Aaron Fernando: On July 3, the Co-operative Party in the U.K. launched a report at parliament outlining a strategy to double the size of the U.K.’s cooperative sector by 2030. The report, written by the think tank New Economics Foundation (NEF), was commissioned by the Co-operative Party and comprises a vision of the party’s goals. The report, titled “Co-Operatives Unleashed” reviews the current state of the co-op sector in the U.K., features case studies from other European nations, provides a snapshot of existing hurdles for the co-op sector, and offers policy recommendations for advancing this sector.

The report outlines the economic benefits of economies with healthy co-operative sectors. It cites statistics showing that co-ops have a 25 percent higher chance of surviving their first three years of operation than conventional businesses. They also have lower staff turnover and  lower pay inequality. The report notes that “the five largest co-operatives paid 50 percent more corporate tax than Amazon, Facebook, Apple, eBay and Starbucks combined.” In 2017, the U.K. had approximately 6,000 co-ops with 13.6 million members — lagging well behind most other OECD countries, according to the report. Meanwhile, workers in the U.K. have seen wages stagnate for 150 years and any economic growth has mainly benefitted a very small portion of the population, the report notes.

Yet “Co-Operatives Unleashed” stops short of advocating for co-ops as a total replacement for traditional businesses, and acknowledges that co-ops can face issues regarding scaling and may not be suited for “sectors involving high capital intensity… due to the higher cost and risks that members would bear.” Rather, the report advocates that co-ops should function as complement to traditional businesses. “When you look at the UK economy in light of Brexit and the challenges faced in the U.K. economy, a lot of those problems are symptoms for the fact that in the U.K. there isn’t a strong enough mix of different types of ownership,” says Ben West, communications officer with the UK Co-operative Party.

The UK Co-operative Party was founded a little over a century ago in 1917. A decade later it entered into an electoral pact with the Labour Party, agreeing not to run candidates against each other and sometimes running joint candidates under the Labour and Co-operative banner, says West.

Under this alliance, the 2017 Labour Party Manifesto contained the express commitment “to double the size of the co-operative sector in the UK,” the detailed strategy of which is laid out in this report. Though Labour Party, led by Jeremy Corbyn, is currently the opposition, “this piece of work is saying that if a future government of whatever party wanted to take on that commitment and make it happen, [these] would the steps be in order to actually deliver that,” West says.

It is noted in the report that the governments of counties with highly-developed cooperative sectors are obligated to recognize and promote co-operative businesses just as they would traditional enterprises — and that the same practices should be adopted in the U.K.

“When you look at other European countries, within their economies, a lot of their success is that there’s a really broad mix of different ownership types,” West says, citing the German energy and banking sectors specifically, where there is a mix of municipal entities, private firms, and socially-owned cooperatives.

The report puts forth a specific strategy of five interlocking steps for achieving this goal in the given timeframe:

1. A new legal framework for co-operatives

2. Finance that serves the co-operative agenda

3. Deepening co-operative capabilities through a Co‐operative Development Agency

4. Transforming business ownership

5. Accelerating community wealth building initiatives

These steps include the development of a legal framework which supports the development of future cooperatives and removes disincentives for cooperative growth. Specifically, this would involve the creation of legal structures, financial instruments, and mechanisms that co-ops can choose to use which would allow them to do things like lock in assets and wealth earned in the co-operative economy so that it stays in the cooperative economy.

Another strategy involves legally formalizing the ability for employees to buy existing businesses and transform them into co-ops. According to figures in the report, there are approximately 120,000 family-run small and medium enterprises that will undergo an ownership transfer in the next three years. If only 5 percent of those businesses transition into some form of co-operative model, the U.K.’s cooperative sector would double in size. As such, one of the strategies involves streamlining this type of transition.

Other policy recommendations in the report include technical support and information sharing for the sector, tax advantages for cooperative businesses, and the establishment of a National Investment Bank with “a mandate to supply patient risk capital specifically to the co-operative mutual and social enterprise sector.”

The strategy is multifaceted and ambitious, but the goal is for it to take place gradually over the next twelve years. “The mission now is as it was in the beginning: to stand up for the interests of the co-operatives that exist in the U.K., where there are laws that are holding back their expansion,” West says. “We want to create a favorable environment for cooperatives.”

The full report is available here.

Header image is screenshot from the report.

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Telekommunisten have created a Facebook game to promote #votelabour

Put On Your Corbyn Face might be the first ever Facebook game that you play with empathy and feeling. Your score depends on how well you can reproduces the emotion in a picture of Jeremy Corbyn!

https://gamesforthemany.com/corbynface/

Telekommunisten promote Venture Communism. Venture Communism is rooted in a network of co-operatives. The key idea is to replace the institutions of the bourgeois state. Instead, we intend to build the new society within the shell of the old. One that is commons-based, bottom-up, and worker-controlled.

In the mean time, millions depend on the bourgeois state. Heath care, housing, education and many other social goods depend on the state. While we are building the P2P future, we depend on the present institutions. Without them, communities face more precarity, and have less capacity to build alternatives.

For this reason, when the opportunity presents itself to make things better, we need to act.

We don’t expect the bourgeois state to build the commons for us. We act when direct political participation can make a difference.

The Jeremy Corbyn campaign is such an opportunity.

Like all who would restrict the ability of the wealthy few to expand their wealth. Like all who would not make the few richer at the expense of the many. Corbyn has faced merciless resistance from the establishment. He has has faced an especially biased press.

We know that centralized capitalist social media is oppressive and profit focused. Despite this, it is one way where individuals can help. By sharing, people can support Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party against Theresa May’s Tories. May and the Tories support banning cryptography, which P2P software depends on. They support the privatization of the NHS. They support austerity, war, and environmental catastrophe.

A Facebook game was a way for us to make a positive contribution.

Put On Your Corbyn Face uses your webcam. The classification system uses an open source JavaScript library called clmtracker. The library compares 60 points on your face to a photo of Jeremy Corbyn. The better you are able to emulate the emotion in Jeremy’s face, the higher your score.

After you play, you have the option to share your score on Facebook, or download it, and share elsewhere.

Use this special link to play and share the slogan “When you hear that banning cryptography will make the UK safer”

https://gamesforthemany.com/corbynface/#18

Each time somebody shares their score on Facebook, they reach hundreds of people.

In Solidarity,
Baruch Gottlieb, Dmytri Kleiner

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We’ve never hear an UK MP speak so candidly about utilising online tools to enable mass participation in the democratic process and are very excited about what this could mean. John McDonnell will be at the OPEN 2017 – Platform Co-ops conference to learn more about how to make this happen.

Join John McDonnell at the conference and have your say.

Cross-posted from The Open Coop

Photo by digital.democracy

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Co-operatives UK has welcomed the announcement (Wednesday 20 April) by the Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, that the Labour Party will aim to double to the size of the UK co-operative sector if in power, as a way to boost the economy.

Drawing on figures from our co-operative economy report, he compared the size of the UK co-operative sector to counterparts in Europe, saying “We should be more ambitious about what can be achieved here. We want to see resilient, high-productivity businesses in an economy that is fairer for everyone. The next Labour government will look to at least double the size of the co-operative economy. That’s a £40 billion boost to the economy.”

His suggested mechanisms for supporting the growth of the co-operative sector chime with a number of our policy proposals, including legislation for ‘mutual guarantee societies’ which will enable small businesses to pool resources in order to access much-needed finance and support for self-employed workers to form co-operatives, both of which are recommendations from our latest report on freelancer co-ops that picked up significant media coverage.

The Shadow Chancellor also cited the limited resources allocated to co-operatives in central government, which points to our case for consolidating responsibility for co-ops in the department for business.

Ed Mayo, Secretary General of Co-operatives UK, welcomed John McDonnell’s support. He said: “Today’s announcement from John McDonnell is a welcome endorsement of the difference co-operative businesses make, both to individuals and to the economy as whole.

“The aspiration to double the size of the co-operative sector resonates deeply with Co-operatives UK’s strategy. The action the Shadow Chancellor suggests, including new legislation and allocating more resources in government to support co-operatives, are among proposals that can help deliver this step-change.

“Our report released earlier this month, Not alone, set out the case for co-operative solutions to some of the insecurity faced by freelancers, and we are delighted to see the Shadow Chancellor highlighting this potential and endorsing our recommendation for legislation that will help small businesses club together as co-ops.

“Co-operatives are owned and supported by people of all political parties and of none, whether as customers, employees or local residents. We have and continue to work across the political spectrum to support the development of a more co-operative economy. Labour’s political leadership on this issue and announcement today that co-operatives are an essential part of Labour’s vision for a ‘better, fairer economy’ is welcome indeed.

“We look forward to working with the Labour Party, as we do with other parties in Westminster and the devolved nations, to put this into effect.”

Photo by chriskay

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