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Welcome to Cooperative Developer Stories, a Cooperation Works podcast.
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I'm your host, Tara Williams.
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Can't wait to hear your stories.
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Hey folks, and welcome to Cooperative Developer Stories, the podcast where we get curious, get honest, and get inspired by the people building the cooperative economy, one community at a time.
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October is Co-op Month.
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This year's theme is built for this moment.
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So throughout October, we're doing something a little different.
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We're bringing you 4 special Co-op Month conversations which explore what it's like to build cooperatives for this moment.
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And I'm not doing it alone.
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Joining me as co-host for this series is Alex Stone, Executive Director of Cooperation Works.
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You might remember Alex from our very first episode where we talked about what a co-op developer actually does and why this work matters.
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Over the next four conversations, Alex and I will be joined by Dr.
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Jessica Gordon Nembhard, Doug O'Brien, Esteban Kelly, and Tom Webb.
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We'll explore cooperative history, where the movement finds itself today, and what cooperatives might need to become to meet the challenges ahead, and how as co-op developers we can build them.
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We're starting with someone who can help us understand this moment by looking at the moments that came before it.
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Dr.
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Jessica Gordon Nembhard is an educator, political economist, organizer, and cooperative Hall of Fame inductee whose work has helped bring greater attention to the long history of African-American cooperative economics.
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Her work reminds us that communities coming together to meet their own needs and build collective economic power isn't new.
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People have been building cooperatives in response to difficult moments for generations.
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So today, Alex and I want to explore what that history can teach us about where we are now and what we might build next.
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Jessica and Alex, welcome.
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Let's get into it.
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Thanks so much for joining us today.
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Before we jump into the hard questions,
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Can you do a quick intro?
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Who are you?
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Where are you joining from?
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Who do you work for?
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How long you've worked with co-op?
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My name is Jessica Gordon Nembhard.
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I'm a political economist and professor of community justice and social economic development at John Jay College, part of City University of New York.
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I also am the author of Collective Courage: A History of Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice, originally put out in 2014, and now we have a 10th anniversary reprint in 2024.
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I'm a mother and a grandmother, and I've been researching, studying, and advocating for cooperatives since the mid 1990s.
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So that's what, almost 30 years, I guess 30 years.
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Hall of Fame, I was inducted into the US Co-op Hall of Fame in 2016.
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So this podcast is about co-op developer stories, but we can't do this work alone.
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Co-op developers are part of a much bigger cooperative ecosystem.
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Before we get into that, I'd love to start with your own co-op story and your why.
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How did you find your way into the co-op movement and what keeps you committed to this work?
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Right.
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So I actually stumbled on co-ops as a community economic development strategy.
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And I say stumbled for two reasons.
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One, because I actually grew up in an intentional community that called itself a co-op and
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before I became an economist, I had used co-op grocery stores and things like that.
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My mother used to buy her pecans for her Christmas candies from a co-op in Georgia and things like that.
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So
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I knew about co-ops, but I hadn't thought of them as an economist in terms of a community economic development strategy until the mid '90s when I was working for the Children's Defense Fund's Black Community Crusade for Children as an economic development analyst to try to highlight community-based, community-controlled economic development that would be family friendly and children friendly.
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So that weren't just thinking about what kind of policies needed to be enacted at state and federal government level, but I was then said, what can communities do and what are the different kinds of community controlled development apparatus that communities can use?
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And so then I re-found cooperatives and started looking at them as a business model, especially worker co-ops, but also farm co-ops, food co-ops,
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craft co-ops, other kinds of co-ops.
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And so I rapidly realized that if we're really looking at real community control, real democracy, and real community wealth building, that co-ops were a model, especially when paired with solidarity economic efforts, were really a model for subaltern groups or non-mainstream groups like African Americans.
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other oppressed groups, women, were a way to get the kind of both self-determination, empowerment, but also economic justice.
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through an economic democracy model.
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So I became a huge fan, learned everything I possibly could about co-ops, started researching the history of African American ownership of co-ops, and started publishing articles and giving talks about why cooperatives are a good model.
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Thank you so much, Jessica.
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That's great to hear more about your early story.
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And before we started recording, we talked a little bit about your connection to cooperative development, your coming in as a professor, as a research
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that you have a huge impact on the field of cooperative development and on cooperative developers across the country.
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And I'm wondering if you might talk a bit more about how cooperative development has showed up in your career, maybe not in the same way as some of the other folks that we have on this podcast, but definitely in some really important ways I think a lot of folks have felt the direct impact of.
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Thanks for that.
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I actually never had any thought or intention to be a leader in this area.
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I mostly wanted to be a supporter.
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The more I found out about cooperatives, the more I thought, okay, I have a PhD in economics.
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I've done research since I was about 15 years old.
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What, you know, how can I, what kind of research can I contribute?
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And some of the earliest stuff wasn't even just the history of African American cooperatives, which I kind of made a name for, for myself, but also the benefits of cooperatives to communities, especially for urban economic development.
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And so I really was
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first just going, I even, you know, attended Cooperation Works to learn about, right, to get my education on co-ops and how co-ops work and what developers do.
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I've been involved in meetings about developer values and the Madison principles for developers and how we can extend those to make sure developers are acting in the most informed and ethical ways as developers.
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I started talking about the fact that we need better materials,
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We don't often have, we didn't always have materials that talk to the people that we were trying to help develop co-ops.
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So again, my research, especially on the history of African American co-ops, helped.
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to give us information that we could use for people who were interested in co-ops or didn't know that they were interested in co-ops, that we could interest in co-ops and then they could connect to them better.
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So I think I helped to impact some of the content of how we talk about and give information about what a co-op is and provide examples that are meaningful to groups.
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And I joined a lot of co-op organizations, both advocacy organizations and co-op education
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organizations, things like that, and mostly again to listen.
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But the more I listened, the more information I was able to gather.
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And because I guess I've been so passionate about it, I've also been one of the few people who put different parts of the information together.
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So matched my interest in Black co-ops with the interest in co-op benefits and have been able to, and my interest in worker co-ops and able to connect all those and show the ways
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that co-ops are benefits to their communities, which I think also not just help with the advocacy, but help developers to think through what and why are they helping people to develop.
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And I guess the final thing is, because I'm also a public scholar and have tried to talk about these things with all different kinds of groups,
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I also realized how important it is to tell stories, not just to give out information.
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And I think that has also connected with the developing world in terms of, right, let's not just rattle off, this is the law, this is whatever, this is the process, whatever, but tell the stories of who and why people have engaged in cooperative economics.
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what they've accomplished, what they've learned, and what more we can do with both the knowledge and the practice.
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Hits the nail on the head for the episode zero, emphasizing that people are really just the core and center of cooperatives.
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And to show people that anybody can do it.
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That's the other thing with my history for Black co-ops.
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I found examples of people who didn't even own their own bodies, were enslaved, right, doing economic cooperation, or people who were newly freed.
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who barely had citizenship and hardly knew how to vote, but knew how, you know, figured out how to run a business together with other people and make it work.
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People without an education are still able to engage in practice and participate in the decisions of how to run their business because they, you know, they know.
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They know what they need.
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They have experience even if they don't have official formal experience.
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And so, you know, this kind of cooperative development helps us to recognize
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people's skills, even when they either don't recognize them themselves or when they're not recognized in other places.
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I think as you're talking through that and the history, I'd love to know from your perspective, what did co-op development look like in your opinion throughout history?
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And is there anybody that you'd like to highlight that did critical work other than yourself who we've talked about has set that firm foundation for how people are working together?
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Generally, in the US, I think also
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So in Canada and probably in Europe, I don't know the other places as well, you know, co-op cooperative economics was taught.
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And, you know, they did start with a story, but they started with the story of the Rochdale pioneers, which is a fantastic story.
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But as if that was the only thing happening in the 17 and 1800s, and as if they were the only model to emulate.
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So it was a little bit
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narrow and prescribed and there were very few actually co-op developers.
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I think most of the developers I can think of were not trained as developers.
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They again in some ways fell into co-ops and then through their observations learning.
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by doing learning, by watching other people, right?
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The two most exciting, I guess, developers for me in history would be Ella Jo Baker, who is totally unknown as a co-op developer, though we finally got her into the Hall of Fame as an unsung hero.
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But why I say Ella Jo Baker is because for the four or five years that she was director of the Young ******* Cooperative League, her job was technically education and co-op development, and she traveled around the United States
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giving workshops.
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She wrote up a newsletter and I don't know what she did in the workshops, but I was able to look at her archives and see a lot of the newsletters and see what she wrote there.
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And there you could see she was writing, okay, these are the steps, but first you need to do this.
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And she talked about trust building and courage, right?
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How much courage it took to engage in something different when the powers that be and the money wasn't there.
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right, wasn't supporting it.
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She went around and talked about how important the role of women was.
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And so she was an organizer as well as an educator, as well as an advocate.
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And I think that combination is very exciting.
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I would also consider Father Arasmendi Ariata in the Basque region of Spain in the 1940s and 50s would be another co-op developer I would think of that we should emulate.
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We know about him a little bit more than we know about Ella Baker.
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But again, people just kind of throw his name out there.
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But if you actually read his writings and his teachings and whatever, he was another one who said, we know how to do this right.
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We need to do what we normally do as human beings, do it more deliberately.
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and that anybody can do it and should be a model for people who don't have power and who have been marginalized and left out.
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That's the place we should start and we should start with young people.
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So people lived in high school, educating high schoolers about this model so they could.
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hit the ground running when they graduated from high school and start their own co-ops, that kind of thing.
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So I think that also that message, we can do this, we need to start with young people, and we need to see that it's an integral part of who we are as human beings, I think is really important.
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So those would be, I guess, my two.
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major developers, but there's like tons of other people.
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There's Frank Adams in the worker co-op movement.
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There's John Curl who did a lot of the early history of co-ops, especially worker co-ops.
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There's all the different people who have been through cooperation works.
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I don't want to try to start naming people because then I'm going to have a bunch of people who tell me, why didn't you name me or whatever.
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So maybe I should stick with the people, the dead people, right?
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I won't get into trouble.
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Well, wise strategy, but we're going to push a little harder on that on a co-op story.
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So you obviously are just brought up the importance of storytelling when it comes to cooperatives and cooperative development.
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That is like the heart of the human connection.
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You yourself are a great storyteller about cooperatives.
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I think many of us have seen that in Collective Courage as we read it.
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Do you have a favorite story about cooperative development or about a cooperative or cooperatives that you'd be willing to share?
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Yeah, I do.
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Let me start with Freedom Quilting Bee.
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I've been saying that one's a favorite for a while, and it's still a favorite for a couple of reasons.
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One, it's again another story about people who are almost the lowest on the totem pole.
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And in this case, not just that they're Black women, but they're Black women sharecroppers.
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And anybody who knows anything about sharecropping in US history, it's a debt peonage system where the farmers farm land that they don't own.
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The land owner controls everything.
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They sell the harvest and tell you how much they're gonna give you for the harvest.
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You have to buy your seeds and all your supplies from their store.
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And so you're basically at the beholden
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of a plantation owner similarly to when our people were enslaved.
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So it's a very similar system to slavery.
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And then we know that Black women have often been the poorest, the least educated, and the most denigrated of people and of women in our society.
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And so you take women who are sharecroppers and see them as artists, they're quilters.
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And luckily, I can't remember his name, but a minister saw their work and said, you know what, I bet I could sell some of your quilts and that would help you raise some money or help you pay your bills.
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Because as I said, they're basically deep in debt, but they love, you know, but loving to form and that kind of stuff.
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So they were able to sell some quilts, enough money that they decided they wanted to make a business of it and that they wanted it to be a cooperative.
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They wanted to own it collectively as quilters.
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And this was in the late '60s.
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I think they incorporated as a co-op in 1967, something like that.
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They're also
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of the civil rights movement because many of the same women quilters were also advocating for the rights for black people to vote actually just to register to vote not even to actually get to the voting space but to register to vote and some of their neighbors some of them were being evicted from the farms they were sharecropping on because they registered to vote and so the
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The co-op not only gave them a place to earn money more than they could make as sharecroppers, but it also gave them a place to safely have some self-determination and to combat the economic as well as the civil rights assaults against them.
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as human beings, as Black people, as Black women.
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The co-op was so successful that within a few years they were able to buy 23 acres of land and build the sewing factory, which meant they're no longer working from home.
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They're still sharecropping with their families, but in the evenings, in the winters, and when they can, they're doing their sewing.
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Because they're now working from home, they end up with a daycare center, an after school program, a summer reading program for kids because they're still responsible for their children.
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And so the co-op helps them just stay responsible for their children, but is also open to anyone else.
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For a while, they're the largest employer in their small town.
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because they're so successful.
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So not only are these black and oh, and they're illiterate women also because they're in a part of Alabama at a time when it was still very difficult for black folks to get an education.
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They don't have to, there doesn't have to be schooling past what, eighth grade or something.
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And they don't, and they were segregated in the schools were segregated.
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So these are also people with very little education,
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but they're running their own company, they're doing marketing, they're doing their books, they're sewing, they're running children's programs, they're owning land, which they also lent out some of their acres to other sharecroppers who had been evicted or who were trying to buy their own land, things like that.
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So they become a whole community fixture and show that how cooperative ownership connected to write their own creativity, their own,
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agency, as artists, as human beings, as mothers, right, all kind of come together in this co-op and it solves economic issues, political issues, some education issues, right, if you think about what's happening in the daycare center.
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So it really is one of my favorites because it kind of kicks all the boxes for all the different kinds of motivations for a co-op, the benefits of a co-op, the kinds of people, right.
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So and it shows that anybody, you know, when someone says, oh, you have to be have this
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much education or this experience or whatever.
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It's another example of no, you have to have the passion and the commitment, right?
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That's what you really need.
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And then the rest will follow.
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It doesn't mean that you don't need to be educated and to be trained, but they made sure all that would happen through, um, made sure the co-op enabled them to then do all the training and,
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education and things that they needed to do so they could do be so successful.
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And they pretty much lasted since then.
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Someone just told me that I know they've been in hiatus twice.
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Someone just told me that they've started up again and they were going to visit or work for them or something.
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So it's also what, more than 50 years old.
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And they were a founding member of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, which was the first major black regional co-op development
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Association in the United States, basically the only women's co-op of the founding members.
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So again, lots of really important things.
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So they didn't stay insulated.
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They connected to the movement, right?
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They helped to create a movement by creating a regional organization, which also is in existence.
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And so anyway, that you can see why it's one of my favorite co-ops.
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I think the other one or co-op movement that I want to talk about would be the Knights of Labor
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Labor and the Colored Farmers National Alliance in the South in the 1880s.
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And the reason why I pick that one is because, again, the lessons learned are just incredible.
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And in this case, the 1880s are a backlash against the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, when we had what some people call the first wave of the Civil Rights Movement.
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But by the 1880s, the South was becoming segregated again, the Ku Klux Klan and other
00:22:03.000 --> 00:22:09.999
Supremacist violence was on the rise, lynchings were on the rise, the economy wasn't very good.
00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:20.999
There was a populist movement, a movement for small farmers, but the white populist movement was rapidly segregating from the black populist movement.
00:22:21.000 --> 00:22:25.999
Knights of Labor was sort of the last remnant of an integrated movement.
00:22:26.000 --> 00:22:29.999
They were a labor union, a co-op developer, and a political party.
00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:38.999
So was the Colored Farmers National Alliance and Cooperative Union, which was just for black folks, which came after the Knights of Labor.
00:22:39.000 --> 00:22:50.999
Both groups are forced underground because the white supremacist terrorism is so strong, not wanting either labor or black folks or co-op development to happen.
00:22:51.000 --> 00:22:56.999
And yet they're still operating because again, they're combining all these movements, right?
00:22:57.000 --> 00:23:01.999
So worker labor movement,
00:23:02.000 --> 00:23:03.999
worker movement and worker ownership movement.
00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:06.999
They also believe in integration and women's rights.
00:23:07.000 --> 00:23:14.999
And so this is a period under some of, again, worst repression in US, at least politically.
00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:28.999
poor economic conditions, but just tremendous stuff happening progressively in terms of combining all the progressive social movements and arguing for creating co-ops and arguing for the rights of workers and people.
00:23:29.000 --> 00:23:36.999
At one point, Knights of Labor, I think, had about 200 co-ops throughout the South that they had created, Colored Farmers National Alliance.
00:23:37.000 --> 00:23:44.999
I can't remember if we had a number for how many co-ops, but they started farm co-ops, credit exchanges,
00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:51.999
equipment co-ops, supply co-ops and food co-ops and stuff.
00:23:52.000 --> 00:24:02.999
So I don't remember if we had a number, I think it might have been 20 or 30 that were black-owned and they also connected with some of what was happening in the white co-op movement at the time.
00:24:03.000 --> 00:24:07.999
But the other thing for the Colored Farmers National Alliance is
00:24:08.000 --> 00:24:16.999
They actually, as far as we can tell on record, are the largest Black US Black organization in US history.
00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:37.999
And so it's also fascinating to think that the largest Black organization in US history was not just a populist party and not just a labor union, but also a co-op development organization and promoting co-op development among all its people, whether that was farm owners, landowners, Black landowners who were few,
00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:40.999
or black farm workers who were many.
00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:42.999
They also combined both groups.
00:24:43.000 --> 00:24:44.999
They didn't have landowners against farmers.
00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:54.999
It was all about black folks, whether they were farmers or workers or both, trying to make sure as many farm workers could own their own farms or their own.
00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.999
cotton mills or that kind of thing, but also showing that they needed to all work together.
00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:01.999
It wasn't a fight, one against the other.
00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:03.999
So lots of lessons for today.
00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:14.999
The more you connect the issues and the projects and the more the different aspects of what you do connect with each other, so that ecosystems, that's
00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:24.999
of the findings I have in the book too, that community connections, connections to strong organizations and strong ecosystem development and support really matter.
00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:30.999
And all these examples, whatever time period we're in, whatever group of people we're talking about.
00:25:31.000 --> 00:25:33.999
So you were inducted into the Co-op Hall of Fame 10 years ago.
00:25:34.000 --> 00:25:35.999
Congratulations still.
00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:36.999
Oh yeah, that's right.
00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:37.999
10 years ago.
00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:38.999
Thank you.
00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:50.999
And you have a really long career building, supporting, highlighting those untold histories that are now becoming part of people talking about the history of co-ops.
00:25:51.000 --> 00:25:52.999
I'm wondering...
00:25:53.000 --> 00:25:57.999
Over your time working with co-ops, have you seen the landscape evolve?
00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:08.999
So when I first started, when you used the word co-op, most people thought about a food co-op and not even always in a positive way.
00:26:09.000 --> 00:26:16.999
Sometimes it seemed like just people who were on communes or who had opted out of society or whatever did a food co-op.
00:26:17.000 --> 00:26:27.999
And sometimes people felt like they weren't even allowed to buy from a co-op because I guess some food co-ops then didn't even have outside members and then some people weren't sure about.
00:26:28.000 --> 00:26:29.999
what or how or who.
00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:32.999
And then people didn't realize that credit unions were co-ops.
00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:35.999
They didn't think about rural electric co-ops.
00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:37.999
They didn't think about worker co-ops.
00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:42.999
Worker co-ops were actually a tiny, tiny dot in this whole landscape.
00:26:43.000 --> 00:26:46.999
So it was a kind of interesting and narrow field, even
00:26:47.000 --> 00:26:54.999
though even in the 1990s, we had some of the large Land O'Lakes and Welch's and all those were already co-ops.
00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:57.999
But people, of course, didn't think about them as co-ops.
00:26:58.000 --> 00:27:00.999
They didn't market themselves as co-ops.
00:27:01.000 --> 00:27:03.999
So it was a very narrow sense of what a co-op was.
00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:11.999
And a lot of people felt alienated.
00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:14.999
I still have people ask me like why
00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:18.999
they can't be part of a housing co-op or why housing co-ops are so insular or whatever.
00:27:19.000 --> 00:27:27.999
And I'm like, well, you know, they have criteria for who can be a member based on the purpose of the co-op, right?
00:27:28.000 --> 00:27:33.999
If you want to be in a housing co-op and you can't find one that will accept you, start one, right?
00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:47.999
But there's that sense, right, of co-ops being very insular, having barriers to entry, even though we know co-ops are not supposed to be, we talk about them as being open and voluntary membership.
00:27:48.000 --> 00:27:52.999
But the assumption was, so yeah, so when I started, a lot of people were like, why are you even thinking about it, right?
00:27:53.000 --> 00:27:54.999
It's a tiny little model, it doesn't deliver.
00:27:55.000 --> 00:28:00.999
Oh, and then the other thing is the assumption that co-ops were not efficient or effective businesses.
00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:07.999
that either you couldn't make money off of them or the decision making was so slow because it was democratic decision making.
00:28:08.000 --> 00:28:13.999
So there was a lot of mythology out there and so a lot of skepticism.
00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:20.999
But I'm happy to say that, you know, over the last, I guess it's three decades, right, of being involved in this work.
00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:24.999
One, we, meaning the movement, right, has been able
00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:46.999
to get different messages out there and we've been able to attract different kinds of people and we've gotten I think better again at sort of telling the stories of why a co-op and then we've been we've
00:28:47.000 --> 00:28:51.999
We still need to do more, but we've started to do a good job about what makes them viable.
00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:58.999
We actually had a committee for a while on co-op benefits to try to figure out how are we going to measure them, how are we going to do it.
00:28:59.000 --> 00:29:01.999
Canada was involved in a group in Canada that was also doing that.
00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:06.999
So we've gotten better at measuring the impact, measuring the benefits, explaining what those are.
00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:12.999
We've done better about showing the power of the model and what it
00:29:13.000 --> 00:29:17.999
produces not just for its members, but for the surrounding community.
00:29:18.000 --> 00:29:23.999
And so I think now, you know, yeah, it's different.
00:29:24.000 --> 00:29:31.999
Like even food co-ops now are seen as essential to, you know, to survival and to maintaining our understanding of food sovereignty, right?
00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:34.999
So food co-ops have been actually growing.
00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:37.999
Food co-ops also in the early days,
00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:45.999
had these crazy manuals where they were talking about you needed to be located in a white middle class community in order to survive.
00:29:46.000 --> 00:29:54.999
And so again, this assumption that the capitalization and the money and who your customers were were more important than why one was needed.
00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:57.999
We've gotten rid of that mythology also.
00:29:58.000 --> 00:30:05.999
And so we have a much better grocer co-op development movement and materials and things like that.
00:30:06.000 --> 00:30:07.999
So we've made a lot of strides
00:30:08.000 --> 00:30:17.999
And sort of all the different areas, you know, with, I guess it was 2004, we finally started a US worker co-op federation.
00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:25.999
We're pretty much the last developed country in the world to have a worker co-op federation, national worker co-op federation.
00:30:26.000 --> 00:30:28.999
But we finally joined that movement.
00:30:29.000 --> 00:30:33.999
So yeah, a lot has happened in the last 30 years.
00:30:34.000 --> 00:30:50.999
I didn't know it, but when I first got into co-ops, that was, you know, the mid-90s was just when the ICA had redone their principles and came out with the new identity and value statement that included the two additional principles about intercooperation and concern for community.
00:30:51.000 --> 00:30:56.999
So I think that also helped to move the movement forward.
00:30:57.000 --> 00:31:03.999
And then I think, you know, a lot in the US, a lot of different things with
00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:13.999
economic downturns, the financial crisis in what '07, '08, '09 and housing crisis got people thinking more about co-ops and credit unions.
00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:19.999
Finally, you know, people started talking about credit unions as co-ops and as better banking places.
00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:31.999
So some of the different crises we've been through have also helped us, I think, to see and want co-ops and to move forward with co-ops.
00:31:32.000 --> 00:31:46.999
And then I guess the last thing I'd say about the change is definitely the kinds of people who have been attending co-op meetings and co-op conferences has been changing.
00:31:47.000 --> 00:31:51.999
When I first joined, and no offense to the old white men, but it was an old white men's club.
00:31:52.000 --> 00:32:00.999
There were a few old white women in it and a couple of us younger people.
00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:05.999
but very few young people, very few people of color.
00:32:06.000 --> 00:32:10.999
And now, you know, a lot of the organizations have been taken over by the young people.
00:32:11.000 --> 00:32:14.999
Most of the organizations have been able to attract people of color.
00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:23.999
There's lots and lots of people of color and especially black co-op development associations in different cities around the country.
00:32:24.000 --> 00:32:32.999
So that whole landscape has really changed and what it looks like to attend a co-op event or co-op conference just looks totally different now.
00:32:33.000 --> 00:32:38.999
What still needs to happen in this space when it comes to development and support for development?
00:32:39.000 --> 00:32:41.999
Thanks for asking that because it's always our work is never done.
00:32:42.000 --> 00:32:42.999
It's always a process.
00:32:43.000 --> 00:32:43.999
We're always on a journey, right?
00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:46.999
I don't I never believe that we'll be at the end of the journey.
00:32:47.000 --> 00:32:52.999
We'll always be in the journey, but hopefully we're closer to an end than to the beginning.
00:32:53.000 --> 00:32:53.999
So if it's always
00:32:54.000 --> 00:32:54.999
a journey?
00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:55.999
What are the challenges?
00:32:56.000 --> 00:32:59.999
There's still some capitalization and finance challenges.
00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:01.999
They're nothing near what they used to be.
00:33:02.000 --> 00:33:11.999
We also have a lot more community development financial institutions and other financial institutions that are promoting co-ops that understand co-ops that want to
00:33:12.000 --> 00:33:16.999
give money to them, but it still is difficult, especially when working with low resourced people.
00:33:17.000 --> 00:33:20.999
You need to have, right, people need to be able to put resources into a co-op.
00:33:21.000 --> 00:33:26.999
So when you're doing co-ops with low resourced people, there's still an issue about where are those resources coming from.
00:33:27.000 --> 00:33:30.999
Some of the financing is still extractive.
00:33:31.000 --> 00:33:43.999
And so making sure we have non-extractive financing and financing available both to education and to co-op development startups and other stages of co-op development are really important.
00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:51.999
So I don't want to underestimate the financing, but I also feel like if we have better understanding and more well, the financing can come.
00:33:52.000 --> 00:33:58.999
So I would say I still think we have education challenges.
00:33:59.000 --> 00:34:03.999
enough people still don't know that it's a viable model and why it's a viable model.
00:34:04.000 --> 00:34:17.999
I want us to start teaching about cooperative economics in kindergarten and up, but especially by middle school and high school, we should be helping young people to start their own co-ops, as well as helping them to understand what they are.
00:34:18.000 --> 00:34:20.999
And so I do think there's still an education challenge.
00:34:21.000 --> 00:34:25.999
It's getting better, but it's not we haven't, we still have to struggle with that.
00:34:26.000 --> 00:34:28.999
We still have to struggle with making sure it's
00:34:29.000 --> 00:34:36.999
Our materials talk about people of color, people who are low resourced, even women.
00:34:37.000 --> 00:34:48.999
When I first started studying co-ops in the 90s, the whole co-op movement, worldwide movement was talking about that the role of women was not very strong and women were marginalized in co-ops and that kind of thing.
00:34:49.000 --> 00:34:52.999
It's a lot better again now.
00:34:53.000 --> 00:34:59.999
And my research on Black American co-ops showed that actually women have been a strong component throughout our history, but that wasn't really true.
00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:07.999
In fact, people at first questioned my information, which of course was anecdotal at first.
00:35:08.000 --> 00:35:08.999
And so they said, oh, are you sure?
00:35:09.000 --> 00:35:13.999
'Cause they were like, that's not the experience with other groups and in other countries and, you know, whatever.
00:35:14.000 --> 00:35:21.999
But anyway, I think we now, everybody realizes how powerful women can and should be if they're not.
00:35:22.000 --> 00:35:30.999
as contributors to the co-op movements that we do, we at least have changed the perspective and we recognize more about women.
00:35:31.000 --> 00:35:42.999
Actually, even the Co-op Hall of Fame, when we did a study for the proposal for the unsung heroes, we found that I think it was like only 11% of the US Co-op Hall of Famers were women.
00:35:43.000 --> 00:35:45.999
This would have been what, five or six years ago when we did that.
00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:46.999
I mean, it was crazy.
00:35:47.000 --> 00:35:51.999
So it wasn't even just that they were unsung heroes from history.
00:35:52.000 --> 00:35:55.999
we didn't, the movement wasn't recognizing the role of women.
00:35:56.000 --> 00:36:01.999
And then some of the women that were recognized were recognized in a pair with their husband.
00:36:02.000 --> 00:36:03.999
So they weren't even recognized individually.
00:36:04.000 --> 00:36:07.999
So, you know, and that's recent.
00:36:08.000 --> 00:36:13.999
Within this decade or the end of the beginning of this decade, we were talking about that.
00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:16.999
So.
00:36:17.000 --> 00:36:31.999
So yeah, recognizing the contribution of different groups, including women, but especially people of color groups and low resource groups, because again, it's really hard for people who are low resource to think about how they can bring what kind of equity they can bring to a co-op.
00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:34.999
So trying to make sure we understand, figure that out.
00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:42.999
Worker co-ops, I think, have done a pretty good job because you're an employee, so you can pay for it in installments from your wages.
00:36:43.000 --> 00:36:45.999
It's still sometimes people don't feel as equal.
00:36:46.000 --> 00:36:50.999
or as empowered if they don't feel like they're bringing the same finance resource.
00:36:51.000 --> 00:37:03.999
And so recognizing other kinds of resources, I think, especially human energy and passion, I think could also, I don't know that we do that enough of, you know, making sure people feel, but also respecting people's time.
00:37:04.000 --> 00:37:12.999
So recognizing and valuing their passion and their energy, but also respecting their time, I think is another thing because often
00:37:13.000 --> 00:37:19.999
It takes so much personal time for people to get involved, especially in a startup.
00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:23.999
And, you know, I believe it's important, right?
00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:32.999
People's investment of time and energy is an important part of building trust and developing the culture of ownership and self-determination that we need in a co-op.
00:37:33.000 --> 00:37:39.999
But it also can be very exhausting and debilitating, especially for people who are already
00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:44.999
tax because they're doing every, you know, they're the ones carrying the water and all the things they do in their lives.
00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:49.999
And so figuring out how do we help people balance all that I think might is another frontier.
00:37:50.000 --> 00:38:00.999
And then finally, being able to really talk honestly about conflict and how to resolve or not even resolve how to transform conflict
00:38:01.000 --> 00:38:11.999
And understanding that conflict doesn't have, shouldn't be a problem or a barrier, but should be an opportunity for us to do better, make better decisions, learn more.
00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:14.999
The same thing with sort of failure, right?
00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:17.999
Failure is just a step towards success, right?
00:38:18.000 --> 00:38:25.999
So again, we need to see it as a learning opportunity and not as a, oh, okay, throw the whole baby out with the bath water or whatever.
00:38:26.000 --> 00:38:29.999
So learning more about how to address
00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:39.999
failure as a step toward success, how to understand conflict as an opportunity toward better decisions.
00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:45.999
I think all those things need a lot more training and we're just starting to get good at that.
00:38:46.000 --> 00:38:50.999
But we need more of it and more widespread so that we can really, really blossom.
00:38:51.000 --> 00:38:51.999
Thanks so much, Jessica.
00:38:52.000 --> 00:38:54.999
That's a lot to say with and it's a
00:38:55.000 --> 00:38:55.999
Yeah, really good to think about.
00:38:56.000 --> 00:39:02.999
I love the idea of failure as a step towards success and hope that we can all incorporate that into our work a little more.
00:39:03.000 --> 00:39:14.999
So you've just talked to us a lot about how the cooperative movement as a whole has shifted during the course of your career and even in the last five or ten years and where you think it still needs to go, what changes might still need to happen.
00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:20.999
What role do you think that co-op developers have in that movement, maybe in getting the movement to where it needs to go?
00:39:21.000 --> 00:39:24.999
And you kind of just hit a couple of points already that I suspect you'll continue
00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:29.999
But let's, yeah, I'm curious to hear what you think the role of co-op developers is in all this.
00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:34.999
Well, I think first, co-op developers, we need to be humble, right?
00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:36.999
And listen, right?
00:39:37.000 --> 00:39:44.999
We need to listen to the people that we're working with and not just come in there as I'm the expert, I know this, you have to listen to me.
00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:46.999
I think that's a mistake.
00:39:47.000 --> 00:39:54.999
Not that we haven't had some good co-ops that have come out of that model, but I just, it's just to me, it's just a mistake because again,
00:39:55.000 --> 00:40:03.999
You know, being in cooperation, economic cooperation with other people is a process and it's about learning together and trusting each other.
00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:09.999
And it's not about one person saying they know everything or they have all the answers and you just have to do it.
00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:13.999
But the other thing we know is that co-ops really don't happen in a linear fashion.
00:40:14.000 --> 00:40:17.999
It's not really that if you do this, this and this, you have a co-op.
00:40:18.000 --> 00:40:23.999
There's so much else behind that, like at each step, there was so much else going on.
00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:28.999
that made you get to the next step that we have to kind of recognize that.
00:40:29.000 --> 00:40:33.999
So I think developers can help in that sense and say right from the beginning, this is a process.
00:40:34.000 --> 00:40:34.999
This is a learning journey.
00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:36.999
We're going to be learning the whole time.
00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:40.999
All of us are going to be learning, right?
00:40:41.000 --> 00:40:41.999
We're gonna be learning from each other.
00:40:42.000 --> 00:40:44.999
We're gonna be learning from the experiences.
00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:46.999
It's okay to have a misstep.
00:40:47.000 --> 00:40:51.999
It's okay to fail at something because that's just a more of an opportunity to learn even better.
00:40:52.000 --> 00:40:57.999
In fact, we usually learn better once we've failed at something than we do if we succeed at it.
00:40:58.000 --> 00:41:04.999
So, right, so thinking about this as a learning journey, and I think developers need to provide that perspective.
00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:10.999
So it's both about patience, but it's also about grace.
00:41:11.000 --> 00:41:13.999
And it's also about respect, right?
00:41:14.000 --> 00:41:20.999
Because if it's a learning journey, then we're gonna respect everybody's experience on this journey.
00:41:21.000 --> 00:41:24.999
And we're gonna respect the way that people learn, the way that they make mistakes.
00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:36.999
We're gonna help them obviously to not make some mistakes that we obviously can loom ahead, but we also have to make sure we help people to figure out how to get up after.
00:41:37.000 --> 00:41:41.999
they fall, especially when we fall that we don't, nobody has anticipated, right?
00:41:42.000 --> 00:41:45.999
So that, you know, that continuous learning I think is going to be really important.
00:41:46.000 --> 00:41:56.999
The humbleness also, you know, I actually tend to think that the best developers are the ones who have been in the process who have done it.
00:41:57.000 --> 00:41:58.999
who have been in a co-op or whatever.
00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:10.999
That's one of the reasons why I don't call myself a developer 'cause even though I'm a member of a bunch of co-ops, I've never actually, I don't think I've actually really started a co-op, especially not a worker co-op.
00:42:11.000 --> 00:42:24.999
I did start with my sister buying club once and I've done some other stuff, but yeah, so, but because I haven't really been from start to finish in a business that I helped own and control with other people,
00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:29.999
I call myself an educator, an advocate, a researcher because I understand all those things.
00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:35.999
But I think developers are better if they've gone through the process themselves.
00:42:36.000 --> 00:42:54.999
Again, not to say you can't teach if you haven't done it, but so even the developers that haven't done it, again, that's why I say be humble because even if you're a professional and have all this training, it doesn't mean that you know everything and it doesn't mean you might know different things than the people you're helping to develop, but you don't know everything.
00:42:55.000 --> 00:43:10.999
So being open to listen to hear, and it also helps us to better serve the people we're developing if we can hear them, because they're going to have some unique experiences or perspectives or issues that we have to help them think through.
00:43:11.000 --> 00:43:19.999
But also, again, that thinking through that problem solving is a part of how to grow into a strong co-op, right?
00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:30.999
If other people are always doing the thinking and problem solving for you, you're never going to get to a place of group self-determination, which is one of the purposes of a co-op.
00:43:31.000 --> 00:43:34.999
So I guess those would be some of the things.
00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:41.999
And I also think that being a co-op developer is probably one of the greatest things a person could do.
00:43:42.000 --> 00:43:49.999
So even though I said we all shouldn't be one and this and that, I do think it's one of the greatest contributions a person could do.
00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:52.999
Sure.
00:43:53.000 --> 00:43:53.999
But do it right, right?
00:43:54.000 --> 00:43:56.999
But do it right.
00:43:57.000 --> 00:44:01.999
Do it humbly, do it ethically, do it as a human being, as a member, not as an expert.
00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:02.999
No, I love that.
00:44:03.000 --> 00:44:07.999
We have the first part of this is thinking through the cooperative principles, the ICA principles.
00:44:08.000 --> 00:44:08.999
And if you have a favorite one.
00:44:09.000 --> 00:44:15.999
I guess after that whole speech, my favorite one is continuous education.
00:44:16.000 --> 00:44:20.999
Though I do like concern for community too, but I'll stick with continuous education.
00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:27.999
So for all the reasons that it's a process that we're always in a learning process or always should be in a learning process and that we learn.
00:44:28.000 --> 00:44:31.999
What I didn't say is we also learn our experience of being in a co-op.
00:44:32.000 --> 00:44:33.999
We learn a whole lot about ourselves, about life.
00:44:34.000 --> 00:44:41.999
It's not just about how to run the co-op or how to be in the co-op or how to make joint decisions, but we grow as human beings.
00:44:42.000 --> 00:44:44.999
So I guess continuous education for those reasons.
00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:50.999
Yeah, one of my I've shared this a few other times, I think, maybe even on another episode of this.
00:44:51.000 --> 00:45:03.999
But one of our members has recently been giving some webinars, and one of the things that she's she's said is like co-op development is human development, and that just like continues to resonate in the more conversations I have like, yes, it plugs in here.
00:45:04.000 --> 00:45:07.999
Yeah, absolutely.
00:45:08.000 --> 00:45:10.999
And so the the second part of this is that
00:45:11.000 --> 00:45:16.999
The ICA is currently working on the principles.
00:45:17.000 --> 00:45:18.999
They rewrite them from time to time.
00:45:19.000 --> 00:45:22.999
And there's been improvement to get a cooperative principle of diversity.
00:45:23.000 --> 00:45:26.999
And I know, I believe you're still working on an article around that.
00:45:27.000 --> 00:45:37.999
And also just acknowledging that in this time where the ICA has finally really started putting a lot of effort into that, there's been, I think, a lot of support for it.
00:45:38.000 --> 00:45:39.999
We're also seeing
00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:45.999
sort of this hyper reactive government where the federal government has made like diversity a taboo subject, right?
00:45:46.000 --> 00:45:47.999
It is banned along with a lot of other words.
00:45:48.000 --> 00:45:56.999
It's getting more and more difficult to talk about in a way that we couldn't even have envisioned 2 years ago, I don't think.
00:45:57.000 --> 00:46:02.999
Can you speak a little bit more to the importance of this principle and why it's needed more or now more than ever?
00:46:03.000 --> 00:46:03.999
And
00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:06.999
Just sharing, I guess, like your general thoughts on that.
00:46:07.000 --> 00:46:07.999
Yeah.
00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:13.999
So I'm in favor of an eighth principle on diversity, but I actually believe that diversity isn't enough.
00:46:14.000 --> 00:46:17.999
So I argue for what I call DIEJ or a couple people call it that.
00:46:18.000 --> 00:46:22.999
So diversity, inclusion, equity, and justice.
00:46:23.000 --> 00:46:31.999
Because I don't-- because to me, diversity is a little bit symbolic and it can be--
00:46:32.000 --> 00:46:33.999
co-opted too easily.
00:46:34.000 --> 00:46:41.999
But diversity with inclusion, with real equity, with real justice, I think makes a difference.
00:46:42.000 --> 00:46:59.999
I think a lot of people think sort of the concern for community part of the seventh principle, you know, kind of helps with justice, but it doesn't really, you know, other people say the concern for community helps with sustainability, which it sort of does, but it doesn't, you know.
00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:01.999
So I really believe actually that
00:47:02.000 --> 00:47:12.999
that we need a justice principle, but I'm happy if it's a diversity principle that includes the inclusion, equity, and justice in it.
00:47:13.000 --> 00:47:17.999
I am putting together an article for GEO grassroots economic organizing.
00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:24.999
We started back in print, so we have an issue coming out on the principles.
00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:33.999
And I've been using, in my article, I actually use some great perspectives from students who took my DIEJ class at St.
00:47:34.000 --> 00:47:36.999
Mary's in the master's program.
00:47:37.000 --> 00:47:50.999
But I actually, some of my students, in addition to making great arguments for diversity and justice, also argued that what we really need is for all the principles to be rewritten to include justice and equity.
00:47:51.000 --> 00:47:53.999
And I also am sympathetic to that, though I'm not sure.
00:47:54.000 --> 00:48:01.999
I'm not sure how feasible that will be to get agreement to rewrite everything.
00:48:02.000 --> 00:48:13.999
Because there was some concern, and I agree with it, that if you just have the principle of diversity or even the principle of diversity and justice, people will just, again, still kind of co-opt it and check it off.
00:48:14.000 --> 00:48:15.999
Oh, yeah, we have
00:48:16.000 --> 00:48:23.999
these different representations from these different groups of people and that's enough and not really pay attention to what equity and justice really mean.
00:48:24.000 --> 00:48:41.999
So on the other hand, given the climate right now, if we just passed an eighth principle on diversity, that would be better than nothing because at least it would show that the co-op movement is not going to be bowed or towed by whatever the political fascist movements are around the world.
00:48:42.000 --> 00:48:45.999
But I would hope that there's enough discussion
00:48:46.000 --> 00:48:51.999
so that equity and justice get in there also and we figure out how to infuse it in whatever ways we need to.
00:48:52.000 --> 00:48:57.999
It's not enough for the way it's talked about in the co-op identity and values.
00:48:58.000 --> 00:48:58.999
In fact, justice isn't there.
00:48:59.000 --> 00:49:06.999
I think equity is there, but equity more from a finance rather than from a social justice perspective of equity.
00:49:07.000 --> 00:49:14.999
So making sure we have that sense of equity as not just equal opportunity, but equality of outcomes.
00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:18.999
of just outcomes is what what I mean by equity.
00:49:19.000 --> 00:49:20.999
So we need somehow to talk about.
00:49:21.000 --> 00:49:24.999
It's not just enough to have a variety of people involved or represented.
00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:35.999
We need an equality of outcomes for everybody in a just way, so that we're non oppressive, non hierarchical in the way that we
00:49:36.000 --> 00:49:40.999
relate to each other in terms of who has power in co-ops.
00:49:41.000 --> 00:49:49.999
So whatever we can do to make sure both that we have those discussions and that our co-ops start to reflect that, I think would be really important.
00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:52.999
A couple of quick rapid fire questions for you now.
00:49:53.000 --> 00:49:54.999
Oh boy, okay.
00:49:55.000 --> 00:49:55.999
All right.
00:49:56.000 --> 00:49:59.999
Cooperative with a hyphen or no hyphen.
00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:01.999
Oh, I love the hyphen.
00:50:02.000 --> 00:50:07.999
Otherwise it's like a chicken coop and that drives me crazy.
00:50:08.000 --> 00:50:12.999
Cooperative, I can live without the hyphen, but co-op has to have the hyphen.
00:50:13.000 --> 00:50:15.999
And again, the word co-op, not cooperation.
00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:20.999
Either one is fine with cooperation, but co-op, the shorthand.
00:50:21.000 --> 00:50:33.999
If you were stranded on a deserted island with a group of people looking to start a co-op, what would you wish you would have with you?
00:50:34.000 --> 00:50:34.999
Oh gosh, that's a hard one.
00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:36.999
It's supposed to be fast, right?
00:50:37.000 --> 00:50:41.999
I guess the first thing I thought of was a conflict transformation manual.
00:50:42.000 --> 00:50:45.999
What's your favorite book on cooperatives?
00:50:46.000 --> 00:50:47.999
John Curl for all the people.
00:50:48.000 --> 00:50:53.999
If you could hear one person's development story, whose would it be?
00:50:54.000 --> 00:50:57.999
I guess I would like to talk to Ella Jo Baker about co-ops.
00:50:58.000 --> 00:51:04.999
Do you have any lasting pieces of advice for people looking to get into this work, who are doing this work?
00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:09.999
What lasting pieces of wisdom do you wish to leave in this space?
00:51:10.000 --> 00:51:10.999
That's a hard one.
00:51:11.000 --> 00:51:22.999
I guess for me, the most important thing to say to people about co-ops is that economic cooperation was the first economic system of human beings.
00:51:23.000 --> 00:51:27.999
So it comes natural to us that we shouldn't feel alienated from it.
00:51:28.000 --> 00:51:44.999
We should recognize all the everyday acts of economic solidarity and economic cooperation that we already do, recognize that human beings work together to survive and thrive, and that we can't survive or thrive without working together cooperatively.
00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:49.999
And when cooperatives work well.
00:51:50.000 --> 00:52:07.999
Thank you so much, Jessica, for helping us start our Co-op Month conversation by reminding us that while the challenges of this particular moment may feel new, communities have been using cooperation to respond to change, meet their needs, and build collective power for generations.
00:52:08.000 --> 00:52:14.999
And I think that's an important place to begin our exploration of this year's Co-op Month theme built for this moment.
00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:20.999
Because understanding where we've been can help us think differently about where we need to go.
00:52:21.000 --> 00:52:24.999
And we're going to keep exploring that question over the next month.
00:52:25.000 --> 00:52:31.999
This is the first of four special Co-op Month conversations here on Cooperative Developer Stories.
00:52:32.000 --> 00:52:45.999
Alex will be back with me as co-host and we'll be sitting down with Doug O'Brien, Esteban Kelly, and Tom Webb to hear their perspectives on where the cooperative movement is today and what this moment might be asking of us.
00:52:46.000 --> 00:52:51.999
By the end of the month, we hope these conversations leave all of us thinking about one bigger question.
00:52:52.000 --> 00:52:56.999
What do we need to do to build stronger cooperatives in this moment?
00:52:57.000 --> 00:53:00.999
To everyone listening, we hope you'll join us throughout this month.
00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:09.999
Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next conversation and share this series with someone you think should be a part of it.
00:53:10.000 --> 00:53:15.999
Every share helps us connect developers, exchange ideas, and grow the cooperative movement together.
00:53:16.000 --> 00:53:22.999
Thanks for listening to Cooperative Developer Stories, a podcast from Cooperation Works.
00:53:23.000 --> 00:53:31.000
Until next time, keep learning from one another, keep sharing what and keep building the relationships that make cooperation work.
00:00:03.000 --> 00:00:07.999
Welcome to Cooperative Developer Stories, a Cooperation Works podcast.
00:00:08.000 --> 00:00:09.999
I'm your host, Tara Williams.
00:00:10.000 --> 00:00:16.999
Can't wait to hear your stories.
00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:28.999
Hey folks, and welcome to Cooperative Developer Stories, the podcast where we get curious, get honest, and get inspired by the people building the cooperative economy, one community at a time.
00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:30.999
October is Co-op Month.
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This year's theme is built for this moment.
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So throughout October, we're doing something a little different.
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We're bringing you 4 special Co-op Month conversations which explore what it's like to build cooperatives for this moment.
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And I'm not doing it alone.
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Joining me as co-host for this series is Alex Stone, Executive Director of Cooperation Works.
00:00:56.000 --> 00:01:03.999
You might remember Alex from our very first episode where we talked about what a co-op developer actually does and why this work matters.
00:01:04.000 --> 00:01:07.999
Over the next four conversations, Alex and I will be joined by Dr.
00:01:08.000 --> 00:01:13.999
Jessica Gordon Nembhard, Doug O'Brien, Esteban Kelly, and Tom Webb.
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We'll explore cooperative history, where the movement finds itself today, and what cooperatives might need to become to meet the challenges ahead, and how as co-op developers we can build them.
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We're starting with someone who can help us understand this moment by looking at the moments that came before it.
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Dr.
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Jessica Gordon Nembhard is an educator, political economist, organizer, and cooperative Hall of Fame inductee whose work has helped bring greater attention to the long history of African-American cooperative economics.
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Her work reminds us that communities coming together to meet their own needs and build collective economic power isn't new.
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People have been building cooperatives in response to difficult moments for generations.
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So today, Alex and I want to explore what that history can teach us about where we are now and what we might build next.
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Jessica and Alex, welcome.
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Let's get into it.
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Thanks so much for joining us today.
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Before we jump into the hard questions,
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Can you do a quick intro?
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Who are you?
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Where are you joining from?
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Who do you work for?
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How long you've worked with co-op?
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My name is Jessica Gordon Nembhard.
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I'm a political economist and professor of community justice and social economic development at John Jay College, part of City University of New York.
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I also am the author of Collective Courage: A History of Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice, originally put out in 2014, and now we have a 10th anniversary reprint in 2024.
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I'm a mother and a grandmother, and I've been researching, studying, and advocating for cooperatives since the mid 1990s.
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So that's what, almost 30 years, I guess 30 years.
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Hall of Fame, I was inducted into the US Co-op Hall of Fame in 2016.
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So this podcast is about co-op developer stories, but we can't do this work alone.
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Co-op developers are part of a much bigger cooperative ecosystem.
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Before we get into that, I'd love to start with your own co-op story and your why.
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How did you find your way into the co-op movement and what keeps you committed to this work?
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Right.
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So I actually stumbled on co-ops as a community economic development strategy.
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And I say stumbled for two reasons.
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One, because I actually grew up in an intentional community that called itself a co-op and
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before I became an economist, I had used co-op grocery stores and things like that.
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My mother used to buy her pecans for her Christmas candies from a co-op in Georgia and things like that.
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So
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I knew about co-ops, but I hadn't thought of them as an economist in terms of a community economic development strategy until the mid '90s when I was working for the Children's Defense Fund's Black Community Crusade for Children as an economic development analyst to try to highlight community-based, community-controlled economic development that would be family friendly and children friendly.
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So that weren't just thinking about what kind of policies needed to be enacted at state and federal government level, but I was then said, what can communities do and what are the different kinds of community controlled development apparatus that communities can use?
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And so then I re-found cooperatives and started looking at them as a business model, especially worker co-ops, but also farm co-ops, food co-ops,
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craft co-ops, other kinds of co-ops.
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And so I rapidly realized that if we're really looking at real community control, real democracy, and real community wealth building, that co-ops were a model, especially when paired with solidarity economic efforts, were really a model for subaltern groups or non-mainstream groups like African Americans.
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other oppressed groups, women, were a way to get the kind of both self-determination, empowerment, but also economic justice.
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through an economic democracy model.
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So I became a huge fan, learned everything I possibly could about co-ops, started researching the history of African American ownership of co-ops, and started publishing articles and giving talks about why cooperatives are a good model.
00:06:06.000 --> 00:06:06.999
Thank you so much, Jessica.
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That's great to hear more about your early story.
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And before we started recording, we talked a little bit about your connection to cooperative development, your coming in as a professor, as a research
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that you have a huge impact on the field of cooperative development and on cooperative developers across the country.
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And I'm wondering if you might talk a bit more about how cooperative development has showed up in your career, maybe not in the same way as some of the other folks that we have on this podcast, but definitely in some really important ways I think a lot of folks have felt the direct impact of.
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Thanks for that.
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I actually never had any thought or intention to be a leader in this area.
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I mostly wanted to be a supporter.
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The more I found out about cooperatives, the more I thought, okay, I have a PhD in economics.
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I've done research since I was about 15 years old.
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What, you know, how can I, what kind of research can I contribute?
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And some of the earliest stuff wasn't even just the history of African American cooperatives, which I kind of made a name for, for myself, but also the benefits of cooperatives to communities, especially for urban economic development.
00:07:14.000 --> 00:07:14.999
And so I really was
00:07:15.000 --> 00:07:27.999
first just going, I even, you know, attended Cooperation Works to learn about, right, to get my education on co-ops and how co-ops work and what developers do.
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I've been involved in meetings about developer values and the Madison principles for developers and how we can extend those to make sure developers are acting in the most informed and ethical ways as developers.
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I started talking about the fact that we need better materials,
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We don't often have, we didn't always have materials that talk to the people that we were trying to help develop co-ops.
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So again, my research, especially on the history of African American co-ops, helped.
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to give us information that we could use for people who were interested in co-ops or didn't know that they were interested in co-ops, that we could interest in co-ops and then they could connect to them better.
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So I think I helped to impact some of the content of how we talk about and give information about what a co-op is and provide examples that are meaningful to groups.
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And I joined a lot of co-op organizations, both advocacy organizations and co-op education
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organizations, things like that, and mostly again to listen.
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But the more I listened, the more information I was able to gather.
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And because I guess I've been so passionate about it, I've also been one of the few people who put different parts of the information together.
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So matched my interest in Black co-ops with the interest in co-op benefits and have been able to, and my interest in worker co-ops and able to connect all those and show the ways
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that co-ops are benefits to their communities, which I think also not just help with the advocacy, but help developers to think through what and why are they helping people to develop.
00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:14.999
And I guess the final thing is, because I'm also a public scholar and have tried to talk about these things with all different kinds of groups,
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I also realized how important it is to tell stories, not just to give out information.
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And I think that has also connected with the developing world in terms of, right, let's not just rattle off, this is the law, this is whatever, this is the process, whatever, but tell the stories of who and why people have engaged in cooperative economics.
00:09:40.000 --> 00:09:46.999
what they've accomplished, what they've learned, and what more we can do with both the knowledge and the practice.
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Hits the nail on the head for the episode zero, emphasizing that people are really just the core and center of cooperatives.
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And to show people that anybody can do it.
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That's the other thing with my history for Black co-ops.
00:10:01.000 --> 00:10:09.999
I found examples of people who didn't even own their own bodies, were enslaved, right, doing economic cooperation, or people who were newly freed.
00:10:10.000 --> 00:10:19.999
who barely had citizenship and hardly knew how to vote, but knew how, you know, figured out how to run a business together with other people and make it work.
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People without an education are still able to engage in practice and participate in the decisions of how to run their business because they, you know, they know.
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They know what they need.
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They have experience even if they don't have official formal experience.
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And so, you know, this kind of cooperative development helps us to recognize
00:10:41.000 --> 00:10:47.999
people's skills, even when they either don't recognize them themselves or when they're not recognized in other places.
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I think as you're talking through that and the history, I'd love to know from your perspective, what did co-op development look like in your opinion throughout history?
00:10:57.000 --> 00:11:06.999
And is there anybody that you'd like to highlight that did critical work other than yourself who we've talked about has set that firm foundation for how people are working together?
00:11:07.000 --> 00:11:09.999
Generally, in the US, I think also
00:11:10.000 --> 00:11:19.999
So in Canada and probably in Europe, I don't know the other places as well, you know, co-op cooperative economics was taught.
00:11:20.000 --> 00:11:25.999
And, you know, they did start with a story, but they started with the story of the Rochdale pioneers, which is a fantastic story.
00:11:26.000 --> 00:11:36.999
But as if that was the only thing happening in the 17 and 1800s, and as if they were the only model to emulate.
00:11:37.000 --> 00:11:38.999
So it was a little bit
00:11:39.000 --> 00:11:44.999
narrow and prescribed and there were very few actually co-op developers.
00:11:45.000 --> 00:11:49.999
I think most of the developers I can think of were not trained as developers.
00:11:50.000 --> 00:11:55.999
They again in some ways fell into co-ops and then through their observations learning.
00:11:56.000 --> 00:11:57.999
by doing learning, by watching other people, right?
00:11:58.000 --> 00:12:09.999
The two most exciting, I guess, developers for me in history would be Ella Jo Baker, who is totally unknown as a co-op developer, though we finally got her into the Hall of Fame as an unsung hero.
00:12:10.000 --> 00:12:25.999
But why I say Ella Jo Baker is because for the four or five years that she was director of the Young ******* Cooperative League, her job was technically education and co-op development, and she traveled around the United States
00:12:26.000 --> 00:12:26.999
giving workshops.
00:12:27.000 --> 00:12:35.999
She wrote up a newsletter and I don't know what she did in the workshops, but I was able to look at her archives and see a lot of the newsletters and see what she wrote there.
00:12:36.000 --> 00:12:39.999
And there you could see she was writing, okay, these are the steps, but first you need to do this.
00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:43.999
And she talked about trust building and courage, right?
00:12:44.000 --> 00:12:51.999
How much courage it took to engage in something different when the powers that be and the money wasn't there.
00:12:52.000 --> 00:12:54.999
right, wasn't supporting it.
00:12:55.000 --> 00:12:57.999
She went around and talked about how important the role of women was.
00:12:58.000 --> 00:13:02.999
And so she was an organizer as well as an educator, as well as an advocate.
00:13:03.000 --> 00:13:05.999
And I think that combination is very exciting.
00:13:06.000 --> 00:13:17.999
I would also consider Father Arasmendi Ariata in the Basque region of Spain in the 1940s and 50s would be another co-op developer I would think of that we should emulate.
00:13:18.000 --> 00:13:21.999
We know about him a little bit more than we know about Ella Baker.
00:13:22.000 --> 00:13:24.999
But again, people just kind of throw his name out there.
00:13:25.000 --> 00:13:30.999
But if you actually read his writings and his teachings and whatever, he was another one who said, we know how to do this right.
00:13:31.000 --> 00:13:35.999
We need to do what we normally do as human beings, do it more deliberately.
00:13:36.000 --> 00:13:44.999
and that anybody can do it and should be a model for people who don't have power and who have been marginalized and left out.
00:13:45.000 --> 00:13:47.999
That's the place we should start and we should start with young people.
00:13:48.000 --> 00:13:53.999
So people lived in high school, educating high schoolers about this model so they could.
00:13:54.000 --> 00:13:57.999
hit the ground running when they graduated from high school and start their own co-ops, that kind of thing.
00:13:58.000 --> 00:14:08.999
So I think that also that message, we can do this, we need to start with young people, and we need to see that it's an integral part of who we are as human beings, I think is really important.
00:14:09.000 --> 00:14:12.999
So those would be, I guess, my two.
00:14:13.000 --> 00:14:15.999
major developers, but there's like tons of other people.
00:14:16.000 --> 00:14:17.999
There's Frank Adams in the worker co-op movement.
00:14:18.000 --> 00:14:23.999
There's John Curl who did a lot of the early history of co-ops, especially worker co-ops.
00:14:24.000 --> 00:14:27.999
There's all the different people who have been through cooperation works.
00:14:28.000 --> 00:14:35.999
I don't want to try to start naming people because then I'm going to have a bunch of people who tell me, why didn't you name me or whatever.
00:14:36.000 --> 00:14:41.999
So maybe I should stick with the people, the dead people, right?
00:14:42.000 --> 00:14:44.999
I won't get into trouble.
00:14:45.000 --> 00:14:48.999
Well, wise strategy, but we're going to push a little harder on that on a co-op story.
00:14:49.000 --> 00:14:56.999
So you obviously are just brought up the importance of storytelling when it comes to cooperatives and cooperative development.
00:14:57.000 --> 00:14:58.999
That is like the heart of the human connection.
00:14:59.000 --> 00:15:01.999
You yourself are a great storyteller about cooperatives.
00:15:02.000 --> 00:15:04.999
I think many of us have seen that in Collective Courage as we read it.
00:15:05.000 --> 00:15:11.999
Do you have a favorite story about cooperative development or about a cooperative or cooperatives that you'd be willing to share?
00:15:12.000 --> 00:15:14.999
Yeah, I do.
00:15:15.000 --> 00:15:17.999
Let me start with Freedom Quilting Bee.
00:15:18.000 --> 00:15:23.999
I've been saying that one's a favorite for a while, and it's still a favorite for a couple of reasons.
00:15:24.000 --> 00:15:30.999
One, it's again another story about people who are almost the lowest on the totem pole.
00:15:31.000 --> 00:15:36.999
And in this case, not just that they're Black women, but they're Black women sharecroppers.
00:15:37.000 --> 00:15:46.999
And anybody who knows anything about sharecropping in US history, it's a debt peonage system where the farmers farm land that they don't own.
00:15:47.000 --> 00:15:48.999
The land owner controls everything.
00:15:49.000 --> 00:15:54.999
They sell the harvest and tell you how much they're gonna give you for the harvest.
00:15:55.000 --> 00:15:58.999
You have to buy your seeds and all your supplies from their store.
00:15:59.000 --> 00:16:01.999
And so you're basically at the beholden
00:16:02.000 --> 00:16:06.999
of a plantation owner similarly to when our people were enslaved.
00:16:07.000 --> 00:16:11.999
So it's a very similar system to slavery.
00:16:12.000 --> 00:16:23.999
And then we know that Black women have often been the poorest, the least educated, and the most denigrated of people and of women in our society.
00:16:24.000 --> 00:16:31.999
And so you take women who are sharecroppers and see them as artists, they're quilters.
00:16:32.000 --> 00:16:47.999
And luckily, I can't remember his name, but a minister saw their work and said, you know what, I bet I could sell some of your quilts and that would help you raise some money or help you pay your bills.
00:16:48.000 --> 00:16:54.999
Because as I said, they're basically deep in debt, but they love, you know, but loving to form and that kind of stuff.
00:16:55.000 --> 00:17:04.999
So they were able to sell some quilts, enough money that they decided they wanted to make a business of it and that they wanted it to be a cooperative.
00:17:05.000 --> 00:17:08.999
They wanted to own it collectively as quilters.
00:17:09.000 --> 00:17:11.999
And this was in the late '60s.
00:17:12.000 --> 00:17:16.999
I think they incorporated as a co-op in 1967, something like that.
00:17:17.000 --> 00:17:18.999
They're also
00:17:19.000 --> 00:17:42.999
of the civil rights movement because many of the same women quilters were also advocating for the rights for black people to vote actually just to register to vote not even to actually get to the voting space but to register to vote and some of their neighbors some of them were being evicted from the farms they were sharecropping on because they registered to vote and so the
00:17:43.000 --> 00:18:01.999
The co-op not only gave them a place to earn money more than they could make as sharecroppers, but it also gave them a place to safely have some self-determination and to combat the economic as well as the civil rights assaults against them.
00:18:02.000 --> 00:18:04.999
as human beings, as Black people, as Black women.
00:18:05.000 --> 00:18:13.999
The co-op was so successful that within a few years they were able to buy 23 acres of land and build the sewing factory, which meant they're no longer working from home.
00:18:14.000 --> 00:18:21.999
They're still sharecropping with their families, but in the evenings, in the winters, and when they can, they're doing their sewing.
00:18:22.000 --> 00:18:33.999
Because they're now working from home, they end up with a daycare center, an after school program, a summer reading program for kids because they're still responsible for their children.
00:18:34.000 --> 00:18:39.999
And so the co-op helps them just stay responsible for their children, but is also open to anyone else.
00:18:40.000 --> 00:18:44.999
For a while, they're the largest employer in their small town.
00:18:45.000 --> 00:18:45.999
because they're so successful.
00:18:46.000 --> 00:18:58.999
So not only are these black and oh, and they're illiterate women also because they're in a part of Alabama at a time when it was still very difficult for black folks to get an education.
00:18:59.000 --> 00:19:03.999
They don't have to, there doesn't have to be schooling past what, eighth grade or something.
00:19:04.000 --> 00:19:08.999
And they don't, and they were segregated in the schools were segregated.
00:19:09.000 --> 00:19:11.999
So these are also people with very little education,
00:19:12.000 --> 00:19:29.999
but they're running their own company, they're doing marketing, they're doing their books, they're sewing, they're running children's programs, they're owning land, which they also lent out some of their acres to other sharecroppers who had been evicted or who were trying to buy their own land, things like that.
00:19:30.000 --> 00:19:40.999
So they become a whole community fixture and show that how cooperative ownership connected to write their own creativity, their own,
00:19:41.000 --> 00:19:54.999
agency, as artists, as human beings, as mothers, right, all kind of come together in this co-op and it solves economic issues, political issues, some education issues, right, if you think about what's happening in the daycare center.
00:19:55.000 --> 00:20:06.999
So it really is one of my favorites because it kind of kicks all the boxes for all the different kinds of motivations for a co-op, the benefits of a co-op, the kinds of people, right.
00:20:07.000 --> 00:20:10.999
So and it shows that anybody, you know, when someone says, oh, you have to be have this
00:20:11.000 --> 00:20:13.999
much education or this experience or whatever.
00:20:14.000 --> 00:20:18.999
It's another example of no, you have to have the passion and the commitment, right?
00:20:19.000 --> 00:20:19.999
That's what you really need.
00:20:20.000 --> 00:20:20.999
And then the rest will follow.
00:20:21.000 --> 00:20:33.999
It doesn't mean that you don't need to be educated and to be trained, but they made sure all that would happen through, um, made sure the co-op enabled them to then do all the training and,
00:20:34.000 --> 00:20:39.999
education and things that they needed to do so they could do be so successful.
00:20:40.000 --> 00:20:42.999
And they pretty much lasted since then.
00:20:43.000 --> 00:20:45.999
Someone just told me that I know they've been in hiatus twice.
00:20:46.000 --> 00:20:50.999
Someone just told me that they've started up again and they were going to visit or work for them or something.
00:20:51.000 --> 00:20:55.999
So it's also what, more than 50 years old.
00:20:56.000 --> 00:21:03.999
And they were a founding member of the Federation of Southern Cooperatives, which was the first major black regional co-op development
00:21:04.000 --> 00:21:11.999
Association in the United States, basically the only women's co-op of the founding members.
00:21:12.000 --> 00:21:14.999
So again, lots of really important things.
00:21:15.000 --> 00:21:16.999
So they didn't stay insulated.
00:21:17.000 --> 00:21:18.999
They connected to the movement, right?
00:21:19.000 --> 00:21:23.999
They helped to create a movement by creating a regional organization, which also is in existence.
00:21:24.000 --> 00:21:27.999
And so anyway, that you can see why it's one of my favorite co-ops.
00:21:28.000 --> 00:21:33.999
I think the other one or co-op movement that I want to talk about would be the Knights of Labor
00:21:34.000 --> 00:21:38.999
Labor and the Colored Farmers National Alliance in the South in the 1880s.
00:21:39.000 --> 00:21:44.999
And the reason why I pick that one is because, again, the lessons learned are just incredible.
00:21:45.000 --> 00:21:55.999
And in this case, the 1880s are a backlash against the Reconstruction period after the Civil War, when we had what some people call the first wave of the Civil Rights Movement.
00:21:56.000 --> 00:22:02.999
But by the 1880s, the South was becoming segregated again, the Ku Klux Klan and other
00:22:03.000 --> 00:22:09.999
Supremacist violence was on the rise, lynchings were on the rise, the economy wasn't very good.
00:22:10.000 --> 00:22:20.999
There was a populist movement, a movement for small farmers, but the white populist movement was rapidly segregating from the black populist movement.
00:22:21.000 --> 00:22:25.999
Knights of Labor was sort of the last remnant of an integrated movement.
00:22:26.000 --> 00:22:29.999
They were a labor union, a co-op developer, and a political party.
00:22:30.000 --> 00:22:38.999
So was the Colored Farmers National Alliance and Cooperative Union, which was just for black folks, which came after the Knights of Labor.
00:22:39.000 --> 00:22:50.999
Both groups are forced underground because the white supremacist terrorism is so strong, not wanting either labor or black folks or co-op development to happen.
00:22:51.000 --> 00:22:56.999
And yet they're still operating because again, they're combining all these movements, right?
00:22:57.000 --> 00:23:01.999
So worker labor movement,
00:23:02.000 --> 00:23:03.999
worker movement and worker ownership movement.
00:23:04.000 --> 00:23:06.999
They also believe in integration and women's rights.
00:23:07.000 --> 00:23:14.999
And so this is a period under some of, again, worst repression in US, at least politically.
00:23:15.000 --> 00:23:28.999
poor economic conditions, but just tremendous stuff happening progressively in terms of combining all the progressive social movements and arguing for creating co-ops and arguing for the rights of workers and people.
00:23:29.000 --> 00:23:36.999
At one point, Knights of Labor, I think, had about 200 co-ops throughout the South that they had created, Colored Farmers National Alliance.
00:23:37.000 --> 00:23:44.999
I can't remember if we had a number for how many co-ops, but they started farm co-ops, credit exchanges,
00:23:45.000 --> 00:23:51.999
equipment co-ops, supply co-ops and food co-ops and stuff.
00:23:52.000 --> 00:24:02.999
So I don't remember if we had a number, I think it might have been 20 or 30 that were black-owned and they also connected with some of what was happening in the white co-op movement at the time.
00:24:03.000 --> 00:24:07.999
But the other thing for the Colored Farmers National Alliance is
00:24:08.000 --> 00:24:16.999
They actually, as far as we can tell on record, are the largest Black US Black organization in US history.
00:24:17.000 --> 00:24:37.999
And so it's also fascinating to think that the largest Black organization in US history was not just a populist party and not just a labor union, but also a co-op development organization and promoting co-op development among all its people, whether that was farm owners, landowners, Black landowners who were few,
00:24:38.000 --> 00:24:40.999
or black farm workers who were many.
00:24:41.000 --> 00:24:42.999
They also combined both groups.
00:24:43.000 --> 00:24:44.999
They didn't have landowners against farmers.
00:24:45.000 --> 00:24:54.999
It was all about black folks, whether they were farmers or workers or both, trying to make sure as many farm workers could own their own farms or their own.
00:24:55.000 --> 00:24:59.999
cotton mills or that kind of thing, but also showing that they needed to all work together.
00:25:00.000 --> 00:25:01.999
It wasn't a fight, one against the other.
00:25:02.000 --> 00:25:03.999
So lots of lessons for today.
00:25:04.000 --> 00:25:14.999
The more you connect the issues and the projects and the more the different aspects of what you do connect with each other, so that ecosystems, that's
00:25:15.000 --> 00:25:24.999
of the findings I have in the book too, that community connections, connections to strong organizations and strong ecosystem development and support really matter.
00:25:25.000 --> 00:25:30.999
And all these examples, whatever time period we're in, whatever group of people we're talking about.
00:25:31.000 --> 00:25:33.999
So you were inducted into the Co-op Hall of Fame 10 years ago.
00:25:34.000 --> 00:25:35.999
Congratulations still.
00:25:36.000 --> 00:25:36.999
Oh yeah, that's right.
00:25:37.000 --> 00:25:37.999
10 years ago.
00:25:38.000 --> 00:25:38.999
Thank you.
00:25:39.000 --> 00:25:50.999
And you have a really long career building, supporting, highlighting those untold histories that are now becoming part of people talking about the history of co-ops.
00:25:51.000 --> 00:25:52.999
I'm wondering...
00:25:53.000 --> 00:25:57.999
Over your time working with co-ops, have you seen the landscape evolve?
00:25:58.000 --> 00:26:08.999
So when I first started, when you used the word co-op, most people thought about a food co-op and not even always in a positive way.
00:26:09.000 --> 00:26:16.999
Sometimes it seemed like just people who were on communes or who had opted out of society or whatever did a food co-op.
00:26:17.000 --> 00:26:27.999
And sometimes people felt like they weren't even allowed to buy from a co-op because I guess some food co-ops then didn't even have outside members and then some people weren't sure about.
00:26:28.000 --> 00:26:29.999
what or how or who.
00:26:30.000 --> 00:26:32.999
And then people didn't realize that credit unions were co-ops.
00:26:33.000 --> 00:26:35.999
They didn't think about rural electric co-ops.
00:26:36.000 --> 00:26:37.999
They didn't think about worker co-ops.
00:26:38.000 --> 00:26:42.999
Worker co-ops were actually a tiny, tiny dot in this whole landscape.
00:26:43.000 --> 00:26:46.999
So it was a kind of interesting and narrow field, even
00:26:47.000 --> 00:26:54.999
though even in the 1990s, we had some of the large Land O'Lakes and Welch's and all those were already co-ops.
00:26:55.000 --> 00:26:57.999
But people, of course, didn't think about them as co-ops.
00:26:58.000 --> 00:27:00.999
They didn't market themselves as co-ops.
00:27:01.000 --> 00:27:03.999
So it was a very narrow sense of what a co-op was.
00:27:04.000 --> 00:27:11.999
And a lot of people felt alienated.
00:27:12.000 --> 00:27:14.999
I still have people ask me like why
00:27:15.000 --> 00:27:18.999
they can't be part of a housing co-op or why housing co-ops are so insular or whatever.
00:27:19.000 --> 00:27:27.999
And I'm like, well, you know, they have criteria for who can be a member based on the purpose of the co-op, right?
00:27:28.000 --> 00:27:33.999
If you want to be in a housing co-op and you can't find one that will accept you, start one, right?
00:27:34.000 --> 00:27:47.999
But there's that sense, right, of co-ops being very insular, having barriers to entry, even though we know co-ops are not supposed to be, we talk about them as being open and voluntary membership.
00:27:48.000 --> 00:27:52.999
But the assumption was, so yeah, so when I started, a lot of people were like, why are you even thinking about it, right?
00:27:53.000 --> 00:27:54.999
It's a tiny little model, it doesn't deliver.
00:27:55.000 --> 00:28:00.999
Oh, and then the other thing is the assumption that co-ops were not efficient or effective businesses.
00:28:01.000 --> 00:28:07.999
that either you couldn't make money off of them or the decision making was so slow because it was democratic decision making.
00:28:08.000 --> 00:28:13.999
So there was a lot of mythology out there and so a lot of skepticism.
00:28:14.000 --> 00:28:20.999
But I'm happy to say that, you know, over the last, I guess it's three decades, right, of being involved in this work.
00:28:21.000 --> 00:28:24.999
One, we, meaning the movement, right, has been able
00:28:25.000 --> 00:28:46.999
to get different messages out there and we've been able to attract different kinds of people and we've gotten I think better again at sort of telling the stories of why a co-op and then we've been we've
00:28:47.000 --> 00:28:51.999
We still need to do more, but we've started to do a good job about what makes them viable.
00:28:52.000 --> 00:28:58.999
We actually had a committee for a while on co-op benefits to try to figure out how are we going to measure them, how are we going to do it.
00:28:59.000 --> 00:29:01.999
Canada was involved in a group in Canada that was also doing that.
00:29:02.000 --> 00:29:06.999
So we've gotten better at measuring the impact, measuring the benefits, explaining what those are.
00:29:07.000 --> 00:29:12.999
We've done better about showing the power of the model and what it
00:29:13.000 --> 00:29:17.999
produces not just for its members, but for the surrounding community.
00:29:18.000 --> 00:29:23.999
And so I think now, you know, yeah, it's different.
00:29:24.000 --> 00:29:31.999
Like even food co-ops now are seen as essential to, you know, to survival and to maintaining our understanding of food sovereignty, right?
00:29:32.000 --> 00:29:34.999
So food co-ops have been actually growing.
00:29:35.000 --> 00:29:37.999
Food co-ops also in the early days,
00:29:38.000 --> 00:29:45.999
had these crazy manuals where they were talking about you needed to be located in a white middle class community in order to survive.
00:29:46.000 --> 00:29:54.999
And so again, this assumption that the capitalization and the money and who your customers were were more important than why one was needed.
00:29:55.000 --> 00:29:57.999
We've gotten rid of that mythology also.
00:29:58.000 --> 00:30:05.999
And so we have a much better grocer co-op development movement and materials and things like that.
00:30:06.000 --> 00:30:07.999
So we've made a lot of strides
00:30:08.000 --> 00:30:17.999
And sort of all the different areas, you know, with, I guess it was 2004, we finally started a US worker co-op federation.
00:30:18.000 --> 00:30:25.999
We're pretty much the last developed country in the world to have a worker co-op federation, national worker co-op federation.
00:30:26.000 --> 00:30:28.999
But we finally joined that movement.
00:30:29.000 --> 00:30:33.999
So yeah, a lot has happened in the last 30 years.
00:30:34.000 --> 00:30:50.999
I didn't know it, but when I first got into co-ops, that was, you know, the mid-90s was just when the ICA had redone their principles and came out with the new identity and value statement that included the two additional principles about intercooperation and concern for community.
00:30:51.000 --> 00:30:56.999
So I think that also helped to move the movement forward.
00:30:57.000 --> 00:31:03.999
And then I think, you know, a lot in the US, a lot of different things with
00:31:04.000 --> 00:31:13.999
economic downturns, the financial crisis in what '07, '08, '09 and housing crisis got people thinking more about co-ops and credit unions.
00:31:14.000 --> 00:31:19.999
Finally, you know, people started talking about credit unions as co-ops and as better banking places.
00:31:20.000 --> 00:31:31.999
So some of the different crises we've been through have also helped us, I think, to see and want co-ops and to move forward with co-ops.
00:31:32.000 --> 00:31:46.999
And then I guess the last thing I'd say about the change is definitely the kinds of people who have been attending co-op meetings and co-op conferences has been changing.
00:31:47.000 --> 00:31:51.999
When I first joined, and no offense to the old white men, but it was an old white men's club.
00:31:52.000 --> 00:32:00.999
There were a few old white women in it and a couple of us younger people.
00:32:01.000 --> 00:32:05.999
but very few young people, very few people of color.
00:32:06.000 --> 00:32:10.999
And now, you know, a lot of the organizations have been taken over by the young people.
00:32:11.000 --> 00:32:14.999
Most of the organizations have been able to attract people of color.
00:32:15.000 --> 00:32:23.999
There's lots and lots of people of color and especially black co-op development associations in different cities around the country.
00:32:24.000 --> 00:32:32.999
So that whole landscape has really changed and what it looks like to attend a co-op event or co-op conference just looks totally different now.
00:32:33.000 --> 00:32:38.999
What still needs to happen in this space when it comes to development and support for development?
00:32:39.000 --> 00:32:41.999
Thanks for asking that because it's always our work is never done.
00:32:42.000 --> 00:32:42.999
It's always a process.
00:32:43.000 --> 00:32:43.999
We're always on a journey, right?
00:32:44.000 --> 00:32:46.999
I don't I never believe that we'll be at the end of the journey.
00:32:47.000 --> 00:32:52.999
We'll always be in the journey, but hopefully we're closer to an end than to the beginning.
00:32:53.000 --> 00:32:53.999
So if it's always
00:32:54.000 --> 00:32:54.999
a journey?
00:32:55.000 --> 00:32:55.999
What are the challenges?
00:32:56.000 --> 00:32:59.999
There's still some capitalization and finance challenges.
00:33:00.000 --> 00:33:01.999
They're nothing near what they used to be.
00:33:02.000 --> 00:33:11.999
We also have a lot more community development financial institutions and other financial institutions that are promoting co-ops that understand co-ops that want to
00:33:12.000 --> 00:33:16.999
give money to them, but it still is difficult, especially when working with low resourced people.
00:33:17.000 --> 00:33:20.999
You need to have, right, people need to be able to put resources into a co-op.
00:33:21.000 --> 00:33:26.999
So when you're doing co-ops with low resourced people, there's still an issue about where are those resources coming from.
00:33:27.000 --> 00:33:30.999
Some of the financing is still extractive.
00:33:31.000 --> 00:33:43.999
And so making sure we have non-extractive financing and financing available both to education and to co-op development startups and other stages of co-op development are really important.
00:33:44.000 --> 00:33:51.999
So I don't want to underestimate the financing, but I also feel like if we have better understanding and more well, the financing can come.
00:33:52.000 --> 00:33:58.999
So I would say I still think we have education challenges.
00:33:59.000 --> 00:34:03.999
enough people still don't know that it's a viable model and why it's a viable model.
00:34:04.000 --> 00:34:17.999
I want us to start teaching about cooperative economics in kindergarten and up, but especially by middle school and high school, we should be helping young people to start their own co-ops, as well as helping them to understand what they are.
00:34:18.000 --> 00:34:20.999
And so I do think there's still an education challenge.
00:34:21.000 --> 00:34:25.999
It's getting better, but it's not we haven't, we still have to struggle with that.
00:34:26.000 --> 00:34:28.999
We still have to struggle with making sure it's
00:34:29.000 --> 00:34:36.999
Our materials talk about people of color, people who are low resourced, even women.
00:34:37.000 --> 00:34:48.999
When I first started studying co-ops in the 90s, the whole co-op movement, worldwide movement was talking about that the role of women was not very strong and women were marginalized in co-ops and that kind of thing.
00:34:49.000 --> 00:34:52.999
It's a lot better again now.
00:34:53.000 --> 00:34:59.999
And my research on Black American co-ops showed that actually women have been a strong component throughout our history, but that wasn't really true.
00:35:00.000 --> 00:35:07.999
In fact, people at first questioned my information, which of course was anecdotal at first.
00:35:08.000 --> 00:35:08.999
And so they said, oh, are you sure?
00:35:09.000 --> 00:35:13.999
'Cause they were like, that's not the experience with other groups and in other countries and, you know, whatever.
00:35:14.000 --> 00:35:21.999
But anyway, I think we now, everybody realizes how powerful women can and should be if they're not.
00:35:22.000 --> 00:35:30.999
as contributors to the co-op movements that we do, we at least have changed the perspective and we recognize more about women.
00:35:31.000 --> 00:35:42.999
Actually, even the Co-op Hall of Fame, when we did a study for the proposal for the unsung heroes, we found that I think it was like only 11% of the US Co-op Hall of Famers were women.
00:35:43.000 --> 00:35:45.999
This would have been what, five or six years ago when we did that.
00:35:46.000 --> 00:35:46.999
I mean, it was crazy.
00:35:47.000 --> 00:35:51.999
So it wasn't even just that they were unsung heroes from history.
00:35:52.000 --> 00:35:55.999
we didn't, the movement wasn't recognizing the role of women.
00:35:56.000 --> 00:36:01.999
And then some of the women that were recognized were recognized in a pair with their husband.
00:36:02.000 --> 00:36:03.999
So they weren't even recognized individually.
00:36:04.000 --> 00:36:07.999
So, you know, and that's recent.
00:36:08.000 --> 00:36:13.999
Within this decade or the end of the beginning of this decade, we were talking about that.
00:36:14.000 --> 00:36:16.999
So.
00:36:17.000 --> 00:36:31.999
So yeah, recognizing the contribution of different groups, including women, but especially people of color groups and low resource groups, because again, it's really hard for people who are low resource to think about how they can bring what kind of equity they can bring to a co-op.
00:36:32.000 --> 00:36:34.999
So trying to make sure we understand, figure that out.
00:36:35.000 --> 00:36:42.999
Worker co-ops, I think, have done a pretty good job because you're an employee, so you can pay for it in installments from your wages.
00:36:43.000 --> 00:36:45.999
It's still sometimes people don't feel as equal.
00:36:46.000 --> 00:36:50.999
or as empowered if they don't feel like they're bringing the same finance resource.
00:36:51.000 --> 00:37:03.999
And so recognizing other kinds of resources, I think, especially human energy and passion, I think could also, I don't know that we do that enough of, you know, making sure people feel, but also respecting people's time.
00:37:04.000 --> 00:37:12.999
So recognizing and valuing their passion and their energy, but also respecting their time, I think is another thing because often
00:37:13.000 --> 00:37:19.999
It takes so much personal time for people to get involved, especially in a startup.
00:37:20.000 --> 00:37:23.999
And, you know, I believe it's important, right?
00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:32.999
People's investment of time and energy is an important part of building trust and developing the culture of ownership and self-determination that we need in a co-op.
00:37:33.000 --> 00:37:39.999
But it also can be very exhausting and debilitating, especially for people who are already
00:37:40.000 --> 00:37:44.999
tax because they're doing every, you know, they're the ones carrying the water and all the things they do in their lives.
00:37:45.000 --> 00:37:49.999
And so figuring out how do we help people balance all that I think might is another frontier.
00:37:50.000 --> 00:38:00.999
And then finally, being able to really talk honestly about conflict and how to resolve or not even resolve how to transform conflict
00:38:01.000 --> 00:38:11.999
And understanding that conflict doesn't have, shouldn't be a problem or a barrier, but should be an opportunity for us to do better, make better decisions, learn more.
00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:14.999
The same thing with sort of failure, right?
00:38:15.000 --> 00:38:17.999
Failure is just a step towards success, right?
00:38:18.000 --> 00:38:25.999
So again, we need to see it as a learning opportunity and not as a, oh, okay, throw the whole baby out with the bath water or whatever.
00:38:26.000 --> 00:38:29.999
So learning more about how to address
00:38:30.000 --> 00:38:39.999
failure as a step toward success, how to understand conflict as an opportunity toward better decisions.
00:38:40.000 --> 00:38:45.999
I think all those things need a lot more training and we're just starting to get good at that.
00:38:46.000 --> 00:38:50.999
But we need more of it and more widespread so that we can really, really blossom.
00:38:51.000 --> 00:38:51.999
Thanks so much, Jessica.
00:38:52.000 --> 00:38:54.999
That's a lot to say with and it's a
00:38:55.000 --> 00:38:55.999
Yeah, really good to think about.
00:38:56.000 --> 00:39:02.999
I love the idea of failure as a step towards success and hope that we can all incorporate that into our work a little more.
00:39:03.000 --> 00:39:14.999
So you've just talked to us a lot about how the cooperative movement as a whole has shifted during the course of your career and even in the last five or ten years and where you think it still needs to go, what changes might still need to happen.
00:39:15.000 --> 00:39:20.999
What role do you think that co-op developers have in that movement, maybe in getting the movement to where it needs to go?
00:39:21.000 --> 00:39:24.999
And you kind of just hit a couple of points already that I suspect you'll continue
00:39:25.000 --> 00:39:29.999
But let's, yeah, I'm curious to hear what you think the role of co-op developers is in all this.
00:39:30.000 --> 00:39:34.999
Well, I think first, co-op developers, we need to be humble, right?
00:39:35.000 --> 00:39:36.999
And listen, right?
00:39:37.000 --> 00:39:44.999
We need to listen to the people that we're working with and not just come in there as I'm the expert, I know this, you have to listen to me.
00:39:45.000 --> 00:39:46.999
I think that's a mistake.
00:39:47.000 --> 00:39:54.999
Not that we haven't had some good co-ops that have come out of that model, but I just, it's just to me, it's just a mistake because again,
00:39:55.000 --> 00:40:03.999
You know, being in cooperation, economic cooperation with other people is a process and it's about learning together and trusting each other.
00:40:04.000 --> 00:40:09.999
And it's not about one person saying they know everything or they have all the answers and you just have to do it.
00:40:10.000 --> 00:40:13.999
But the other thing we know is that co-ops really don't happen in a linear fashion.
00:40:14.000 --> 00:40:17.999
It's not really that if you do this, this and this, you have a co-op.
00:40:18.000 --> 00:40:23.999
There's so much else behind that, like at each step, there was so much else going on.
00:40:24.000 --> 00:40:28.999
that made you get to the next step that we have to kind of recognize that.
00:40:29.000 --> 00:40:33.999
So I think developers can help in that sense and say right from the beginning, this is a process.
00:40:34.000 --> 00:40:34.999
This is a learning journey.
00:40:35.000 --> 00:40:36.999
We're going to be learning the whole time.
00:40:37.000 --> 00:40:40.999
All of us are going to be learning, right?
00:40:41.000 --> 00:40:41.999
We're gonna be learning from each other.
00:40:42.000 --> 00:40:44.999
We're gonna be learning from the experiences.
00:40:45.000 --> 00:40:46.999
It's okay to have a misstep.
00:40:47.000 --> 00:40:51.999
It's okay to fail at something because that's just a more of an opportunity to learn even better.
00:40:52.000 --> 00:40:57.999
In fact, we usually learn better once we've failed at something than we do if we succeed at it.
00:40:58.000 --> 00:41:04.999
So, right, so thinking about this as a learning journey, and I think developers need to provide that perspective.
00:41:05.000 --> 00:41:10.999
So it's both about patience, but it's also about grace.
00:41:11.000 --> 00:41:13.999
And it's also about respect, right?
00:41:14.000 --> 00:41:20.999
Because if it's a learning journey, then we're gonna respect everybody's experience on this journey.
00:41:21.000 --> 00:41:24.999
And we're gonna respect the way that people learn, the way that they make mistakes.
00:41:25.000 --> 00:41:36.999
We're gonna help them obviously to not make some mistakes that we obviously can loom ahead, but we also have to make sure we help people to figure out how to get up after.
00:41:37.000 --> 00:41:41.999
they fall, especially when we fall that we don't, nobody has anticipated, right?
00:41:42.000 --> 00:41:45.999
So that, you know, that continuous learning I think is going to be really important.
00:41:46.000 --> 00:41:56.999
The humbleness also, you know, I actually tend to think that the best developers are the ones who have been in the process who have done it.
00:41:57.000 --> 00:41:58.999
who have been in a co-op or whatever.
00:41:59.000 --> 00:42:10.999
That's one of the reasons why I don't call myself a developer 'cause even though I'm a member of a bunch of co-ops, I've never actually, I don't think I've actually really started a co-op, especially not a worker co-op.
00:42:11.000 --> 00:42:24.999
I did start with my sister buying club once and I've done some other stuff, but yeah, so, but because I haven't really been from start to finish in a business that I helped own and control with other people,
00:42:25.000 --> 00:42:29.999
I call myself an educator, an advocate, a researcher because I understand all those things.
00:42:30.000 --> 00:42:35.999
But I think developers are better if they've gone through the process themselves.
00:42:36.000 --> 00:42:54.999
Again, not to say you can't teach if you haven't done it, but so even the developers that haven't done it, again, that's why I say be humble because even if you're a professional and have all this training, it doesn't mean that you know everything and it doesn't mean you might know different things than the people you're helping to develop, but you don't know everything.
00:42:55.000 --> 00:43:10.999
So being open to listen to hear, and it also helps us to better serve the people we're developing if we can hear them, because they're going to have some unique experiences or perspectives or issues that we have to help them think through.
00:43:11.000 --> 00:43:19.999
But also, again, that thinking through that problem solving is a part of how to grow into a strong co-op, right?
00:43:20.000 --> 00:43:30.999
If other people are always doing the thinking and problem solving for you, you're never going to get to a place of group self-determination, which is one of the purposes of a co-op.
00:43:31.000 --> 00:43:34.999
So I guess those would be some of the things.
00:43:35.000 --> 00:43:41.999
And I also think that being a co-op developer is probably one of the greatest things a person could do.
00:43:42.000 --> 00:43:49.999
So even though I said we all shouldn't be one and this and that, I do think it's one of the greatest contributions a person could do.
00:43:50.000 --> 00:43:52.999
Sure.
00:43:53.000 --> 00:43:53.999
But do it right, right?
00:43:54.000 --> 00:43:56.999
But do it right.
00:43:57.000 --> 00:44:01.999
Do it humbly, do it ethically, do it as a human being, as a member, not as an expert.
00:44:02.000 --> 00:44:02.999
No, I love that.
00:44:03.000 --> 00:44:07.999
We have the first part of this is thinking through the cooperative principles, the ICA principles.
00:44:08.000 --> 00:44:08.999
And if you have a favorite one.
00:44:09.000 --> 00:44:15.999
I guess after that whole speech, my favorite one is continuous education.
00:44:16.000 --> 00:44:20.999
Though I do like concern for community too, but I'll stick with continuous education.
00:44:21.000 --> 00:44:27.999
So for all the reasons that it's a process that we're always in a learning process or always should be in a learning process and that we learn.
00:44:28.000 --> 00:44:31.999
What I didn't say is we also learn our experience of being in a co-op.
00:44:32.000 --> 00:44:33.999
We learn a whole lot about ourselves, about life.
00:44:34.000 --> 00:44:41.999
It's not just about how to run the co-op or how to be in the co-op or how to make joint decisions, but we grow as human beings.
00:44:42.000 --> 00:44:44.999
So I guess continuous education for those reasons.
00:44:45.000 --> 00:44:50.999
Yeah, one of my I've shared this a few other times, I think, maybe even on another episode of this.
00:44:51.000 --> 00:45:03.999
But one of our members has recently been giving some webinars, and one of the things that she's she's said is like co-op development is human development, and that just like continues to resonate in the more conversations I have like, yes, it plugs in here.
00:45:04.000 --> 00:45:07.999
Yeah, absolutely.
00:45:08.000 --> 00:45:10.999
And so the the second part of this is that
00:45:11.000 --> 00:45:16.999
The ICA is currently working on the principles.
00:45:17.000 --> 00:45:18.999
They rewrite them from time to time.
00:45:19.000 --> 00:45:22.999
And there's been improvement to get a cooperative principle of diversity.
00:45:23.000 --> 00:45:26.999
And I know, I believe you're still working on an article around that.
00:45:27.000 --> 00:45:37.999
And also just acknowledging that in this time where the ICA has finally really started putting a lot of effort into that, there's been, I think, a lot of support for it.
00:45:38.000 --> 00:45:39.999
We're also seeing
00:45:40.000 --> 00:45:45.999
sort of this hyper reactive government where the federal government has made like diversity a taboo subject, right?
00:45:46.000 --> 00:45:47.999
It is banned along with a lot of other words.
00:45:48.000 --> 00:45:56.999
It's getting more and more difficult to talk about in a way that we couldn't even have envisioned 2 years ago, I don't think.
00:45:57.000 --> 00:46:02.999
Can you speak a little bit more to the importance of this principle and why it's needed more or now more than ever?
00:46:03.000 --> 00:46:03.999
And
00:46:04.000 --> 00:46:06.999
Just sharing, I guess, like your general thoughts on that.
00:46:07.000 --> 00:46:07.999
Yeah.
00:46:08.000 --> 00:46:13.999
So I'm in favor of an eighth principle on diversity, but I actually believe that diversity isn't enough.
00:46:14.000 --> 00:46:17.999
So I argue for what I call DIEJ or a couple people call it that.
00:46:18.000 --> 00:46:22.999
So diversity, inclusion, equity, and justice.
00:46:23.000 --> 00:46:31.999
Because I don't-- because to me, diversity is a little bit symbolic and it can be--
00:46:32.000 --> 00:46:33.999
co-opted too easily.
00:46:34.000 --> 00:46:41.999
But diversity with inclusion, with real equity, with real justice, I think makes a difference.
00:46:42.000 --> 00:46:59.999
I think a lot of people think sort of the concern for community part of the seventh principle, you know, kind of helps with justice, but it doesn't really, you know, other people say the concern for community helps with sustainability, which it sort of does, but it doesn't, you know.
00:47:00.000 --> 00:47:01.999
So I really believe actually that
00:47:02.000 --> 00:47:12.999
that we need a justice principle, but I'm happy if it's a diversity principle that includes the inclusion, equity, and justice in it.
00:47:13.000 --> 00:47:17.999
I am putting together an article for GEO grassroots economic organizing.
00:47:18.000 --> 00:47:24.999
We started back in print, so we have an issue coming out on the principles.
00:47:25.000 --> 00:47:33.999
And I've been using, in my article, I actually use some great perspectives from students who took my DIEJ class at St.
00:47:34.000 --> 00:47:36.999
Mary's in the master's program.
00:47:37.000 --> 00:47:50.999
But I actually, some of my students, in addition to making great arguments for diversity and justice, also argued that what we really need is for all the principles to be rewritten to include justice and equity.
00:47:51.000 --> 00:47:53.999
And I also am sympathetic to that, though I'm not sure.
00:47:54.000 --> 00:48:01.999
I'm not sure how feasible that will be to get agreement to rewrite everything.
00:48:02.000 --> 00:48:13.999
Because there was some concern, and I agree with it, that if you just have the principle of diversity or even the principle of diversity and justice, people will just, again, still kind of co-opt it and check it off.
00:48:14.000 --> 00:48:15.999
Oh, yeah, we have
00:48:16.000 --> 00:48:23.999
these different representations from these different groups of people and that's enough and not really pay attention to what equity and justice really mean.
00:48:24.000 --> 00:48:41.999
So on the other hand, given the climate right now, if we just passed an eighth principle on diversity, that would be better than nothing because at least it would show that the co-op movement is not going to be bowed or towed by whatever the political fascist movements are around the world.
00:48:42.000 --> 00:48:45.999
But I would hope that there's enough discussion
00:48:46.000 --> 00:48:51.999
so that equity and justice get in there also and we figure out how to infuse it in whatever ways we need to.
00:48:52.000 --> 00:48:57.999
It's not enough for the way it's talked about in the co-op identity and values.
00:48:58.000 --> 00:48:58.999
In fact, justice isn't there.
00:48:59.000 --> 00:49:06.999
I think equity is there, but equity more from a finance rather than from a social justice perspective of equity.
00:49:07.000 --> 00:49:14.999
So making sure we have that sense of equity as not just equal opportunity, but equality of outcomes.
00:49:15.000 --> 00:49:18.999
of just outcomes is what what I mean by equity.
00:49:19.000 --> 00:49:20.999
So we need somehow to talk about.
00:49:21.000 --> 00:49:24.999
It's not just enough to have a variety of people involved or represented.
00:49:25.000 --> 00:49:35.999
We need an equality of outcomes for everybody in a just way, so that we're non oppressive, non hierarchical in the way that we
00:49:36.000 --> 00:49:40.999
relate to each other in terms of who has power in co-ops.
00:49:41.000 --> 00:49:49.999
So whatever we can do to make sure both that we have those discussions and that our co-ops start to reflect that, I think would be really important.
00:49:50.000 --> 00:49:52.999
A couple of quick rapid fire questions for you now.
00:49:53.000 --> 00:49:54.999
Oh boy, okay.
00:49:55.000 --> 00:49:55.999
All right.
00:49:56.000 --> 00:49:59.999
Cooperative with a hyphen or no hyphen.
00:50:00.000 --> 00:50:01.999
Oh, I love the hyphen.
00:50:02.000 --> 00:50:07.999
Otherwise it's like a chicken coop and that drives me crazy.
00:50:08.000 --> 00:50:12.999
Cooperative, I can live without the hyphen, but co-op has to have the hyphen.
00:50:13.000 --> 00:50:15.999
And again, the word co-op, not cooperation.
00:50:16.000 --> 00:50:20.999
Either one is fine with cooperation, but co-op, the shorthand.
00:50:21.000 --> 00:50:33.999
If you were stranded on a deserted island with a group of people looking to start a co-op, what would you wish you would have with you?
00:50:34.000 --> 00:50:34.999
Oh gosh, that's a hard one.
00:50:35.000 --> 00:50:36.999
It's supposed to be fast, right?
00:50:37.000 --> 00:50:41.999
I guess the first thing I thought of was a conflict transformation manual.
00:50:42.000 --> 00:50:45.999
What's your favorite book on cooperatives?
00:50:46.000 --> 00:50:47.999
John Curl for all the people.
00:50:48.000 --> 00:50:53.999
If you could hear one person's development story, whose would it be?
00:50:54.000 --> 00:50:57.999
I guess I would like to talk to Ella Jo Baker about co-ops.
00:50:58.000 --> 00:51:04.999
Do you have any lasting pieces of advice for people looking to get into this work, who are doing this work?
00:51:05.000 --> 00:51:09.999
What lasting pieces of wisdom do you wish to leave in this space?
00:51:10.000 --> 00:51:10.999
That's a hard one.
00:51:11.000 --> 00:51:22.999
I guess for me, the most important thing to say to people about co-ops is that economic cooperation was the first economic system of human beings.
00:51:23.000 --> 00:51:27.999
So it comes natural to us that we shouldn't feel alienated from it.
00:51:28.000 --> 00:51:44.999
We should recognize all the everyday acts of economic solidarity and economic cooperation that we already do, recognize that human beings work together to survive and thrive, and that we can't survive or thrive without working together cooperatively.
00:51:45.000 --> 00:51:49.999
And when cooperatives work well.
00:51:50.000 --> 00:52:07.999
Thank you so much, Jessica, for helping us start our Co-op Month conversation by reminding us that while the challenges of this particular moment may feel new, communities have been using cooperation to respond to change, meet their needs, and build collective power for generations.
00:52:08.000 --> 00:52:14.999
And I think that's an important place to begin our exploration of this year's Co-op Month theme built for this moment.
00:52:15.000 --> 00:52:20.999
Because understanding where we've been can help us think differently about where we need to go.
00:52:21.000 --> 00:52:24.999
And we're going to keep exploring that question over the next month.
00:52:25.000 --> 00:52:31.999
This is the first of four special Co-op Month conversations here on Cooperative Developer Stories.
00:52:32.000 --> 00:52:45.999
Alex will be back with me as co-host and we'll be sitting down with Doug O'Brien, Esteban Kelly, and Tom Webb to hear their perspectives on where the cooperative movement is today and what this moment might be asking of us.
00:52:46.000 --> 00:52:51.999
By the end of the month, we hope these conversations leave all of us thinking about one bigger question.
00:52:52.000 --> 00:52:56.999
What do we need to do to build stronger cooperatives in this moment?
00:52:57.000 --> 00:53:00.999
To everyone listening, we hope you'll join us throughout this month.
00:53:01.000 --> 00:53:09.999
Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss the next conversation and share this series with someone you think should be a part of it.
00:53:10.000 --> 00:53:15.999
Every share helps us connect developers, exchange ideas, and grow the cooperative movement together.
00:53:16.000 --> 00:53:22.999
Thanks for listening to Cooperative Developer Stories, a podcast from Cooperation Works.
00:53:23.000 --> 00:53:31.000
Until next time, keep learning from one another, keep sharing what and keep building the relationships that make cooperation work.
