Cooperative

Cooperation dates back as far as human beings have been organizing for mutual benefits. Tribes were organized as cooperative structures, allocating jobs and resources among each other, only trading with the external communities. In alpine environments, trade could only be maintained in organized cooperatives to achieve a useful condition of artificial roads such as Viamala in 1472. Pre-industrial Europe is home to the first cooperatives from an industrial context. The roots of the cooperative movement can be traced to multiple influences and extend worldwide. In the English-speaking world, post-feudal forms of cooperation between workers and owners that are expressed today as "profit sharing" and "surplus sharing" arrangements existed as far back as 1795. The key ideological influence on the Anglosphere branch of the cooperative movement, however, was a rejection of the charity principles that underpinned welfare reforms when the British government radically revised its Poor Laws in 1834. As both state and church institutions began to routinely distinguish between the 'deserving' and 'undeserving' poor, a movement of friendly societies grew throughout the British Empire based on the principle of mutuality, committed to self-help in the welfare of working people. (1771–1858) was a social reformer and a pioneer of the cooperative movement. In 1761, the Fenwick Weavers' Society was formed in Fenwick, East Ayrshire, Scotland to sell discounted oatmeal to local workers. Its services expanded to include assistance with savings and loans, emigration and education. In 1810, Welsh social reformer Robert Owen, from Newtown in mid-Wales, and his partners purchased the New Lanark mill from Owen's father-in-law, David Dale, and proceeded to introduce better labour standards, including discounted retail shops where profits were passed on to his employees. Owen left New Lanark to pursue other forms of cooperative organization and develop coop ideas through writing and lecture. Cooperative communities were set up in Glasgow, Indiana; and Hampshire, although ultimately unsuccessful. In 1828, William King set up a newspaper, The Cooperator, to promote Owen's thinking, having already set up a cooperative store in Brighton. Also in 1810, Rev. Henry Duncan of the Ruthwell Presbyterian Church in Dumfriesshire, Scotland founded a friendly society to create a cooperative depository institution at which his poorest parishioners could hold savings accounts accruing interest for sickness and old-age, which was the first established savings bank that would be merged into the Trustee Savings Bank between 1970 and 1985. The Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, founded in 1844, is usually considered the first successful cooperative enterprise, used as a model for modern coops, following the 'Rochdale Principles'. A group of 28 weavers and other artisans in Rochdale, England set up the society to open their own store selling food items they could not otherwise afford. Within ten years there were over a thousand cooperative societies in the United Kingdom. Spolok Gazdovský [The Association of Administrators, or The Association of Farmers] founded in 1845 by Samuel Jurkovič, was the first cooperative in Europe (credit union). The cooperative provided a cheap loan from funds generated by regular savings for members of the cooperative. Members of cooperative had to commit to a moral life and had to plant two trees in a public place every year. Despite the short duration of its existence, until 1851, it thus formed the basis of the cooperative movement in Slovakia. Slovak national thinker Ľudovít Štúr said about the association: "We would very much like such excellent constitutions to be established throughout our region. They would help to rescue people from evil and misery. A beautiful, great idea, a beautiful excellent constitution!" Other events such as the founding of a friendly society by the Tolpuddle Martyrs in 1832 were key occasions in the creation of organized labor and consumer movements. Friendly Societies established forums through which one member, one vote was practiced in organisation decision-making. The principles challenged the idea that a person should be an owner of property before being granted a political voice. Throughout the second half of the nineteenth century (and then repeatedly every twenty years or so) there was a surge in the number of cooperative organisations, both in commercial practice and civil society, operating to advance democracy and universal suffrage as a political principle. Friendly Societies and consumer cooperatives became the dominant form of organization among working people in Anglosphere industrial societies prior to the rise of trade unions and industrial factories. Weinbren reports that by the end of the 19th century, over 80% of British working age men and 90% of Australian working age men were members of one or more Friendly Society. From the mid-nineteenth century, mutual organisations embraced these ideas in economic enterprises, firstly among tradespeople, and later in cooperative stores, educational institutes, financial institutions and industrial enterprises. The common thread (enacted in different ways, and subject to the constraints of various systems of national law) is the principle that an enterprise or association should be owned and controlled by the people it serves, and share any surpluses on the basis of each member's cooperative contribution (as a producer, labourer or consumer) rather than their capacity to invest financial capital. The International Cooperative Alliance was the first international association formed (1895) by the cooperative movement. It includes the World Council of Credit Unions. The International Cooperative Alliance was founded in London on 19 August 1895 during the 1st Cooperative Congress. In attendance were delegates from cooperatives from Argentina, Australia, Belgium, England, Denmark, France, Germany, Holland, India, Italy, Switzerland, Serbia, and the US. In 1996 OP Financial Group, also a cooperative bank, became the second online bank in the world and the first in Europe. By 2004 a new association focused on worker co-ops was founded, the United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives. The cooperative movement has been fueled globally by ideas of economic democracy. In an economic democracy, decision-making power is expanded from a small minority of corporate shareholders to a large majority of public stakeholders. An early vision of an economic democracy was the co-operative commonwealth, publicized by Laurence Gronlund in the late 1800s. Reformers ascribe to different approaches to thinking about and building an economic democracy. Anarchists are committed to libertarian socialism and have focused on local organization, including locally managed cooperatives, linked through confederations of unions, cooperatives and communities. Marxists, who as socialists have likewise held and worked for the goal of democratizing productive and reproductive relationships, often emphasized reforming the larger scales of human organization. They viewed the capitalist class to be politically, militarily and culturally mobilized for the purpose of maintaining power over an exploitable working class, so they fought in the early 20th century to appropriate from the capitalist class the society's collective political capacity in the form of the state. Though they regard the state as an unnecessarily oppressive institution, Marxists considered the appropriation of national and international-scale capitalist institutions, resources and the state itself to be an important first step in creating conditions favorable to solidaristic economies. With the declining influence of the USSR after the 1960s, a variety of socialist strategies emerged. So far, economic democratizers have not fundamentally challenged the hegemony of global neoliberal capitalism. ==Meaning==

Identity Coop principles and values Many cooperatives follow the seven Rochdale Principles: for use by ICAs Cooperative members and by WOCCU's Credit Union members so they can be further identified by their coop ethical consumerism label. The marque is used today by thousands of cooperatives in more than a hundred countries. The .coop domain and Co-operative Marque were designed as a new symbol of the global cooperative movement and its collective identity in the digital age. The Co-operative Marque and domain is reserved just for co-operatives, credit unions and organisations that support co-operatives; is distinguished by its ethical badge that subscribes to the seven ICA Cooperative Principles and Co-op Values. Co-ops can be identified on the Internet through the use of the .coop suffix of internet addresses. Organizations using .coop domain names must adhere to the basic co-op values. Cooperatives as legal entities , 1963 A cooperative is a legal entity owned and democratically controlled by its members. Members often have a close association with the enterprise as producers or consumers of its products or services, or as its employees. The legal entities have a range of social characteristics. Membership is open, meaning that anyone who satisfies certain non-discriminatory conditions may join. Economic benefits are distributed proportionally to each member's level of participation in the cooperative, for instance, by a dividend on sales or purchases, rather than according to capital invested. They are distinguished from other forms of incorporation in that profit-making or economic stability are balanced by the interests of the community. and Australia. Cooperatives may take the form of companies limited by shares or by guarantee, partnerships or unincorporated associations. In the UK they may also use the industrial and provident society structure. In the US, cooperatives are often organized as non-capital stock corporations under state-specific cooperative laws. Cooperatives often share their earnings with the membership as dividends, which are divided among the members according to their participation in the enterprise, such as patronage, instead of according to the value of their capital shareholdings (as is done by a joint stock company). Cooperative share capital The cooperative share capital The total amount of participation shares the paid to the cooperative constitutes the cooperative capital. The co-operative share capital is usually non-withdrawable and indivisible to the cooperative members. ==Types of cooperatives==

in The Bronx, New York City, is the largest cooperative housing development in the world, with 55,000 people. and Coop, are cooperatives. The third largest bank, Raiffeisen, is a cooperative as well. The top 300 largest cooperatives were listed in 2007 by the International Cooperative Alliance. 80% were involved in either agriculture, finance, or retail and more than half were in the United States, Italy, or France. Consumer cooperative A consumer cooperative is a business owned by its customers. Members vote on major decisions and elect the board of directors from among their own number. The first of these was set up in 1844 in the North-West of England by 28 weavers who wanted to sell food at a lower price than the local shops. Retail cooperative Retail cooperatives are retailers, such as grocery stores, owned by their customers. They should not be confused with retailers' cooperatives, whose members are retailers rather than consumers. In Singapore, Italy, and Finland, the company with the largest market share in the grocery store sector is a consumer owned cooperative. In Switzerland, both the largest and the second largest retailer are consumer owned cooperatives. Housing cooperative A housing cooperative is a legal mechanism for ownership of housing where residents either own shares (share capital co-op) reflecting their equity in the cooperative's real estate or have membership and occupancy rights in a not-for-profit cooperative (non-share capital co-op), and they underwrite their housing through paying subscriptions or rent. Housing cooperatives come in three basic equity structures • In market-rate housing cooperatives, members may sell their shares in the cooperative whenever they like for whatever price the market will bear, much like any other residential property. Market-rate co-ops are very common in New York City. • Limited equity housing cooperatives, which are often used by affordable housing developers, allow members to own some equity in their home, but limit the sale price of their membership share to that which they paid. • Group equity or zero-equity housing cooperatives do not allow members to own equity in their residences and often have rental agreements well below market rates. Members of a building cooperative (in Britain known as a self-build housing cooperative) pool resources to build housing, normally using a high proportion of their own labor. When the building is finished, each member is the sole owner of a homestead, and the cooperative may be dissolved. This collective effort was at the origin of many of Britain's building societies, which however, developed into "permanent" mutual savings and loan organisations, a term which persisted in some of their names (such as the former Leeds Permanent). Nowadays such self-building may be financed using a step-by-step mortgage which is released in stages as the building is completed. The term may also refer to worker cooperatives in the building trade. Utility cooperative A utility cooperative is a type of consumer cooperative that is tasked with the delivery of a public utility such as electricity, water or telecommunications services to its members. Profits are either reinvested into infrastructure or distributed to members in the form of "patronage" or "capital credits", which are essentially dividends paid on a member's investment into the cooperative. In the United States, many cooperatives were formed to provide rural electrical and telephone service as part of the New Deal. See Rural Utilities Service. In the case of electricity, cooperatives are generally either generation and transmission (G&T) co-ops that create and send power via the transmission grid or local distribution co-ops that gather electricity from a variety of sources and send it along to homes and businesses. In Tanzania, it has been proven that the cooperative method is helpful in water distribution. When the people are involved with their own water, they care more because the quality of their work has a direct effect on the quality of their water. Credit unions, cooperative banking and cooperative insurance 's head office in Manchester. The statue in front is of Robert Owen, a pioneer in the cooperative movement. Credit unions are cooperative financial institutions owned and controlled by their members. Credit unions provide to its members the same services as banks but are considered not-for-profit organizations and adhere to cooperative principles. Credit unions originated in mid-19th-century Germany through the efforts of pioneers Franz Herman Schulze'Delitzsch and Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen. The concept of financial cooperatives crossed the Atlantic at the turn of the 20th century, when the caisse populaire movement was started by Alphonse Desjardins in Quebec, Canada. In 1900, from his home in Lévis, he opened North America's first credit union, marking the beginning of the Mouvement Desjardins. Eight years later, Desjardins provided guidance for the first credit union in the US, where there are about 7,950 active status federally insured credit unions, with almost 90 million members and more than $679 billion on deposit. Financial cooperatives hold a significant market share in Europe and Latin America, as well as a few countries in Sub-Saharan Africa. They also have a strong presence in Asia, Australia, and the United States. According to the World Council of Credit Unions (WOCCU), there were 68,882 financial cooperatives in 109 countries in 2016, serving more than 235 million members, with total assets exceeding 1.7 trillion dollars. The WOCCU's data do not include some major financial cooperative networks in Europe, such as Germany, Finland, France, Denmark, and Italy. In many high-income economies, financial cooperatives hold significant market shares of the banking sector. According to the European Association of Cooperative Banks, the market share of cooperative banks in the Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) credit market by the end of 2016 was 37% in Finland, 45% in France, 33% in Germany, 43% in the Netherlands, and 22% in Canada. In Germany, Volksbanken-Raiffeisen banks have a market share of approximately 21% of domestic credit and domestic deposits. In the Netherlands, Rabobank holds 34% of deposits, and in France cooperative banks (Crédit Agricole, Crédit Mutuel and BPCE Group) possess more than 59% of domestic credit and 61% of domestic deposits. In Finland, OP financial group holds 35% and 38% of domestic credit and deposits, respectively, and in Canada, Desjardins holds around 42% of domestic deposits and 22% of domestic credit. Purchasing cooperative A "purchasing cooperative" is a type of cooperative arrangement, often among businesses, to agree to aggregate demand to get lower prices from selected suppliers. Retailers' cooperatives are a form of purchasing cooperative. Major purchasing cooperatives include Best Western, ACE Hardware and CCA Global Partners. Agricultural service cooperatives provide various services to their individual farming members, and to agricultural production cooperatives, where production resources such as land or machinery are pooled and members farm jointly. Agricultural supply cooperatives aggregate purchases, storage, and distribution of farm inputs for their members. By taking advantage of volume discounts and using other economies of scale, supply cooperatives bring down members' costs. Supply cooperatives may provide seeds, fertilizers, chemicals, fuel, and farm machinery. Some supply cooperatives also operate machinery pools that provide mechanical field services (such as plowing, harvesting) to their members. Examples include the American cranberry-and-grapefruit cooperative Ocean Spray, collective farms in socialist states and the kibbutzim in Israel. Producer cooperative Producer cooperatives have producers as their members and provide services involved in moving a product from the point of production to the point of consumption. Unlike worker cooperatives, they allow businesses with multiple employees to join. Agricultural cooperatives and fishery cooperatives are such examples. Agricultural marketing cooperatives operate a series of interconnected activities involving planning production, growing and harvesting, grading, packing, transport, storage, food processing, distribution and sale. Agricultural marketing cooperatives are often formed to promote specific commodities. Commercially successful agricultural marketing cooperatives include India's Amul (dairy products), which is the world's largest producer of milk and milk products, Dairy Farmers of America (dairy products) in the United States, and Malaysia's FELDA (palm oil). Producer cooperatives may also be organized by small businesses for pooling their savings and accessing capital, for acquiring supplies and services, or for marketing products and services. Producer cooperatives among urban artisans were developed in the mid-19th-century in Germany by Franz Hermann Schulze-Delitzsch, who also promoted changes to the legal system (the Prussian Genossenschaftsgesetz of 1867) that facilitated such cooperatives. At about the same time, Friedrich Wilhelm Raiffeisen developed similar cooperatives among rural people. Multi-stakeholder cooperatives Multi-stakeholder cooperatives include representation from different stakeholder groups, such as both consumers and workers. Social cooperative Cooperatives traditionally combine social benefit interests with capitalistic property-right interests. Cooperatives achieve a mix of social and capital purposes by democratically governing distribution questions by and between equal but not controlling members. Democratic oversight of decisions to equitably distribute assets and other benefits means capital ownership is arranged in a way for social benefit inside the organization. External societal benefit is also encouraged by incorporating the operating-principle of cooperation between co-operatives. In the final year of the 20th century, cooperatives banded together to establish a number of social enterprise agencies that have moved to adopt the multi-stakeholder cooperative model. In the years 1994–2009 the EU and its member nations gradually revised national accounting systems to "make visible" the increasing contribution of social economy organizations. A particularly successful form of multi-stakeholder cooperative is the Italian "social cooperative", of which some 11,000 exist. "Type A" social cooperatives bring together providers and beneficiaries of a social service as members. "Type B" social cooperatives bring together permanent workers and previously unemployed people who wish to integrate into the labor market. They are legally defined as follows: • no more than 80% of profits may be distributed, interest is limited to the bond rate, and dissolution is altruistic (assets may not be distributed) • the cooperative has legal personality and limited liability • the objective is the general benefit of the community and the social integration of citizens • those of type B integrate disadvantaged people into the labour market. The categories of disadvantage they target may include physical and mental disability, drug and alcohol addiction, developmental disorders and problems with the law. They do not include other factors of disadvantage such as unemployment, race, sexual orientation or abuse. • type A cooperatives provide health, social or educational services • various categories of stakeholder may become members, including paid employees, beneficiaries, volunteers (up to 50% of members), financial investors and public institutions. In type B cooperatives at least 30% of the members must be from the disadvantaged target groups • voting is one person one vote SCIC The ''Société coopérative d'intérêt collective'' (SCIC) [Co-operative Society of Collective Interest] is a type of multi-stakeholder co-operative structure introduced in France in 1982. A SCIC must have at least three different categories of members, including users and employees. Other stakeholder groups that may be represented are volunteers, public authorities and other individual or corporate supporters. Voting is on a 'one member, one vote' basis, though voting in colleges is also provided for under certain circumstances. SCICs must have a 'general interest' objective. Public bodies can subscribe for up to 20% of the capital. The status allows an association to convert into a co-operative without having to change its legal form. The relative rigidity of the structure, combined with the government's failure to grant tax relief, has limited its take-up. Multi-stakeholding in retailing Multi-stakeholder co-operatives also exist in the retail sector. An example is Färm, a Belgian wholefood retailing cooperative founded in 2015 which favours organic and local produce. It operates 16 shops, of which 11 are in Brussels. Categories of members The cooperative brings together all the participants in the food chain from farm to fork, represented by six different categories of members: ;Investors : The people providing the financial means necessary to achieve the enterprise's ambitions, currently four of the project's founders. This category holds 94% of the shares but only exercises 50% of the votes. The board will consider applications from people wishing to invest in excess of €25,000; ;Managers : The members of Färm's management; ;Workers : Members of staff working at Färm, who currently number 36; ;Sympathisers : Clients and people who want to support the project without having a contractual or commercial relationship with it. Anyone can become part of this category by buying shares worth a minimum of €105 (currently 5 shares of €21), and a maximum of €5,000. As of September 2020 the cooperative was not accepting new members; ;Suppliers and producers : There is no obligation to hold shares in order to collaborate commercially with Färm, but the enterprise finds it nice that the two groups support each other; ;Supporters : Self-employed people who have opened a store under the Färm brand. Governance Each member has one vote. The members elect the board of 10 at the annual general meeting. Each category of members has at least one board member to represent them. An innovative governance provision ensure that no one group of members can dominate the others. In practice board decisions are taken by consensus. In the event of a vote, each director has one vote, and except where the cooperative's registered or internal rules provide otherwise, decisions are taken by simple majority of those present or represented. But in the event of a tie, if the votes of a group of voters all belong to the same category, the votes of the other categories prevail. To ensure that members are committed to the cooperative's values, vision and objectives, to guarantee its long-term finance and to limit financial speculation, shares are not transferable for a period of four years. Members receive a 2% discount on purchases. New generation cooperative New generation cooperatives (NGCs) are an adaptation of traditional cooperative structures to modern, capital intensive industries. They are sometimes described as a hybrid between traditional co-ops and limited liability companies or public benefit corporations. They were first developed in California and spread and flourished in the US Midwest in the 1990s. They are now common in Canada where they operate primarily in agriculture and food services, where their primary purpose is to add value to primary products. For example, producing ethanol from corn, pasta from durum wheat, or gourmet cheese from goat's milk. Other Platform cooperative A platform cooperative, or platform co-op, is a cooperatively owned, democratically governed business that establishes a computing platform, and uses a protocol, website or mobile app to facilitate the sale of goods and services. Platform cooperatives are an alternative to venture capital-funded platforms insofar as they are owned and governed by those who depend on them most—workers, users, and other relevant stakeholders. Proponents of platform cooperativism claim that, by ensuring the financial and social value of a platform circulate among these participants, platform cooperatives will bring about a more equitable and fair digitally mediated economy in contrast with the extractive models of corporate intermediaries. Platform cooperatives differ from traditional cooperatives not only due to their use of digital technologies, but also by their contribution to the commons for the purpose of fostering an equitable social and economic landscape. Volunteer cooperative A volunteer cooperative is a cooperative that is run by and for a network of volunteers, for the benefit of a defined membership or the general public, to achieve some goal. Depending on the structure, it may be a collective or mutual organization, which is operated according to the principles of cooperative governance. The most basic form of volunteer-run cooperative is a voluntary association. A lodge or social club may be organized on this basis. A volunteer-run co-op is distinguished from a worker cooperative in that the latter is by definition employee-owned, whereas the volunteer cooperative is typically a non-stock corporation, volunteer-run consumer co-op or service organization, in which workers and beneficiaries jointly participate in management decisions and receive discounts on the basis of sweat equity. Open cooperative Open cooperatives are a type of cooperative that combine traditional cooperative principles with commons-based peer production, multi-stakeholder governance, and ethical market practices to serve broader collective and ecological goals. They aim to support collective ownership, democratic decision-making, and the creation of diverse types of commons, while also engaging with market mechanisms. Unlike conventional cooperatives, open cooperatives seek to balance economic sustainability with broader social and ecological goals. Their multi-stakeholder governance structures incorporate producers, consumers, and community members, thereby resisting reduction to narrow economic roles and addressing enduring cooperative tensions. A defining feature of open cooperatives is their embrace of cosmolocalism—a model that circulates knowledge globally through digital commons while grounding production locally in shared infrastructures. Particularly active in sectors like agri-food, open cooperatives aim to revitalize local economies and construct viable alternatives to the corporate food system. UK cooperatives retain a strong market share in food retail, insurance, banking, funeral services, and the travel industry in many parts of the country, although this is still significantly lower than other business models. Former leader of the British Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn has publicly expressed support for worker cooperatives. ==Working conditions==

Cooperatives have been traditionally seen as an alternative to the traditional business model, in which a capitalist has the private ownership of the monetary capital and of the means of production and workers have to sell their labor force to the capitalist to earn a salary. Cooperatives are often said to offer better working conditions than regular firms. This is demonstrated by the fact that cooperatives have a lower turnover rate (rate of workers leaving a firm) compared to regular firms. However, cooperatives do not always show improved working conditions compared to traditional businesses. In fact, the different nature of cooperatives imply that the nature of the working conditions within the cooperatives is also different. According to Kunle Akingbola, working conditions are "the core elements of work  relationships determined by the social, psychological, and physical factors that influence the workplace and the interaction that employees experience at work" and "typically include the nature of employment, working hours, job characteristics, compensation, work interactions, physical work environment, and written and unwritten work expectations". According to Pam a Pam, a cooperative has good working conditions when it has stable contracts, working days consistent with the volume of tasks, and offers a higher salary than the established in the collective agreement of the sector. Wages In 2021, Hanson and Purushinkaya performed a survey on working conditions of cooperatives in the US, This means that, because the distribution of wealth is much greater in WCs, an increase in the benefits of a WC usually is reflected in a proportional increase in the wages, whereas in CF this increase in the wages is much smaller (since the wealth is accumulated by people in the higher position, or is saved for new corporate investments). However, the fact that the wealth is distributed between the already hired workers has the downside of preventing the cooperatives of hiring more workers, thus having a rate of creation of new jobs that is lower than CF. However, in WC changes on output prices does not translate in more employment, whereas in CF it does (CF create less employment). There are several explanations for this: higher compensation and wages for workers; higher job satisfaction; greater adaptability to crisis and economic difficulties, etc. Research shows that WC show higher adaptability to crisis and economic hardships than CF. During negative demand shocks, WCs contain employment drop and allow a greater downward wage adjustment The case of Cooperativa Mondragón is paradigmatic in this sense: during the 1980s, some cooperatives were experiencing financial difficulties, and Mondragon redeployed workers in the struggling co-operatives to ones that were better off. Internal democracy According to Pam a Pam, Mark Kaswan describes William Thompson's theory concerning cooperatives as: "[T]he cooperative structure alters the socio-economic relations of their members, aligning their interests with one another on the basis of a strong principle of equality. It is this alignment of interests on the basis of equality that gives cooperatives their strongly democratic character." According to Kaswan himself, internal democracy is mostly defined by the type and the size of the cooperative. Kaswan states: "Increasing size also increases the complexity of management. [...] This can lead to the problem of 'managerialism', or the development of powerful officials whose concerns and interests may be different from those of common members." If the manager is already a worker-member of the cooperative, the problem might be resolved; but if the manager is hired specifically for managerial purposes, some hierarchies can arise. The contradiction with the issue of size comes with the social impact of the cooperative: greater size usually means greater social impact, but also has a toll on internal democracy. Suggestions to improve internal democracy within a cooperative • Facilitation of all meetings/assemblies is rotated among all members of the coop; training and coaching in facilitation will be provided. • Permanent and external facilitation (from a specialized process work paradigm external coop) on emotions, conflicts of power, informal hierarchies. • Any decision made by a coop member can be recalled if 50% of coop members request it. • Create a space where members can propose improvements and a committee reviews and prioritizes them. • Revise periodically how the flow of information goes, and see if there are individuals or segments of the coop excluded from this flow, for whatever reason (lack of proper access, unclear messages, technical jargon, excessive workload, etc.), and define collective measures to define what is relevant information (and what is not) and guarantee a full access to it. Legal status of cooperative workers: employees or employed? There is a legal debate on whether to consider being a member of a cooperative as a formal worker or not. For instance, it has been claimed that "the relationship of the worker-member with their cooperative should be considered as distinct from that of conventional wage-based dependent work and self-employed work". Some authors argue that cooperatives should have their own legal status differentiated from the legal status of a conventional firm, in order for them to get recognition and adapt the law to its unique features. In Argentina, lawyers have debated whether the relationship between members in the worker cooperative also constitute an employment relationship to which the rules governing pais dependent work are applicable. Some say yes, mainly based on the argument that participation in the management and direction is not incompatible with the condition of subordination and that the individual is subordinated to the majority vote. However, other interpretations say that the link between members and the worker cooperatives is not a labor relation. In many law cases it has been widely adopted that the size of the cooperative is decisive for this question since the personal contribution of members is more important in small cooperatives. In the US, the Internal Revenue Service determines whether a worker is an independent contractor by considering the degree that the worker: • Receives less extensive instructions on the work to be done, but not how it should be done • Receives training from the business about required procedures and methods • Has significant investment in the work • Is not reimbursed for some business expenses • Has the opportunity to realize a profit or incur a loss • Receives benefits from the business • Has a written contract that shows the relationship the worker and business intend The following factors are generally considered when determining whether an employment relationship exists under the FLSA: • Is the worker performing work that is an integral part of the business? • Do the worker's managerial skills affect the worker's opportunity for both profit and loss? • What kinds of investment does the worker make in facilities and equipment compared to the employer? • Does the worker exercise independent business judgement and initiative? • Is the relationship with the employer indefinite, which suggests an ongoing employee relationship? • What kind of control does the employer have about how the work is performed, pay amounts, hours worked, and whether the worker is free to also work for others and hire helpers? The problem of labour fraud However, the recognition of cooperatives as different entities than conventional firms sometimes creates a legal void that has been used regularly for labour fraud. In some cases, businesses take the form of a cooperative to avoid being subjected to collective agreements gained through trade unionism and syndicalism, thus being able to pay lower or have worse labor conditions than the ones stipulated in the collective agreement, while at the same time retaining the same power and salary pyramids. In Spain, since the law does not subject cooperatives to the collective agreements or to the social security regulations, the following scheme has been used: if a business wants to pay less than what the sector agreement of its economic sector establishes, the business can create a cooperative, which is not subjected to it, hire all the workers using that cooperative, and then outsource the activity to this cooperative. In this way, instead of having to hire all the workers directly (thus having to pay the Social Security fees and the minimum wage established by the collective agreement), the company only has to use the cooperative as a shell company, and in this way it does not have to pay according to the agreement, and since the workers are hired by the cooperative and not by the company, they are not subject to the either the sector agreement or social security. Potential solutions to this fraudulent usage of workers' cooperatives have been suggested, such as covering the legal void that allows this to happen, creating cooperative federations that ensure the cooperative identity and its regular functioning, etc. Suggestions to improve workers' conditions within a cooperative • Flexible scheduling. • Remote work for all staff, with the possibility to do the full working week that way, but also putting some mandatory in-person moments for everyone (conflict resolution, first meetings with new employees, farewell for leaving employees, conflict resolution, strategically and/or politically relevant and/or difficult meetings, celebrations in the coop). • All time on worker cooperative business is paid. • Equal pay for all positions (assuming a balanced share of responsibility and job complexity). • 40 days of vacation (at least). • Safe and regenerative working place. Applications based on biomimicry and biophilia to promote natural, healthy and diverse environments (different places for calmness, meditation, creativity, stimuli, team bond generation, individual reflection, exercise, connection with nature, water, plants, art, etc.). ==Economic performance==

Job productivity In general terms, research shows that productivity in worker's cooperatives is higher than in conventional firms. For example, Fakhfakh et al. (2012) Furthermore, it has been argued that collectivists' ideological commitment to the group members yields higher levels of motivation. Consequently, in addition to making turnover less likely, high collectivism in the WC environment should translate to high performance. Economic stability Capital and the Debt Trap reports that "cooperatives tend to have a longer life than other types of enterprise, and thus a higher level of entrepreneurial sustainability". This resilience has been attributed to how cooperatives share risks and rewards between members, how they harness the ideas of many and how members have a tangible ownership stake in the business. Additionally, "cooperative banks build up counter-cyclical buffers that function well in case of a crisis," and are less likely to lead members and clients towards a debt trap (p. 216). This is explained by their more democratic governance that reduces perverse incentives and subsequent contributions to economic bubbles. In Europe A 2012 report published by CICOPA (Europe) showed that in France and Spain, worker cooperatives and social cooperatives "have been more resilient than conventional enterprises during the economic crisis". A 2013 report by ILO concluded that cooperative banks outperformed their competitors during the 2008 financial crisis. The cooperative banking sector had 20% market share of the European banking sector, but accounted for only 7 percent of all the write-downs and losses between the third quarter of 2007 and the first quarter of 2011. Cooperative banks were also over-represented in lending to small and medium-sized businesses in all of the 10 countries included in the report. A 2017 report published by the Office for National Statistics found that, in the UK, the rate of survival of cooperatives after 5 years was 80 percent compared with only 41 percent for other enterprises. Credit unions, a type of cooperative bank, had five times lower failure rate than other banks during the 2008 financial crisis and more than doubled lending to small businesses between 2008 and 2016, from $30 billion to $60 billion, while lending to small businesses overall during the same period declined by around $100 billion. Public trust in credit unions stands at 60%, compared to 30% for big banks and small businesses are five times less likely to be dissatisfied with a credit union than with a big bank. In Canada A 2010 report by the Ministry of Economic Development, Innovation and Export in Québec found the five-year survival rate and ten-year survival rate of cooperatives in Québec to be 62% and 44% respectively compared to 35% and 20% for conventional firms. Another report by the BC-Alberta Social economy Research Alliance found that the three-year survival rate of cooperatives in Alberta to be 81.5% in comparison to 48% for traditional firms. Another report by the aforementioned Research Alliance found that in British Columbia, the five-year survival rates for cooperatives between 2000 and 2010 to be 66.6% in comparison to conventional businesses that had 43% and 39% in the years 1984 and 1993 respectively. ==Cooperative financing==

The issue of finance in cooperativism is one of the most importance. Since the failure rates of cooperatives are lower than for conventional firms, Capital by members This is the main form of financing in cooperatives. Usually, workers cooperatives do not only socialize the labor force, but also a part of the economical wealth of each member, that is put in a pool together with the rest of contributions, and that constitutes the capital of the cooperative. Usually, future members have to socialize a certain amount of money to the cooperative before they can become formal members. Social loans Occasionally. if the situation requires it, workers of the cooperative can decide to put some more money as an investment, which can later be returned. Capital reinvestment Usually, growing the business is not the main goal of a cooperative (the main goal is to redistribute profit among its members), but sometimes it is necessary to reinvest a part of the profits in the form of new capital, which will allow the cooperative to expand its operations and increase profit in the future. This is especially true during the initial steps of the cooperative, in which its operations have to grow to the point in which they have regained the initial capital investment. The capital reinvestments are decided collectively through the democratic mechanisms that a cooperative has. Patronage refund Patronage refunds are the distribution of profits to the members of the cooperative, who have previously invested money in the form of capital by members and social loans. Dividends The Rochdale principles state that cooperatives should have limited return on equity investments, so its usual for most of the cooperatives to not use equity investments, and, if they do, pay few dividends to the shareholders. The main reason for which they do that is that distributing profits as dividends reduces the potential amount of patronage refunds. Unallocated Retained Earnings, or "cushion fund" Part of the benefits of a cooperative must be saved as a safe fund, which will allow the cooperative to face unexpected situations and crises if they appear. Redistribution of losses In case that a cooperative experiences a loss, there are alternatives to handle them in the most efficient way possible. Make use of the "cushion funds" If a cooperative has had profits at some point, it should have some savings, which it can use in times of economic losses. In this way, they can absorb the losses simply with the money they already had, not having to affect neither wages, employment, or stocks. Allocate the losses to the members This is one of the most common ways to allocate the losses. Making this decision involves the workers deliberating through the stablished democratic mechanisms on how are the losses going to be distributed among membership. In times of economic hardships, cooperatives are more willing to reduce their wages rather than reduce employment, whereas conventional firms would rather fire some people and keep the same wages for the rest of them. ==Job satisfaction==

Castel et al.. (2011) performed research on job satisfaction in workers cooperatives, and it determined that job satisfaction is high in workers cooperatives and that social economy values are a source of job satisfaction. Within those types of organizations there are several intrinsic and extrinsic factors that perform in a very characteristic manner, and which are key for job satisfaction. The intrinsic factors are characteristics of the work itself, and Castel et al. proposes that cooperatives create job satisfaction because they usually involve: • Reducing the gap between the conception and execution of tasks • Increasing task significance (making work meaningful) • Developing workers' skills • Seeking to benefit the global environment and society while involving everyone The extrinsic factors that make work in coops satisfying are: • A higher level of shared business culture • Increased confidence in elected management • Greater attention to working and employment conditions following the increased social responsibility of the company • Collective decision-making. However, that research also indicates that not all of the characteristics of workers cooperatives increase job satisfaction. In fact, they point out that some characteristics are perjudicial for mental health, such as the perceived increase in work pressure (some workers feel that since they are the owners of their means of production, they are pressured into working more by other colleagues), or the ambiguity of the relationship between other workers (everyone being in the same decision-making position can create conflicts among workers). Hanson and Prushinkaya (2021) conducted a survey that found similar results: they found that, in general, cooperativists state high job satisfaction, autonomy and voice, and professional development. They also found that the majority of individual respondents described their job security, job satisfaction, work effort, and the economic stability of the company as somewhat or much better than what they experienced in their last job. Also, a majority reported the quality of supervision, feedback, and training was superior in their co-op job. Their research also showed that within co-ops, training and skill-building matters for democratic governance: workers who received cooperative-specific training participated more in workplace decision making. Another research also shows that worker cooperatives are still beneficial for job satisfaction even if their activity is in no sense related to the social and solidarity economy or has no social purpose at all. According to Hyungsik Eum this is because "in worker cooperatives, worker-members have a sense of ownership of their own jobs and workplaces". ==Women in cooperatives==

Since cooperatives are based on values like self-help, democracy, equality, equity, and solidarity, they can play a particularly strong role in empowering women, especially in developing countries. Cooperatives allow women who might have been isolated and working individually to band together and create economies of scale as well as increase their own bargaining power in the market. In statements in advance of International Women's Day in early 2013, President of the ICA Dame Pauline Green stated, "Cooperative businesses have done so much to help women onto the ladder of economic activity. With that comes community respect, political legitimacy and influence." However, despite the intended democratic structure of cooperatives and the values and benefits shared by members, due to traditional gender norms on the role of women, and other instilled cultural practices that sidestep attempted legal protections, women and other disadvantaged groups suffer a disproportionately low representation in cooperative membership around the world. Representation of women through active membership (showing up to meetings and voting), as well as in leadership and managerial positions is even lower. Some of the patriarchal behaviors that can be found in cooperatives involve the formal structures and hierarchy that conform the cooperative: • Non-open and non-democratic decision-making: democratic spaces are often co-opted by men, who occupy most of the space, and tend to monopolize the leadership of those democratic spaces. This can result in women having less voice in the cooperative decision making, thus having their needs underrepresented. • Exclusionary leadership: in some occasions, the management of cooperatives involves electing leaders for specific purposes. The under-representation of women in the democratic spaces can result in them having a smaller chance of being elected as representatives or leaders. Statistics show that women are still underrepresented in responsibility jobs in co-ops. • Interpersonal relationships: patriarchal behavior can also be found in male colleagues, who often, for example, act in patronizing ways, or have distrust in women's capacity to perform certain jobs. The strongest manifestations of machismo in cooperatives are: • Manifestations of machismo that belittle, offend and detract from security and autonomy. They involve a higher level of degradation. • Sexual violence is often hidden by the false supposition that in cooperatives everything is shared and done collectively, which may create an environment that hides sexual violence. ==Cooperatives in popular culture==

, the number of memberships in cooperatives reached one billion, and so the organizational structure and movement has seeped into popular culture. However, in comparison with the number of co-operatives, they are rarely the subject of literature. Among these, Ken Follett mentions their role in working-class life during World War I in Fall of Giants (2010), the first volume of his Century Trilogy: :"Where's our mam?" :"Gone down the Co-op for a tin of jam." The local grocery was a co-operative store, sharing profits among its customers. Such shops were popular in South Wales, although no one knew how to pronounce Co-op, variations ranging from "cop" to "quorp". Less seriously, in Murder in the Collective, Barbara Wilson sets a murder mystery among radical printing collectives in Seattle, while Frances Madeson's 2007 comic novel Cooperative Village is set in the eponymous housing co-operative in New York. In the HBO drama television series The Wire, several drug dealers create a democratic alliance called the New Day Co-Op with the interests of cutting back on violence and increasing business. Co-opoly: The Game of Cooperatives is a board game by TESA Collective played throughout the globe that challenges players to work together to start and run a cooperative and overcome major hurdles. Cooperatives feature prominently in the Martian economy in Kim Stanley Robinson's Mars trilogy and in a speculative future Earth economy in his novel The Ministry for the Future. ==See also==