\/www.micentro.org\/community-wellness-workers.html\">community wellness workers<\/a>. They shared their inspiring experiences building worker co-ops that serve the needs of their communities and put ownership, control, and decision-making into the hands of workers. <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wortfm.org\/the-power-of-worker-cooperatives\/\">Listen here<\/a><\/strong> to hear how worker ownership can improve the working lives of these women and their coworkers. <br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>They were joined at the end by Ed Whitfield, who works to help communities build self-reliant economies to meet their needs and elevate their quality of life. <a href=\"https:\/\/neweconomy.net\/people\/ed-whitfield\">Ed<\/a> is co-founder and co-managing director of the <a href=\"https:\/\/f4dc.org\/\">Fund for Democratic Communities (F4DC)<\/a>. He serves on the board of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.theworkingworld.org\/us\/\">The Working World (TWW)<\/a>&nbsp;and the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/neweconomy.net\/\">New Economy Coalition (NEC)<\/a>&nbsp;and chairs the board of&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/southernreparations.org\/\">Southern Reparations Loan Fund (SRLF)<\/a>.&nbsp;<br><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>While Ed was in Madison, hosted by the <a href=\"https:\/\/havenswrightcenter.wisc.edu\/\">Havens Wright Center for Social Justice<\/a>, MCDC, and <a href=\"https:\/\/madworc.org\/\">MadWorC<\/a>, he dropped by the WORT studio to talk with A Public Affair host Allen Ruff. He stressed the importance of an alternative freedom narrative and provided informative insights from the co-op movement and the world of democratic non-extractive finance. The full interview is <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" aria-label=\"here (opens in a new tab)\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wortfm.org\/reflections-on-justice-and-power-with-ed-whitfield\/\" target=\"_blank\"><strong>aqu\u00ed<\/strong><\/a>.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Alderperson Rebecca Kemble recently hosted WORT\u2019s A Public Affair show with a panel of guests discussing the power of worker cooperatives. Rebecca has been a cab driver at Union Cab Cooperative for nineteen years and is a fierce promoter of worker co-ops here in Madison, across the country, and abroad, including in her former role&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/2019\/04\/10\/the-power-of-worker-cooperatives-in-building-a-democratic-economy\/\" class=\"\" rel=\"bookmark\">Leer m\u00e1s &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">The Power of Worker Cooperatives in Building a Democratic Economy<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-410","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paWzR5-6C","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=410"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}