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Worker Cooperatives 101

How companies owned and governed by the people who work there actually run, from the definition to two real examples.

10 lessons· 36 min total

A worker cooperative is a business owned by its employees, where each worker-member gets one vote regardless of role or seniority. This track covers how that actually works in practice: what gets voted on, how pay and money work, and two real cooperatives, one with 1,800 employees, to show it isn't just a small-business model.

Fundamentals

  1. 1What is a worker cooperative?1 min read
  2. 2Can a worker cooperative have a founder?3 min read
  3. 3What worker-owners actually vote on4 min read

How governance and money actually work

  1. 4How worker cooperatives govern themselves4 min read
  2. 5What stops worker-owners from voting themselves a raise?3 min read
  3. 6How worker cooperatives raise money4 min read

Seeing it in practice

  1. 7Spotlight: CPL Concordia4 min read
  2. 8Spotlight: Equal Exchange1 min read

Why there aren't more, and what it would take

  1. 9Which businesses work as worker cooperatives?4 min read
  2. 10Why the US has so few worker cooperatives, and what it would take to have more8 min read
Start lesson 1