Documentary #8: Worker Cooperatives Pt. 1 – Widening Spheres of Democracy

Upstream

News, Society & Culture, Politics

4.9 • 2.1K Ratings

🗓️ 24 April 2018

⏱️ 58 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The 21st century has seen an explosion in Worker Cooperatives—particularly since capitalism's 2008 crisis. In Part 1 of this 2-part series, we'll explore how worker co-ops present a radically different kind of ownership and management structure—one that has the power to bring democracy into the workplace and into the economy as a whole. We'll take a deep dive into the cooperatively owned and run bike/skate shop Rich City Rides, exploring how they have created a community hub that puts racial & economic justice front and center. We'll also take a trip to the Basque Country of northern Spain to explore how their rich cooperative environment compares to that of the United States and the San Francisco Bay Area specifically.

Featuring: Richard Wolff - Economics professor emeritus at University of Massachusetts, Amherst,founder of Democracy at Work, and host of the weekly radio show Economic Update Gopal Dayaneni- Co-founder of Cooperation Richmond & Staff Member at Movement Generation Doria Robinson- Founder of Urban Tilth and Co-Founder of Cooperation Richmond Esteban Kelly - Executive Director of the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives Gorka Espiau - Senior Fellow at the Agirre Lehendakaria Center at the University of the Basque Country Najari Smith - Worker/member of Rich City Rides bike & skate shop Roxanne Villaluz - Worker/member of a cooperative bakery & pizzeria Sofa Gradin - Political Organizer and Lecturer in Politics at King's College in London

Music: Jerry Folk ,Antwon, The Roots of Orchis

Many thanks to Phil Wrigglesworth for the cover art.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Support for this episode was provided by the New Economy Coalition, a network of
0:05.2	organizations imagining and building a future where people, communities, and
0:09.6	ecosystems thrive. To find out more and to get information about their upcoming
0:14.4	common-bound conference held this June in St. Louis, please visit new economy.
0:20.3	net. You are listening to upstream.
0:45.0	Upstream. Upstream. Upstream. Upstream.
0:48.0	Upstream. A radio documentary series that invites you to unlearn everything you thought you knew about economics.
0:56.0	I'm Dela Duncan and I'm Robert Raymond.
0:58.7	Join us as we journey upstream.
1:01.3	To the heart of our economic system and discovered
1:04.0	cutting edge stories of game-changing solutions based on connection,
1:08.7	resilience and prosperity for all. I remember it was like Independence Day on a Sunday it's like 10 o'clock at night
1:29.3	I'm still trying to finish up a project I'm in San Francisco and I just took a pause and went to go see the fireworks.
1:35.0	And it was something about it being Independence Day and I'm stuck working and you know at that time I was on salary so it was like the more you work the less you really get in the corporate system they love that they can extract as much energy and labor out of you as possible.
1:56.0	And I felt that if I was going to work 24-7-365 for something,
2:01.0	it had to be something that I was that I believed in that I was passionate about.
2:06.0	I knew that I would never be an owner of that business. You know even as a branch manager or a night supervisor or a regional manager, that
2:15.0	say so over that I'm saying, you know, even as a branch manager or a night supervisor or a regional manager, which was what I was moving to, that say so over how much I made,
2:21.0	how much my labor was worth. That amount of control over my life was not going to be there.
2:27.0	That was my eye-opener. After that I said, you know know what something's got to change and I started
2:34.0	up an organization Ritchie Rides bike skate shop with the intention of creating a
2:40.7	worker cooperative. The Worker Cooperative, this is the subject of this two-part series and the voice you just heard was that of Najari Smith
	...

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