Articles in the current issue of GEO

GEO Online: Building a Toolbox for the Solidarity Economy

Ethan — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 21:44:45 -0500

For more than twenty years, the Grassroots Economic Organizing (GEO) Newsletter (called "Changing Work" from 1984-1991) has published news and analysis of global efforts to build a democratic and cooperative economy. In 2007, we decided to move from a printed format (with a supplemental website) to a fully-online web publication. Welcome to the new GEO Online!

U.S. Solidarity Economy Network is Born at the USSF 2007

Ethan — Wed, 12 Dec 2007 14:31:59 -0500

By Jenna Allard and Julie Matthaei, Guramylay: Growing the Green Economy

Most of the over 10,000 people who traveled to the first-ever U.S. Social Forum, in Atlanta last June 27-30, would consider ourselves activists, and most are acutely aware of the many systemic problems that our country faces, from increasing inequality and persistent poverty to environmental degradation, from a corrupt political system to an unjust war, from the continuing struggle with racism and sexism to the intolerant policies enacted against immigrants and gay/lesbian/trans-gendered people.

A Participatory Credit Union for Worker Cooperatives

Ethan — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 12:28:33 -0500

By Ajowa Nzinga Ifateyo

In order to compete in a corporations-dominated economy, worker cooperatives need millions of dollars to finance large-scale businesses in manufacturing and production.

"That's the hole in the cooperative movement which there needs to be some infrastructure for," said Michael Leung, of Somerville, MA, who last year earned a doctorate in Physics from Princeton University. "I don't personally see a way where co-ops have the mechanism for large-scale growth."

Grutas Tolantango: A Model Co-op Answer to Globalization?

Ethan — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 12:36:18 -0500

By Betsy Bowman and Bob Stone

We rarely inquire about a commodity's origins in wage labor. This is especially true of restaurant meals and resort vacations. Our enjoyment might be undercut were we confronted, for example, with the stifling heat and indignity borne at Disneyland by the person in the Mickey Mouse suit. The suit's fixed smile compels its wearer to endure tail-pulling by pre-teens lest the spell of "being with Mickey" is broken and a refund is demanded. So when those who profit from selling commodities conceal the exploitation in their relations of production, we consumers usually ratify their act by a willed ignorance. We don't want to know how our "vacation" is produced!

Bauen Hotel, Argentine "Recuperated Business" Co-op, Wins Reprieve

Ethan — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 13:05:03 -0500

By Bob Stone (Based on dispatches by Marie Trigona)

Argentina's recuperated business movement held a fair-trade festival September 28, 2007 in support of the Bauen, a hotel in downtown Buenos Aires run by its workforce as a cooperative since 2003. There was indeed something to celebrate: an order evicting the co-op from the hotel had been temporarily suspended.

Worker Conference Goes to the South, Resolves to Collaborate with Unions

Ethan — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 15:29:09 -0500

By Ajowa Nzinga Ifateyo

The Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy (ECWD) took concrete steps toward coalition building with other workers and unions, inter-cooperation with other cooperatives, and forging alliances with political groups at its 4th biennial conference this summer. It was the first ECWD held in the South. Attended by 146 people from 26 states and 75 organizations, the conference took place at the University of North Carolina in Asheville from July 20-22, 2007. It was one of the largest, most enthusiastic, inclusive, and successful conferences since the first ECWD meeting in 2002.

Building Cooperation East and South

Ethan — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 15:04:43 -0500

Pam McMichael, Highlander Research and Education Center

From a talk given at the 4th Biennial Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy, July 20, 2007 at the University of North Carolina in Asheville.

Thank you. It's an honor and pleasure to be with you this evening. It's always good when we gather to talk about democracy and democratic participation with people who really mean it.

How many people here are not from the south? I say hello to all of you present. And to those of you not from the South, I want to give a special welcome to the South, and say a little more about this region where we are meeting as a context for my comments about building cooperation for workplace democracy.

What I'm Bringing Back to My Co-op From the 2007 ECWD

Ethan — Mon, 26 Nov 2007 15:13:33 -0500

By Jim Johnson, GEO Collective

I had such a great time at this year's conference in Asheville, NC. Too many workshops, I wanted to go to all of them! But it's impossible, of course; quality over quantity is the only way. Armed with my laptop, I vowed to take careful notes and make at least a couple of presentations back home that would help my comrades and I become better worker-owners. Of course, my motive also was to demonstrate that attending the 2009 conference would be a worthy investment of time and money.