What Works in Worker Cooperative Development? Ecosystem Design, Back-Office Infrastructure, and Power in Cooperative Formation

• In Event: Labor and Labor Movements Section Refereed Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Roundtable 9: Alternative Solidarities, Cooperation, and Consumer Alliances

Abstract

Since 2015, U.S. municipalities and philanthropy have invested millions of dollars into worker cooperative development as a strategy for improving job quality and expanding economic opportunity for low-income workers, immigrants, and entrepreneurs of color. Despite growing public investment and ecosystem expansion, we still lack systematic evaluation of how different development architectures shape measurable outcomes for cooperatives and their worker-owners. Much of the existing literature focuses either on cooperative resilience at the firm level or on individualistic entrepreneurial support organizations (ESOs), leaving underdeveloped a comparative analysis of cooperative development institutions themselves.

This paper evaluates a central question emerging from practitioner and stakeholder interviews: What works in worker cooperative development, particularly for immigrant and low-income communities? Rather than treating cooperatives as self-contained enterprises, the analysis centers on the institutional ecosystems and developer structures that scaffold their formation.

Authors

• Abby Scher, Research|Action

• biko koenig, Franklin and Marshall College