Georgetown University Jessica Gordon Nembhard, Ph.D. John Jay College, CUNY June 15, 2015

Transcription

1 Georgetown University Jessica Gordon Nembhard, Ph.D. John Jay College, CUNY June 15, 2015

2 Acknowledge the original occupants of the land Remember our ancestors, the struggles of enslaved laborers, & all those who labor without just compensation, and the efforts for liberation through cooperative ownership.

3 Companies owned by the people who use their services or make the products (memberowners). Created to satisfy a need - formed for a particular purpose to provide a quality good or service at an affordable price (that the market is not adequately providing). Democratically governed 1 person 1 vote shared risk, surplus sharing

4 Early labor union advocacy for worker control included development of cooperatives - worker, consumer and producer, such as cooperatively owned mills, factories, craft production, and retail stores. Connected to Populist movement Black and White

5 Organized integrated labor unions and cooperatives -1800s-early 1900s. 200 industrial co-ops organized between 1886 and Controversial opposition within and outside trade union movement. Promoted women s leadership and Black leadership. Dangerous activity, went underground

6 After Haymarket strike in 1886, decline of Knights & cooperatives. Railroads refused to haul the co-ops products; manufacturers refused to sell them needed machinery; wholesalers refused them raw materials and supplies; banks wouldn t lend. Most of the cooperatives were forced to close by the end of 1888.

7 The CWA focused on starting cooperative stores, a free cooperative school system, & issues of wages and work conditions, electoral reform. Cooperative Workers used Black organizers, and connected the movement to Black Baptist and Methodist churches, Union Leagues.

8 The Colored Farmers National Alliance and Cooperative Union ( ) was formed to aid Black farmers, particularly with mortgage payments and marketing; parallel to the (White) Farmers Alliance. And to counter the continuing violence & exploitation practiced by white land owners and vigilantes (KKK).

9 Probably over 1 million members largest Black organization of its time. Branches established cooperative stores/ exchanges in the ports of Norfolk, Charleston, Mobile, New Orleans, Houston. Members buy goods at reduced prices & secure loans to pay off their mortgages Co-ops often terrorized

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11 Forced segregation created imperative for African Americans to join together economically, - mainstream economy was exploitative, discriminatory, and exclusionary. Voluntary segregation often the way to maintain economic independence and control self help efforts maroons, communal societies. Some Black leaders got their start in the coop movement

12 Search for alternative economic solutions. Use African retentions, self-help ideology, and voluntary segregation. racial selfsufficiency to create co-ops Chance to design & manage needed services in culturally, racially & geographically sensitive ways. Cooperatives a less well known aspect integral to the Long Civil Rights movement a silent partner.

13 By 20 th Century articulation of co-ops as a strategy for African American survival and liberation. Du Bois - Proposed economic cooperation as the only effective and practical solution. Blacks could position ourselves at the forefront of developing new forms of industrial organization that would free us from marginal economic status Conference

14 154 African American-owned cooperative businesses: 14 producer cooperatives ; 3 transportation cooperatives ; 103 distribution or consumer cooperatives, and 34 real estate and credit cooperatives.

15 George Schuyler (Pittsburgh Courier) calls on Young Negroes save the race with economic cooperation. Founded December 1930 by about African American youth. Goal to form a coalition of local cooperatives and buying clubs loosely affiliated in a network of affiliate councils; to start with 5,000 charter members, paying a $1 initiation fee.

16 By 1932 the League had councils in New York, Philadelphia, Monessen (PA), Pittsburgh, Columbus (OH), Cleveland, Cincinnati, Phoenix, New Orleans, Columbia (SC), Portsmouth (VA), and Washington, DC Total membership of 400. Developed several co-op stores (Buffalo, Harlem, etc.)

17 One mission was to keep control of the organization in the hands of young people; and to bring women into the League on equal basis with men (full inclusion of women). Ella Jo Baker, Executive Director, speaks about role of women in co-ops at first national convention.

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19 Chartered in 1936 as a self-help cooperative in Lincoln Heights, Washington, DC. Nannie Helen Burroughs Obtained a federal government grant to provide jobs for unemployed and unskilled. Became a consumer s cooperative & agricultural marketing cooperative.

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21 Cooperatives are the best mechanism yet devised to bring about economic democracy.

22 Black labor leader and organizer A. Philip Randolph, and the Ladies Auxiliary of the BSCP promoted cooperatives and cooperative education. Walker Credit Union, Montreal, CA 1930s savings and financial education, budgeting. Other credit unions. The Brotherhood Cooperative Buying Club in Chicago

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24 Founded by five seamstresses and a farmer in August 1979, in Windsor, North Carolina. The majority of women machine operators who head households. Wanted to provide themselves and other Black industrial seamstresses with steady jobs.

25 Started out as sub-contractors. Informal recruiting network through Churches and civic groups. Better off submitting direct contracts on own starting Sales doubled in first year on their own. Wage solidarity (3-1) plus innovative bonus compensation policy.

26 Cooperative Home Care Associates (S. Bronx NY) employs previously unskilled Latina and African American women. Non-profit training subsidiary provides state of the art training. Leads the industry in above average wages, benefits, career ladder opportunities, leadership training, and low turnover. Largest U.S. worker cooperative almost 2000 employees 70% owners. Unionized

27 Compensate for market failure and marginality Employ community members, often at better wages Earn better prices for Black made products Create better access to markets Anchor economic activity in a community and recycle resources

28 Provide economic stability, independence, and protection Grassroots economic organizing Control over income Asset building - Share profits and access to finance Promote leadership development

29 Many of the cooperative businesses emerging in health care, child care and temporary services, for example, are leading their sectors in changing the nature of work and increasing the returns to such work and ownership for African Americans, women, youth, immigrants, etc.

30 Provide protection, Economic control (control over income, work rules, and asset ownership) by the dispossessed and landless, Services for the under-served.

31 The whole reason for forming cooperatives is to give people economic independence so that they could have independence in political and other matters.

32 By consumer s & producers cooperation we can establish a progressively self supporting economy that will weld the majority of our people into an impregnable economic phalanx.

33 PSU Press Thank You!