Roelants’ appointment is good news as he has led work to help reform laws in Europe to expand workplace economic democracy and he has also promoted efforts to develop specific social and solidarity economy laws in European countries.

The work of CICOPA internationally has been important as low paid precarious work globally has expanded since 2000, while over this period inequality has escalated. In 2013 Roelants and Claudia Sanchez Bajo co-authored the book Capital and the Debt Trap – Learning from Co-operatives in the Global Crisis. Their analysis showed that co-operatives have been effective in creating new jobs since 2008. Moreover, their impact helps reduce inequality while providing more secure and stable employment. However, they show that supportive public policy is crucial to the scope for co-operatives to be given adequate development space. For example, thanks to support legislation passed some 30 years ago, Italy has over 20,000 worker and social co-operatives and in the non-public care sector, social co-operatives are the largest provider. This contrasts with the UK where 8 in 10 jobs in care services are provided by the private sector.

Roelants has been a champion of the International Labour Organisation’s Recommendation 193, that the Co-operative College played a key role in researching and evidencing. Passed in 2002, this Recommendation promotes co-operatives as best practice and demonstrates that they are a highly effective way to move precarious workers from informal to formal employment, where they offer secure decent work, workers’ rights, legal protection and solutions to poverty.

In research and policy reports since 2002 for CECOP and for CICOPA internationally Roelants has championed the SSE which has become an integral part of the UN local development agenda since 2013. A recent Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF) report on inclusive growth has shown that the development of the social economy is crucial to tackling inequality, the housing crisis, climate change and the needs of marginalised groups. Employment in the social economy accounts for 6.5% of European jobs. In the UK employment level is below this average at 5.6%. Sweden, Italy, France, Belgium and the Netherlands have much higher ratios ranging from 9% to 11.2% and have benefited from supportive public policy.

The JRF findings shows that the SSE is a key provider of affordable childcare, housing and transport and enables local people to take part in economic decision-making. The social economy also builds social capital and generates community well-being. However the JRF research also show that in the UK the social economy is not being championed by influential actors, is poorly understood and inadequately supported by local government. The social economy is also wrongly perceived as primarily an answer for market failure and thus not supported well by procurement policies and other pillars for growth. Moreover as JRF shows, the expansion of the social economy is restricted in the UK by inadequate infrastructure. JRF highlights this by showing that where these weaknesses have been overcome in cities like Barcelona, Montreal, Lille and Gothenburg, the social and solidarity economy is much stronger, is growing and gaining in self-confidence and public awareness. The appointment of Roelants augurs well and should help advance co-operative development by deepening solidarity economy understanding.

Originally Published in SolidarityEconomy.coop

Photo by BockoPix

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Dear Birdies,

The tweet-powered t-shirt vending machine in the room at Twitter’s shareholder meeting didn’t work at first. A Twitter employee attending to the machine walked me through the three hashtags required to get the shirt, but the machine wasn’t recognizing my tweeting. So, after 10 minutes of small talk with the employee about our proposal, I told her “Thank you” and started to go. But then the employee opened the vending machine door and handed me a shirt. Such a simple fix!

At Monday’s annual meeting, Twitter shareholders did not approve our proposal.

But by winning 4% of the vote, we can – and very likely will – resubmit a better proposal next year to democratize Twitter.

Twitter’s opposition statement to our proposal said it couldn’t be done. The truth is, even some of the strongest allies of #BuyTwitter assumed it was too complex. We’ve been through eight months of organizing, from op-ed to petition to proposal, defense, andMonday’s vote tally. Looking back, it all seems simple, like unlocking a vending machine.

Now, after the meeting, everything seems possible for our group.

A stock market analyst who helped guide our efforts emailed me, saying: “This study could be a game changer… You have legitimacy now from the shareholder vote. That carries weight. Leverage it to the fullest. Media coverage may very well be in your favor, too.”

Momentum from the vote is one way that #WeAreTwitter #BuyTwitter has succeeded so far at building organized power among Twitter users and shareholders.

Here is some more of what we’ve accomplished together:

• Advancing democratic ownership and accountability on the platforms we use, including a couple dozen individuals doing analysis, web design, advocacy with allies, and more.
• Dozens upon dozens of articles featuring #BuyTwitter including The Financial Times, WIRED, Salon, Recode, Vanity Fair, and The Co-op Water Cooler.
• Hundreds upon hundreds of tweets in the past week alone about #BuyTwitter, including an original love ballad on YouTube!
• A letter signed by major of coop allies, including the International Co-operative Alliance, Co-operatives UK, the National Cooperative Business Association, and Co-operatives and Mutuals Canada. You can sign it, too!
• Another letter by the International Co-op Alliance, on behalf of 2.6 million enterprises and 1 billion members worldwide.
• A poll conducted last week found that more than 2 million UK Twitter users would consider investing in a democratic Twitter.
• A Twitter Moment of selected highlights uniting #BuyTwitter, #NetNeutrality, #Coops, #corpgov, and exiting the stock market.

This is just the beginning. What’s next?

• Help build cooperative social media by joining the new Social.coop, a cooperatively owned instance of the federated, open-source Mastodon network. This is just one of many projects you can support in the #platformcoop ecosystem.
• Explore the broader movement for cooperative platforms and an Internet of Owners by attending The People’s Disruption conference in NYC and other events around the world.
• Join the organizing effort in our Loomio group. What should next year’s proposal say? Should we press on as a social media users’ union? A cooperative investment club?

I hope we can get together for an open online conversation. Until then, share our celebration tweet and have a wonderful week.

Onward,

Danny and the #WeAreTwitter team

PS: If someone you know wants a free kitten, tell them to get one here.

Photo by clasesdeperiodismo

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Cat Johnson: We recently came across an inspiring video report by Agence France-Presse about a honey cooperative run by women in Afghanistan. It offers a glimpse into the life of an Afghan mother of seven who runs a beekeeping enterprise. She is just one of an estimated 200 women in the Bamiyan province working in honey production jobs.

Cooperatives in Afghanistan were banned for a number of years and were allowed again only 15 years ago, according to the International Co-operative Alliance based in Brussels, Belgium.

“Since then more than 3,000 co-operatives were re-registered,” the ICA noted. “However, many one these are not familiar with co-operative values and principles and also need support for capacity building.”

The cooperative beekeeping industry is an example of how co-ops can transform the lives of people with limited access to resources — those who have historically been unable to create entrepreneurial ventures. As new worker co-ops continue to redefine the cooperative movement, through platform co-ops, cabby-owned taxi cooperatives, artist co-ops, freelancer collectives and more, co-ops are increasingly being used as a tool to empower underserved communities and create an equitable and sustainable economy that works for all.

Header image is a screenshot from the Agence France-Presse video. Follow @CatJohnson on Twitter

The post Afghan Beekeepers Demonstrate the Power of Co-ops to Transform Lives appeared first on P2P Foundation.