Who owns worker cooperatives

Any business can be a worker-owned and -controlled business. In the U. Common industries include:. Worker cooperatives are currently experiencing a surge in popularity, marked by industry and sector concentrations and the growth of a support infrastructure that includes financing, technical assistance providers and trade associations at the local, regional and national levels. Interest in worker cooperatives as a job creation and wealth-building strategy is also on the rise, with community organizations, cities, and small business advocates seeing potential in the form to build a more inclusive economy.

Worker cooperatives are not common in Australia now but have operated in many industries and regions in the past.

It is important in such cooperatives that all the workers own the business together not just some. The workers usually invest with a buy-in amount of money when they begin working as a member of the cooperative. Worker cooperatives face the same market conditions and difficulties as any other business.

They are not any more or any less susceptible to business failure. As an employer, worker cooperatives are subject to the same industrial laws as other businesses in Australia with respect to award wages, employee entitlements and workplace health and safety. Worker cooperatives not operating to these standards would not be supported by Employee Ownership Australia.

See also our Employee Ownership Education page. Worker cooperatives have been shown to provide better working conditions and wages for typically low-wage work, and to increase household wealth for low-income workers. Worker cooperatives can also play an important role in building movements for economic justice and social change. As institutions where real democracy is practiced on a day to day basis, they are a model for the empowerment we will need to create the change we envision.

As economic engines, they meet material needs, anchoring capital and jobs in communities. Definition A co-operative is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise. Values Co-operatives are based on the values of self-help , self-responsibility , democracy , equality , equity and solidarity. In the tradition of their founders, co-operative members believe in the ethical values of honesty, openness, social responsibility and caring for others.

Principles The co-operative principles are guidelines by which co-operatives put their values into practice. Men and women serving as elected representatives are accountable to the membership. In primary co-operatives members have equal voting rights one member, one vote and co-operatives at other levels are also organised in a democratic manner. At least part of that capital is usually the common property of the co-operative.

Members usually receive limited compensation, if any, on capital subscribed as a condition of membership. Members allocate surpluses for any or all of the following purposes: developing their co-operative, possibly by setting up reserves, part of which at least would be indivisible; benefiting members in proportion to their transactions with the co-operative; and supporting other activities approved by the membership.

If they enter to agreements with other organisations, including governments, or raise capital from external sources, they do so on terms that ensure democratic control by their members and maintain their co-operative autonomy.