Tune into WOL 1450 AM, 95.9 FM Everything.coop and the WOL Livestream on September 12 at 10:30 am EDT for “Everything Co-op,” hosted by Vernon Oakes. This week’s broadcast will be live from the 2024 Worker Co-op Conference (WCC24) presented by U.S. Federation of Workers Cooperatives and Democracy at Work Institute. The conference will convene in Chicago, Illinois, September 12-14. You can register to attend the hybrid conference either virtually or in person at conference.coop.
The Worker Co-op Conference is the only national event where worker-owners from across the United States gather to learn and build power together. For the last 20 years, this conference has brought together a thriving community of new, experienced, and aspiring entrepreneurs. The conference cultivates a network of interconnected and interdependent worker-owners, business developers, policymakers, funders, and labor organizers, all driven toward a common goal of improving the lives of workers and their families. WCC24 will foster relationships and strategies within the worker co-op community and knit attendees closer to other labor movements.
The United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives is the national grassroots membership organization for worker cooperatives. As a membership and advocacy organization, the Federation connects worker cooperative members to benefits, to each other, and the larger cooperative and economic justice movements. The Federation amplifies its members’ voices to advocate for local, state, and national worker cooperatives and provides consulting and technical assistance to old and new cooperatives. Through the education, training, and organizing work of its partner organization, the Democracy at Work Institute, the Federation is committed to ensuring cooperative business ownership reaches those who need it the most.
The Democracy at Work Institute expands the promise of cooperative business ownership to reach those communities most directly affected by social and economic inequality. The USFWC created it to ensure that worker cooperative development in economically and socially marginalized communities is adequately supported, effective, and strategically directed. It is the only national organization dedicated to building the field of worker cooperative development, through strategic research, creation of tools and standards, leadership development, direct technical assistance, and advocacy for worker cooperatives as a community economic development strategy. The Institute brings both a birds-eye view of the national stage and an experiential on-the-ground understanding of cooperative business, making sure that our growing worker cooperative movement is both rooted in worker cooperatives themselves and reaches new communities of worker-owners.
