Cooperatives: a strategy
for CED
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1. The Cooperative Model
 10 million Canadians and 1 billion
people worldwide are members of
coops
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 Traditional coops used social methods
to provide goods and services at
reasonable prices
 Today, many coops are economic
structures to achieve social goals
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What makes a coop CED?
 Local ownership
 Democratic decision-making
 A response to community needs
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An alternative
 Somewhere between:
 Government programming, and
 Free (market-based) enterprise
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Northern Italy
 Social coops provide:
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Health care
Home care
Social services
Education
Recreation
Job training
Employment
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Solidarity Coops in Quebec
 Multi-stakeholder
 Health care cooperative jointly owned
by medical professionals and health
care consumers
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 For more examples and applications,
see the posted pdf:
“New Synergies: The Cooperative
Movement, CED, & the Social
Economy”
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2. Worker Ownership as a CED
Strategy
 Chapter 11 in text
 In 1991, the employees of Algoma
Steel Corporation in Sault Ste. Marie,
Ontario, led by the United
Steelworkers of America (USWA)
bought out Algoma Steel, the third
largest steel company in Canada.
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Arguments for worker ownership:
 Local decision-making
 Generating local investment
 Builds community capacity
 Builds social capital
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Argument against
 High risk
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Benefits
 Continued employment
 Worker-owners developed skills and
knowledge
 Survival of the company and
therefore the city
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Benefits continued
 Maintenance of wages and benefits at
former rates
 Productivity improved due to worker
participation
 Workplace democratization
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Benefits continued
 Spillover effects into the community
 Inclusion of more working class
people on community boards
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Benefits continued
 Greater confidence among employees
 Relationship building in their family
lives
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Conditions for Success
 union played a major role
 such initiatives usually involve a few
hundred employees, not a few
thousand
 more suitable for industries requiring
smaller amounts of capital than
steelmaking
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Appropriateness of strategy for
CED
 viable strategy when a plant is about
to close due to insufficient profit
margins
 more likely to succeed under
leadership from a union or a
successful community organization
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Appropriateness of strategy for
CED
 small to medium sized enterprises are
preferred
 most appropriate for situations where
financial requirements are smaller
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