Aaron Fernando: It is common to see questionable policies enacted by state and local governments under the guise of economic development — policies which appear to serve the interests of private entities rather than the interests of society at large. Yet at the other end of the spectrum, real and sustainable sources of wealth, along with the many non-financial elements crucial to the health of societies, continue to be generated by individuals and small-scale producers, largely without much assistance from local governments.

Recently, the U.K.-based foundation Nesta released an interactive visualization called ShareTown, intended to help people think about what it might look like if local governments used technology and focused on both small-scale local organizations and individuals in creating positive social outcomes within a locality. Described as “an unashamedly positive vision of a preferred future in which interactions between citizens and local government are balanced and collaborative, and data and digital platforms are deployed for public benefit rather than private gain” ShareTown allows visitors to click around and explore an interrelated set of organizations, institutions, and individuals in one vision of a prosperous local economy of the future. These organizations include a makerspace, a community waste and re-use center, a childcare cooperative, a mobile library and resource center, and many others — all in some way utilizing technology and supported (financially or otherwise) by local government.

The ideas in ShareTown were derived from a workshop in May 2018 with leaders from local governments and members of the public, and discussed in light of drastic budget cuts faced by local governments around the U.K. Although ShareTown is U.K.-specific and offers links to “Reference Points,” which are existing projects, similar projects have already been sprouting up around the world. For instance, ShareTown contains a platform co-op which links freelancers with resources and protections against certain types of risks. The cooperative SMart is mentioned ShareTown, but others around the world like the Freelancer’s Union in New York City, New York, operate similarly.

However it is noted that “ShareTown is not intended as a prediction, but a source of inspiration — and provocation.” ShareTown was created by Nesta’s ShareLab, which has “a mission to grow evidence and understanding of how collaborative digital platforms can deliver social impact.” Thus, explicit in this approach is the belief that data collection and specific technological tracking and monitoring solutions will lead to positive social outcomes. This includes certain initiatives with potentially uncomfortable data-gathering, such as a mobile library operated with a mix of public and private funding which also tracks user outcomes.

In light of recent, serious data breaches like those of Marriott and Equifax, along with the reality that digital platforms and big data have been utilized by the few to manipulate the many, this technological optimism is indeed a provocation and something to be discussed. ShareTown provides a thought-provoking angle with which to think about the role of government and technology in maintaining a healthy local economy, and can be thought of in tandem with frameworks such as the Cleveland Model and the Preston Model. These two models in particular illustrate flows of money, time, and other resources between institutions and organizations without focusing on the usage of technology. Taken together, these frameworks can help both local residents and public officials think about and reframe how a locality achieves economic resilience even with limited resources.

Header image is a screenshot of Nesta’s ShareTown interactive

The post Nesta’s ‘ShareTown’ interactive shows what a cooperative, tech-enabled economy might look like appeared first on P2P Foundation.

A second part will be published later, focusing more on subjective and spiritual changes that often accompany an engagement for the commons.

Photo by kud4ipad

The post What personal and collective change is needed for a successful Commons Transition? appeared first on P2P Foundation.

With 7.1 million workers engaged in ‘precarious’ employment and 77 per cent of the self-employed living in poverty, the report ‘Working Together: Trade Union and Co-operative Innovations for Precarious Work’ calls for increased protection for those operating in the so-called gig economy.  

“Not only do they have almost no security, but while the average employed worker is losing out year by year in real terms, the self-employed are doing even worse, earning less each year in cash terms,” said co-author Alex Bird. “1.7 million of those in precarious employment are earning less than the national minimum wage, with no real enforcement of the law, and the self-employed are not even covered by the existing legislation.”

There are solutions according to Working Together. The report, commissioned by Co-operatives UK and The Co-operative College, and supported by the Network for Social Change, Wales Co-operative Centre and the Institute for Solidarity Economics, identifies ‘co-operative solutions’ as well as partnerships with trade unions as a way of ensuring a fair deal for workers in an expanding gig economy.

It calls for the UK to replicate the ‘umbrella co-operative model’ for supporting freelancers and other precarious workers and points to Belgium-based SMart. The non-profit organisation enables precarious workers operating in the arts sector to obtain a range of welfare benefits – including unemployment benefit.

SMart also provides its 70,000 plus members with tax support and advice. Sarah de Heusch Ribassin, Project Officer for the Development Strategy Unit at Smart, said:

“Many of those who were self-employed found the legislation around taxes to be so complex and were afraid to do things wrong. SMart offered an alternative that meant they no longer had to worry about making errors that would affect their income.”

Working Together also identifies Indycube as a blueprint for how partnerships between trade union and co-operatives can flourish. Indycube is a rapidly growing network for freelancers and the self-employed and offers access to workspace in more than 30 locations, predominantly across Wales.

The not-for-profit co-operative works with the trade union Community to offer a range of benefits including advice on tax, insurance, pensions and employment law.

Mark Hooper, Founder of Indycube, sums up how the relationship with Community has developed. He said:

“We see this as the way to grow with Community’s resources, capacity and knowledge, and the plan provides an opportunity for third party representation of our self-employed members.

“On a practical level, freelancers often find themselves presented with complex contracts full of legal jargon, which can result in problematic agreements and issues with payment.

“Community’s legal team are able to advise on these sorts of documents which many independent workers wouldn’t otherwise be able to access. Likewise, Invoice Factoring is a service which is generally only available to bigger companies and organisations, but banding independent workers’ voices together and working in partnership with Community has allowed Indycube to secure access to Invoice Factoring services, effectively putting an end to late payments for our members.

“Fifty-one per cent of invoices are paid late, a figure we think is far too high, and Community’s support has enabled us to make progress in this area. Thanks to Community’s status as an established union, Indycube has been able to cement itself in the minds of policy-makers and others as a voice for the fast-growing group of independent workers.

“The more members we have, the stronger our collective voice, and the more work we can all do to make our futures better.”

Les Bayliss, National Officer and Head of Special Projects for Community, said: “Our partnership with Indycube is one of a number of newly developed initiatives where, as a trade union, we are reaching out to new workers in today’s world of work.

“We will continue to listen to and understand what they need from a trade union, providing support, representation, mediation and settlement. Working together we hope to develop a ‘one voice’ approach to the needs of self-employed, freelance workers, speaking out and campaigning on the issues that affect them most.

“As a trade union we will continue to learn from our new initiatives and our new members, building new alliances with others in the private, co-operative and not for profit sectors. We will reach out to workers by being relevant to them and their needs.”

The rise in the gig economy means businesses, trade unions and government must do more to protect workers according to Ed Mayo, secretary general of Co-operatives UK, the trade body that works to promote develop and unite co-operative enterprises. He said:

“The number of zero hours workers has increased by over 800,000 within the past decade. Some 77% of self-employed workers are living in poverty…

“These are incredible numbers. With increased precariousness comes the need for increased protection and support and we know that co-operatives and trade unions can be part of the solution to this growing need.”

Cilla Ross, Co-operative College Vice Principal and co-author of the report said,

“The experience of growing numbers of workers in education, from teachers in the compulsory (pre-16) sector through to further, higher and adult education, is one of casualisation and precarity. This report pulls together examples of how unions and co-ops are successfully working together and offers real solutions on how precarious work can be challenged.”

The full Working Together report can be viewed and downloaded here.

Additional Notes 

The Working Together report profiles a number of examples where trade unions and co-operatives are working together including:

Musicians Union (MU) and Musicians co-ops: Local Authority music service closure in 1998 led to the launch of Swindon Music Co-operative. The MU was an active supporter of the co-operative which is now the main provider of instrumental and vocal tuition in over 70 local schools. The co-op and trade union partnership has set up seven other musicians’ co-ops across England and Wales.

Actor Co-ops: There are 30 actors’ co-ops in England and Wales. Their development and success has been through a close working partnership over many years with the actors union, Equity. The partnership has secured workers’ rights through negotiated industry agreements.

Community Lives Consortium: This social care organisation has operated as a co-op since 2001. It provides housing and social care services for severely disabled adults in Swansea, Neath and Port Talbot. Unison has supported the development of the co-operative since 2001 and has a place on the board of directors.

Key findings and recommendations in the report include:

• Co-operative sector share of GDP is 2% in the UK while in Italy and other EU countries it is over 10%. There are only 474 worker co-ops in the UK versus over 23,000 worker and social co-ops in Italy where public policy support (including tax reliefs) and legislative changes in 1985 and 1991 have been transformative.
• A wider partnership with local authorities can make a real difference. Cities in the US are supporting programmes to establish an eco-system of support for co-operative development including legal and technical advice as well as enabling finance. Local government partnerships in Italy have assisted the significant growth of social co-operatives in the fields of social care and jobs for disadvantaged groups in the labour market.
• Platform co-operatives co-developed by trade unions and worker co-ops are emerging in the USA as an alternative to Uber. Other trade unions in the USA are working on Union Co-op platform solutions for childminders and district nurses. Union Co-op solutions like this are needed in the UK.
• Mutual guarantee societies were developed in Italy and considerably reduce the cost of development finance for co-operatives. 19 EU countries have adopted this innovation and the UK should do the same.
• Universal Basic Income could be introduced in the UK in tax neutral ways that would significantly benefit those in precarious work. Trade union interest in this reform is growing as an alternative to the widespread problems with Universal Credit.

About The Co-operative College, Co-operatives UK and Wales Co-operative Centre

The Co-operative College is an educational charity and has been a leading provider of education, training and research for the co-operative sector since 1919. As a membership based organisation, we work across the UK and internationally to promote co-operative values, ideas,  principles and practices. www.co-op.ac.uk

Wales Co-operative Centre is a co-operative development agency, working across Wales to promote social, financial and digital inclusion through a range of projects. For further information visit http://wales.coop.

Co-operatives UK is the network for Britain’s thousands of co-operatives. Together we work to promote, develop and unite member-owned businesses across the economy. From high street retailers to community owned pubs, fan owned football clubs to farmer controlled businesses, co-operatives are everywhere and together they are worth £37 billion to the British economy. www.uk.coop

For further information, please contact:

Dominic Mills:

Tel: 0161 2141767

Email: dominic.mills@uk.coop

<small>Photo by Startup Stock Photos from Pexels https://www.pexels.com/photo/people-coffee-meeting-team-7096/</small>

The post The UK is failing its ‘precarious’ workers says new report appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Both off-line and online ‘on demand’ work is escalating – including a 10-fold increase in zero-hours contract work since 2006. There are 4.8 million self-employed (15 per cent of the workforce). Self-employment is also a pre-condition for gig economy jobs. Not surprisingly the growth of freelancing has expanded in a decade by over 1 million and two in three new jobs in the UK are being created by the self-employed. Jobs with limited rights are becoming the new normal.

The brave new world of on-demand work operates with no guaranteed hours, workplace or rates of pay and with risks and costs shifted from capital to labour. The median income for freelance workers and those on zero-hour contracts is 40 percent below the median of those in traditional employment. 77 per cent of the self-employed are in poverty with 1.7 million earning less than the national minimum wage.

As an expanding army of labour the self-employed will surpass the number of public sector workers during 2018. Crowd-sourced labour corporations are spreading to all services sectors, including: Deliveroo, Hermes and CitySprint for deliveries; MyBuilder and Handy for repairs, cleaning and gardening; TaskRabbit for odd jobs; Clickworker for office work; TeacherIn for supply teachers; SuperCarers for social care; and UpWork for higher skilled freelancers.

The profitability of the gig economy model is intrinsic to a design that saves 30% on labour cost overheads plus further savings on equipment, debt collection and insurance. Double standards are evident. Deliveroo in Germany and the Netherlands employs its riders and provides tools of the trade while UK riders have no such protection, provide their own bikes and are charged £150 for the company kit. Legal cases by UK trade unions challenging false self-employment by Uber, Deliveroo, CitySprint and others have secured ‘worker rights’ (including the minimum wage, holiday pay and sickness benefits) but the court decisions are subject to appeal.

Disruptive technology is ‘hollowing out’ corporations by eradicating conventional jobs and substituting casualised ones. Consequently the squeeze on real wages is greater today than any time since 1850. Between 2009 and 2015 the labour share of national income fell from 57 to 53 percent with a corresponding 4 percent increase to capital.

The mutual aid pushback historically by trade unions and co-ops against the unrestrained free market in the 1840s led to social justice solutions. A similar push back is kicking off today. Key innovations profiled include:

1. Freelance co-operatives have emerged in Europe in trades where self-employment is the norm. A good example is the network of 30 local actors co-ops in England and Wales. They collectively negotiate, manage and renew work contracts. Moreover they provide services complementary to the trade union bargaining services of Equity for the same members. Similarly there are 9 local Musicians co-ops in England and Wales that work collaboratively with the Musicians Union. A new co-op for educational psychologists has been set up backed by their trade union. There is enormous scope for more joint trade union and co-op partnerships like these and especially with the current growth in new freelance co-ops in the UK for tech workers, filmmakers, translators, interpreters, bakers and in many creative industries.

2. Business and employment co-operatives developed in France and Belgium during the 1990s. They provide a wide range of services that secure ‘worker rights’. Smart in Belgium with over 70,000 members is a good example. It handles for freelance members their invoicing and debt collection in ways that smooths out cash flow through guaranteed payment within seven days. Smart secures decent work by providing workspace, ongoing vocational education, equipment rentals and by managing social security arrangements to access benefit entitlements. Indycube a co-operative provider of workspace with more than 30 locations in England and Wales has formed a partnership with Community Union to develop a Smart solution for the UK. Smart co-ops have already been developed in seven other EU countries.

3. Social co-operatives developed first in Italy from the 1970s and operate in the fields of social care, community and public health, education and in the creation of employment for disadvantaged groups. In Italy they are supported by a national trade union agreement and provide services for over 5 million people with an annual turnover of more than €9 billion. The model has been developed in Canada, Japan, France, Spain, Portugal and other EU countries. There are a growing number of social co-operatives in England and Wales including Cartrefi Cymru Co-operative, Community Lives Consortium, the Foster Care Co-operative and CASA.

4. Union Co-op platforms are an emerging strategy aimed at advancing worker ownership and control in service industries. For example, the SEIU public services union in the USA is developing apps and a platform for community nurses and childminders. The CWA union in the USA, for example, has assisted taxi drivers in Denver to set up Union Taxi and Green Taxi co-ops and to become highly successful with their own apps. There is trade union support in the UK for developing apps with the highly successful Taxi co-ops (City Cabs and Central Taxis) in Edinburgh being a good example of partnership with Unite to negotiate rates and license conditions.

Supportive public policy and legislation is crucial for a transformative difference. The USA and the UK have weakly developed workplace co-operatives with less than 500 in each country. Italy by contrast has more than 24,000 worker co-ops and social co-ops that have created more than 827,000 jobs. This transformation was propelled both by legislation in 1985 (for worker co-ops) and 1991 (for social co-ops) and by public-co-op partnerships with local authorities. Italy has also pioneered innovations in co-operative capital funds and mutual guarantee societies that together make low-cost development equity and working capital readily accessible for workplace co-op development.

For a democratic sharing economy that is equitable for both workers and service users, a similar public policy framework is needed in the UK as well as an eco-system of local support including technical assistance, advice and co-operative finance tools. Our report shows how to connect these ways and means and highlights examples of emerging local authority strategic support for economic democracy solutions from New York to Bologna that should be pursued here.

Photo by DigitalMajority

The post Taking Joint Control – Trade Union and Co-operative Solutions for Decent Work appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Pim Kemasingki: The past couple of years have been rather unsettling for many of us who look out at a world we hardly recognise and certainly don’t feel much confidence in — environmental destruction, gaping social inequality, greed and shallow materialism, corporate monopoly, cultural toxicity and political atrophy. It isn’t a pretty picture, and if the future is a continuation along this path, it does not come with great promise. Thankfully there are solutions out there; the key now is how to inject those initially uncomfortable solutions into a resistant mainstream.

In 2012 I interviewed Chiang Mai resident and Belgium social entrepreneur Michel Bauwens [May 2012: When Capitalism Ends and P2P Markets Thrive], who sits on the (en)rich list, alongside Mahatma Ghandi and the Dalai Lama as one of the people whose ‘richness’ is not defined by their bank balances, but by what they can offer back to humanity. He talked about his belief that the end is nigh for capitalism and advocated a solution in the formation of commons through the sharing of knowledge, technology and wealth. He warned that the earth’s resources were limited and that the gobbling up of our resources by the propulsion of capitalism was simply no longer viable or sustainable. Bauwens is Co-founder of the Foundation for Peer-to-Peer Alternatives, which researches peer production, governance, property and the open and free participatory modes of human cooperation.

So I thought it was time to catch up with Bauwens again to see how far along he has come in his search for and implementation of solutions to humanity’s current challenges.

“If you are a farmer using pesticides on your land, you are impoverishing the land every year, so after a certain amount of harvests your land is dead. If you are an organic farmer, each year you farm your land is better and better. You can simply apply the same principles to people,” explained Bauwens. “Each year Airbnb and Uber are active, the more social problems they create. For instance in Barcelona, Airbnb is chasing away all the poor residents from their neighbourhoods and think about Uber drivers who have no pensions, no insurance. Did you know that freelancers are the fastest impoverishing social category in Europe?”

Bauwens is the strategic advisor for SMart, a social enterprise founded in Belgium, but which now boasts over 250,000 members across nine European nations. Members are mainly freelancers who contribute around 6.5% of their earnings to the collective. In return SMart provides shared resources such as IT systems, accountants and business advisors while also helping with the collection of invoices and paying members as soon as a week after invoicing as well as covering unemployment benefits, taxes, pensions and health insurance. SMart saw a 17% growth last year.

“Private platforms are designed to make labour as cheap as possible by letting individual workers and suppliers compete against each other for the lowest prices, exploiting resources and manpower to satisfy shareholders, whereas cooperative platforms guarantee wages and create ecosystems,” explained Bauwens who is currently working on an ecosystem between Berlin, Brussels and Barcelona, boycotting the morass of nationalist politics to create an alliance of cities as a transnational form of governance where the development of co-ops and unions will fund alternatives in areas such as housing, land, energy and communication. “Housing is so expensive in Europe now that progressive cities such as Ghent has set 15% of new development areas to be leased for 99 years as a community land trust. This means that the land becomes a common and is managed by a group of people through a trust. This is an ideal way to protect resources so that housing co-op members can be guaranteed rental prices for life, even able to pass down the property to their children, though they won’t be allowed to sell it. In Ghent they are also now doing collective and non-profit car sharing. These new projects are for neighbourhood blocs so that a neighbourhood will figure out its members’ transport needs, pool resources and purchase cars to be shared. It has been proven that one shared car can replace 12-14 cars, after all, according to Uber’s research, most cars are idle 96% of the time. In Germany 40% of the energy is now renewable and 60% of the markets is in the hands of consumer owned energy co-ops. It all started with co-ops of 50-60 people who decided to collectively invest in solar panels, selling off their surplus to neighbours who can also join the co-ops for as little as 250 Euro shares. Once this system began to work and more and more co-ops were formed, the minority became the majority. In 2006 there were 50 similar urban commons projects in Ghent, in 2016 there were 500. There are studies which are showing exponential growth in these types of initiatives in Europe. My contention is that through mutualisation we can reduce our footprint by 80%.”

“This doesn’t mean that such systems can’t be transnational, actually, what I propose is inherently transnational, but not inter-national, i.e. the cooperation of citizens and organisations rather than a collaboration between nation states.”

Bauwens also believes in working on the political level, though he contends that nation-states are currently too weak, when compared with entities such as international corporations, to be effective in leading the charge for change. He is instead focusing on creating parallel infrastructures, working mainly with cities and collectives who can come together, boycotting the interests of corporation and the quagmire of national politics, to create a groundswell for a more sustainable future.

“This doesn’t mean that such systems can’t be transnational, actually, what I propose is inherently transnational, but not inter-national, i.e. the cooperation of citizens and organisations rather than a collaboration between nation states” he clarifies. “In fact, I am working on creating transnational infrastructures for entrepreneurial coalitions to slowly build a counter power to the current monopoly situation. Look at Uber, it is powerful not just because of its ride-sharing software, but because of AI which learns from the behaviour of people, generating valuable data which they then sell. You need massive capital to do that and small groups can’t begin to compete, that is why you need to mutualise.”

Pointing to the 25,000 members of Chiang Mai’s various digital nomad groups as an example, Bauwens explains that these 21-35 year olds are what he calls labour aristocracy or the cognitive class; well paid, well-travelled and connected to opportunities. “That’s when things go well,” he explains, “but the downside is they are completely unprotected, there is no health insurance, no pension, they own nothing tangible. The question is how do we create a transnational solidarity mechanism to protect them when states won’t or can’t. We are thinking of virtual nations right now and though there are definitely emerging global infrastructures of support, it would be great if we could create a safety net for these bright young minds so that they can have a level of security.”

The general idea is that nation states are leaking from both top and the bottom and while they are aware of it, they are unable to change, hence the exponential response to peer to peer ideas and initiatives. On one hand technology is taking the lead in many areas of change. Look at Bitcoin and Blockchain, a revolutionary human- and government-free currency which promises to level the playing field. Yet with all technological advances, it comes with its benefits and its threats. While we can all, in theory, mine and profit from these currencies, the cost of a computer to mine effectively is prohibitive to the average person and while arguments still rage as to the exact number, it has been reported that Bitcoin uses up as much energy as the Republic of Ireland, and that’s not to even go to the black market trade and all the social woes it encompasses.

“For me the key issue is governance, not technology,” says Bauwens. “That is my biggest critique of Bitcoin and Blockchain where the prevailing thought is that the machine is the solution. Because of the current imbalance of power by those who control technology, transforming the power from the states to corporations — surveillance, data gathering of our activities, management and control of social networks — anarcho-capitalism was born. Anarcho-capitalism doesn’t trust human foibles and believes that you can create codes to manage everything. But this vision means that everything is reduced to market transaction and contracts. Have you ever played monopoly? We all start off as equals but because we are competing for scarce resources there will always be a winner and losers. I am totally against money ruling us. I believe that it is the dialogue between citizens and the governance of systems that should determine the market. The market should serve people and you should have markets which have checks and balances imposed on them so that they do not destroy the environment, create social tension or increase inequality. Because then you have fascism… and Trump.”

“We are running out of possibilities for growth, and historically that is when revolutions happen. “

Bauwens acknowledges that human greed is an integral part of problem, but contends that in spite of what many think, this isn’t our only nature or driving force. “We are mixed beings and our current system stimulates this greedy part of us,” he explains, “but if we have a system to keep our greed in check for the purpose of the collective, and one which helps to stimulate other human characteristics, then I think we can have a brighter future. We are currently short-termists, seeking instant gratification. It wasn’t always so. In nomadic days the results of activities weren’t sold, but were shared with the family, with small communities pooling their resources. When the agriculture revolution occurred the gift economy emerged with people keeping peace by giving things like food surplus or manpower, the more you give the more people will feel obligated to give back. It wasn’t until Adam Smith in the 18th century that the free market emerged, along with the belief that self-enrichment was something good. I think we can all see now that this isn’t so and it is time for a new way of thinking. What I’m proposing is not about abolishing greed and markets altogether, but rather to re-embed them into society. Markets and states should serve society, not the other way round.”

“Look at Chiang Mai, at co-ops and collectives like Pun Pun or shared working spaces,” points Bauwens, “They are there, they are working, and they are effective. Next, look at Europe where these co-ops are forming larger networks and gaining social and political clout. Once you have the power to negotiate, then you can go to the government and demand change, such as subsidies for renewable energies. It is blatantly obvious that we must combat exponential resource growth, so what are the solutions? One of course is technology; and there are great strides being made to find alternative sources of energy as well as ways to reduce our consumption. But with the population exploding and large scale threats such as climate change on the horizon, technology may not be efficient and effective enough to support the survival of all seven billion of us. That is why I propose a change in logic. If we have purpose-driven companies where there is a wall between management and investors, where there is a limit on the number of years for return and where funders, founders, workers and users are all beneficiaries of the company, then the aim becomes collective. The entire way of thinking naturally shifts to the common good.”

Bauwens uses British Petroleum, where he used to work, as an example of a corporation which spent millions buying up renewable energy companies and shelving their patents which threatened their monopoly, retarding the evolution of renewable energy in the UK for three decades. “It worked great for BP’s shareholders, but was a disaster for everyone else.”

“What is so exciting about when the internet became available to the public was that we suddenly had the capacity to wire our brains together, this coming together of our collective intelligence was akin or even greater in fact than the 15th century intellectual revolution following the founding of the printing press which suddenly mass produced and shared information and ideas across Europe. The challenge now is that we can either regress, which has happened many times through history, look at the Roman Empire for instance, when over stretching of resources led to its collapse, or we can reform and move to a higher complexity, a higher level of integration. The only way for capitalism to survive is to grow because it needs to accumulate capital and increase profits to operate. We are running out of possibilities for growth, and historically that is when revolutions happen. To avoid that we need to act now.”

“I am going to make a bold claim,” ended Bauwens, “that we can actually already see the underlying structure of the coming society. When the bigger crisis arrives, and it will, then we can either choose an unhealthy solution, or if we already have a good foundation, the natural path will be the healthy solution. We need to change the idea that man is only motivated by selfish behaviour. I believe that we are more complex than that and that people do things for more than one reason, so let’s give them a reason and a pathway to be more than they think they are.”

If greed is not our main drive, if human nature contains characteristics more complex than the satiation of the self, if we are able to be satisfied, not with less, but with enough, if we derive gratification and pleasure through contributing towards the whole and the future, if these ideas can become our propulsion and creed, if we can get over the limitations we have set upon our abilities and our ambitions, seeing that we are able and should aspire to more…then ours is the earth and everything that’s in it.

To find out more about Bauwens and his works please visit commonstransition.org and p2pfoundation.net.

The post Michel Bauwens: Talking Solutions for a Post-Capitalist Future appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Starting last November, I have accepted a consulting association with SMart and the press announcement below explains the strategic priorities of this engagement:

SMart welcomes Michel Bauwens, joining us for a research and development residency for the next 3 years.

Collaborative economy theorist, co-author of Network Society and Future Scenarios for a Collaborative Economy and founder of the P2P Foundation, Michel Bauwens works in collaboration with an international group of researchers on the application of peer-to-peer in governance, production and ownership.

Peer-to-peer (P2P)

This concept stems from the tech world and describes peer-to-peer relationships in networks, where all those with access to computers are equal. Michel Bauwens was one of the first to apply this principle to other aspects of society, considering it as a social structure. For him, P2P is principally concerned with the capacity of people to create common value as equals, and without authorization (permissionless).
For Michel Bauwens, the society of the commons, emerging from P2P dynamics, can offer a response to the ecological and social crises we are faced with today.

Objectives of the residence

Over these three years, Michel Bauwens will work alongside SMart on various projects:

• SMart is based on a digital platform that makes the right to economic initiative accessible to as many people as possible through a large-scale open cooperative. A new narrative is being created that should be better known at the international level.
• SMart aims to reorganize and accelerate its international development. Michel Bauwens will guide this process.
• Another of his missions will be assisting SMart in strengthening its connections with the world of platform cooperatives.
• Most of SMart’s community services were constructed in a centralized, top down way. We aim to promote grassroots development in a participative and contributory manner (peer-to-peer). Some of our new computer applications could benefit from development using peer-to-peer logic. With this in mind, Michel Bauwens will lead a change in our teams and help create conditions for contributors to participate;
• Finally, Michel Bauwens will stimulate the implementation of the ideas of the Commons in our cooperative.

Photo by Filmatu

The post SMart welcomes Michel Bauwens for a 3 year research and development residency appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Kevin Stark: SMart is a social enterprise founded in 1998 in Belgium. The project’s aim is to simplify the careers of freelancers in cities across Europe where SMart operates. These days, there are many freelancer services — cooperatives, coworking spaces, unions — but at the time of its inception, SMart officials were focused on one subsection of this workforce: artists. “That’s how we started,” says Lieza Dessein, a project and community manager for SMart. “What we realize is that a lot of artists have the same kind of issues when they are working. For example, a band would make up a contract. The band would actually pay the musicians with that single contract. And they had very irregular revenues.”

Dessein said the original idea was to take all the bookkeeping and other administrative tasks off of the artist. “The solution that they came up with was, OK we will just make up a company,” she said. “So instead of every artist needing to develop its own legal entity to be able to work, we will just share a company with the artists.”

Today, setting-up a coworking platform is not uncommon, but at the time it was a bold idea. Over the years, SMart expanded to provide services for many other types of freelancers, and changed with the evolving nature of work. Dessein spoke with us about the evolution of the project.

Kevin Stark, Shareable: I’m a freelancer in Chicago, and to my knowledge, we don’t have an organization that is as comprehensive as SMart. If I were moving to Brussels, how would you pitch me on the program? 

Lieza Dessein, SMart EU: We are a shared company. It’s quite important for us. We have over 90,000 members here in Belgium alone. And active members on a yearly basis, we are around 20,000. Active members are members who log in between one and three times a year. All of that together in 2016, they billed to our company in Belgium 136 million euros. We’re operating in nine European countries.

The development of the project in European countries is quite different from country to country. They’re not all that far developed as Belgium. Belgium is the mother house. For 20 years, we’ve had a full range of services. Our business model is a patient one. We grow steadily and smoothly and build up the community inside each country. We make sure that everything we are doing is under a legal frame that exists in that country, and we need also to adapt it to the culture in each country and in the communities. I would say, we haven’t changed all that much but we have shifted with the realization that the work environment has changed.

I love the lifestyle associated with freelancing and the freedom to work on a wide range of projects. The only rub for me is the stability and the lack of community. What’s different about SMart?  

We have a whole range of services, and the most important one is that people who work with us to guarantee that they will be paid in seven days after the end of a contract — even if the client hasn’t paid yet. We have a mutualized salary guarantee fund, and we take care of the debt collection for the freelancers as well. We share the company with our freelancers. We become the employer of all our freelancers and take on the responsibility linked to the employer status. The reason why we decided to become the employer of the freelancers is that for the moment it’s very difficult for freelancers to access social protection and the best social protection you can get is linked to the employment contract. And, if we manage to put everybody on the employment contract they have easier access to social protection as well.

How has the project evolved over time?

Smart means Societe Mutuelle pour ARTistes (mutualized company for artists). It was a company that aimed to take over the administrative burden linked to artistic entrepreneurship. Little by little we developed a tool that could cover a wider range of professions and we opened up to all freelancers. It’s an evolution that little by little you realize that you have a tool that can serve a whole new community that you weren’t planning to serve. There was this shift to make in the mind. We were saying, “Is it actually possible?” Because it’s a little bit frightening to say. I’m focused on musician, artist people in the theater. And it’s like you can have a grasp of that reality, and suddenly you get people working in the care service — everything that’s related to massage, yoga. We have I.T. consultants, and you get all those different professions. For the advisors, it could be overwhelming. We really rationalized: What are the needs of that community as a whole? What are the needs? They are the same as the freelancers. Along with shifting our mindset, we also strengthened our team with advisors coming from a wide range of different professions to make sure we have people who have a good grasp on particular professions.

What were some of those needs?

Our members have an irregular income, multiple clients, being an employee and then becoming an employer, develop different skills and jobs. We have a very fractured job environment where they will work a lot during the year and then not always in the summer. If you really take the whole community and say what are the needs? Instead of focusing on the differences — they need this, and they need that. At one point to say, where are the similarities? If you look at not from the perspective of differences but on a perspective of similarities. We needed to open up our services. Because freelancers — and artists — are evolving in complex legal issues, are confronted to a lot of administration and the risks involved in individual entrepreneurship are high.

SMart was evolving with the changing nature of work?

The workforce is more and more scattered and individualized. And you have all those individual entrepreneurs and the old school way of doing things is to say: I’m an individual entrepreneur,so I will set up my own legal entity. I will go for my own little office somewhere lost in city.

If you scale that model you can see that you are facing very isolated society where every individual is on their own and facing the same kind of difficulties. How do I set-up a company? How do I make myself known? How do I meet fellow people that are working in the same field? How do I find clients? Suddenly if we say, let us take over the administration, and then if you need training we have training sessions. And for the moment we are also investing in work spaces. We are really looking into different ways of bringing back [collectivism] among that scattered workforce. How do you reinvent solidarity amongst individual entrepreneurs? How do you make people create a community that eases their entrepreneurship? How do we reinvent the social protection for all workers?

Images: SMart’s website

The post How the European Social Enterprise SMart is Creating a Safety Net for Freelancers appeared first on P2P Foundation.

The development of digital technology has produced new types of precarious jobs, but it has also opened new ways of understanding and changing our society in more participatory ways. As the history of crises has shown, people and people-based organisations react against the devastating effects of changes and persist in the search for innovative solutions. New ideas and practices have been proposed; there have been experiments with new forms of organizations and ways of working. Some of them, such as the “sharing economy”, were immediately captured by emergent, digitally-based capitalist companies, but others created more ambitious and innovative initiatives. In recent years, certain concepts and experiences have interconnected with one another and existing initiatives. New forms of solidarity, reciprocity, property and collective governance are being analyzed, reimagined and promoted through the logic of the Commons, Platform Cooperativism and the Social and Solidarity Economy.

The Commons, as defined by scholar David Bollier, is a shared resource, co-governed by its user community according to the community’s rules and norms. Claims to the commons are built on the legitimacy of the right of access to goods and services, or to their preservation, as means of satisfying equity goals and long term resources involving cooperation and sharing. Natural (agriculture, housing, co-working…) and immaterial resources (software, database, IT infrastructure) may be involved.

These “commons” strengths are marginalized by capitalism and are subject to capture by the collaborative economy’s large digital platforms. They share values and methods with the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE), including cooperatives, in order to build a more democratic and inclusive society. They interest cities and trade unions.

In this context, a conference focused on Fair Sharing economy and Platform Cooperativism was organized jointly by La Coop des Communs, SMart, Confrontation Europe, the P2P Foundation, CECOP-CICOPA Europe and Ouishare, with the support of the European Economic and Social Council in Brussels on 5 December 2016. The conference highlighted diverse models of commons-based solutions, the relationship among various actors in the production chain, their roles in the creation of value and ways that value is distributed.

Image from the Developing a coop-commons alliance for a collaborative equitable and participatory economy conference. Brussels.

Reaching an understanding between Commons, Coops, Unions, Cities and Labour

The organisers and main panelists of the conference decided to continue working together to deepen the understanding of the issues being raised. Although they came from different fields, such as the commons movement, the cooperative movement, the Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE), cities and regions actively working with the SSE organisations and the labour movement, they agreed that they would benefit from a better understanding of each other through developing a dialogue and working together.

Cooperatives are inspiring models, as well as organizational resources, similar to other forms of social and solidarity economy organizations based on non-capitalist structures that give power to members and not to capital, are not-for-profit oriented or limited profit, indivisible reserves, etc. Are these models sufficient, particularly for commons that do not create market value and do not sell products on the market? Are there other social and solidarity models that suit them? If not, what would these be and how should we define and describe the needs to be addressed? Reciprocally, what can the commons bring to cooperatives, cities and unions ?

The aim of our project is to generate reflection and create links and possible convergences between several cultures and stakeholders, cooperatives, social and solidarity economy, commons (and open source and collaborative platforms), cities, trade unions. Creating a dialogue and understanding among these stakeholders is a prerequisite to any common reflection and common action such as concrete projects, advocacy, etc.

(L-R) Louis Cousin, Bruno Roelants, Pat Conaty, Hyungsik Eum, Nicole Alix, Lieza Dessain, Erdmuthe Klaer, Guillaume Compain, Stacco Troncoso, Julien Lecaille, Alison Tate, Alex Pazaitis, Thiébaut Weber. Image by Sarah de Heusch.

In this respect, we met in a deep dive encounter near Brussels, Belgium on 11 and 12 July 2017. The expected outputs were:

• A better understanding of our respective goals and methods, especially on the commons, by clearly identifying the points of “common interest”, “common understanding”, incomprehension, and diverging views.
• A position paper about the range of needs and focal issues to tackle together.
• A collaborative inventory of the experts and structures working on specific categories (e.g. legal experts, labor experts, etc.) that would provide an accurate mapping and help identify relevant collaborators for our future work.
• A glossary of commonly used terms, noting differences in various languages and contexts.
• A list of already-overcome problems and remaining challenges.

The commons and peer to peer, in relation with cooperation and unions

Presented by Stacco Troncoso (P2P Foundation) and Alex Pazaitis (P2P Lab)

Introduction to the Commons and P2P

The Commons, cooperatives and unions are ways of managing the complexity of the world. New forms of community organizations are emerging to manage a necessary worldwide transition towards new ways of creating and distributing value. Commons, cooperatives and unions are all involved in collective action to transcend the shortcomings of capitalism where the Commons are always a component, even if not identified as such.

The Commons have three main features: a resource or a gift (what), activated by a community (who) and rules/protocols set and used by this community and also for future generations (how). They are a social process, a mode of production and a way to see the world.

• What: We need to address the dwindling of natural resources and the privatization/commodification of socially productive knowledge. Enclosures are an historical process. Capitalism has led to commodification, not to commoning. Currently, natural resources are used as if they were unlimited, while knowledge is being enclosed through copyright laws and patents. These trends need to be reversed and the commons offer an alternative model for doing so. It is a question of human design. While the state and the market are here to generate capital, the commons have another logic: empowering the community.

• Who: There are potentially 4 billion people worldwide creating commons in fishery, hunting grounds, and more and more through digital commons. These commoners are neither producers nor customers; they form a novel category. Although commoning often takes place in the periphery or outside the state/market nexus, the commons can interact with both, reversing their logic away from control and accumulation toward enabling the capacities of civil society.

• How: Different types of organizations have emerged to counter the phenomenon of enclosures (mutuals, coops, trade unions, etc.) They all fight for decent work and for people to reap the value of what they produce as communities.

“Peer to peer” (or P2P) is a relational dynamic, a sort of transnational logic of relations inside and among the Commons. It is based on openness, transparency, the right to share and the right to hack (understood as repurposing existing systems for things they were not designed to do). P2P systems are highly efficient, which makes them very attractive to capitalism. If P2P becomes a dominant mode of production, how can we prevent capitalism from exploiting it? How we take control to prevent the extraction of value? How can we promote, not an extractive, but a generative economy?

P2P production is commons-based and commons-oriented.

Links with the state and the market

Peer to peer allows direct and distributed interactions between individuals or organizations. It helps crystallize collective power, more in a logic of a network than of a federation.

Commons-based peer-production is not designed a priori and from above. It is open to anyone who wishes to contribute (non-discriminatory, permissionless) and is anti-rival (the more people contribute, the higher the value). The P2P Foundation sees peer to peer as a model of global connection between nodes of commoning.

New technology

Digital tools allow us to scale up group dynamics; these are the new technological capacities that enable such production. The transaction costs are falling along with coordination costs (see cooking recipes).

Platform and Open Cooperativism

Platform coops and open coops share the same values. They overlap but have different narratives:

• Platform coops are about democratising the ownership and control of the digital platforms that mediate our day-to-day activities. The commons are not a core part of this message, but something additional.
• Open coops are supportive of Platform Coops and the urgent need they address, but in general they are more future-oriented. Open Coops can be described by 4 non-prescriptive patterns:

1. Oriented towards the common good and not only to the members interests; it is included in the statutes
2. Multi-constituent, they seek to enfranchise all those present in the value chain.
3. Actively co-producing commons and giving back to the commons.
4. Transnational in nature.

• Open coops can advocate for filters on the use of a commons. An example is the Peer Production License: depending on certain criteria, you may use a commons freely or you may need to pay a monetary fee. The idea of open coops is not to make it transnational from the top, like Mondragon did in Spain, but to replicate it locally (mainly through open source) and perhaps confederate later.
• Could these 4 patterns be added to the 7 ICA principles and be a field for negotiation?

Debates and reactions

• Who can be part of the community? These are the commoners who determine who is part of the community, it is more about equitable access (according to some criteria) than about strict equality. Yet, there is a risk that the rules set are discriminant against those perceived as “the other”. “This is the dark side of commoning” (Stacco).
• What is the true meaning of openness? Openness in a commons is more about transparency, replicability, and the right to share than the fact of being open to everybody. It is more about people being able to understand how things work.
• From a union’s perspective, commons look like collective action but not formally organized. Yet with Ostrom, we see that there are rules, and they are more agile and flexible.
• Commoning can take the shape of an institution. The division between the state and the market is a social construct. Commoning plays around and between those two worlds.
• It’s hard to find resources for commoners. This why commoners need cooperatives and ethical market vehicles. They need to ensure their own social reproduction away from capital..
• Commons is a sexy word and it can ignite the imagination, but it can also be coöpted; we have to be cautious.
• What brings us together is an effervescence of solutions to the global socio-environmental crisis. ‘Commons-cooperation union’ could sum up our meeting. “The shared mission of our organisations is to help those who contribute to the creation of commons get recognized, paid, and be able to defend their rights and interests”. (Stacco)

The Cooperative Movement

Presented by Bruno Roleants (CECOP-CICOPA Europe)

What is a cooperative?

The starting point in the commons is the resource; in a cooperative, it is the community.

Cooperatives were created when the modern enterprise and the modern state were emerging. Since the beginning, a cooperative is:

– An association of persons that have specific roles, common needs or aspirations. The persons are the stakeholders, which is why they make an link between the needs and the stakeholders. The needs are collectively identified, but the persons who create the coop also represent a wider community.

– An enterprise, not a club. The enterprise is instrumental for the association of persons with 2 criteria: joint ownership, and democratic control.

The cooperative movement has been able to define itself and is now recognized by governments, trade-unions, people. This is the reason why cooperatives hesitate to change this definition, not to have to give new definitions to their partners.

Principles and Relation with the external world

The cooperative is by no means the final purpose of its members; it’s an instrument to reach a common goal.

There are 7 International Cooperative Principles:

1. Open and Voluntary Membership
2. Democratic Member Control
3. Members’ Economic Participation
4. Autonomy and Independence
5. Education, Training and Information
6. Cooperation Among Cooperatives
7. Concern for Community

Some clarifying points:

Autonomy: A cooperative must be a private structure, independent from the State, which means that a public authority can’t retain the majority of the cooperative.

Openness: A cooperative must give access to persons who are eligible (eg. farmers) but it does not mean that any unemployed person can go into a workers’ coop in search of immediate employment.

Cooperation between cooperatives: This principle can create bridges between cooperatives and may be applied to open coops and/or commons.

Relations with the community: You must plug into a wider community. This principle, formerly implicit, officially became the 7th ICA principle in 1995.

Democracy: the principle one person/one vote can be adapted, by giving the possibility to have several delegates to the general assembly, who have each one voice.

Financial aspects:

Each member has to participate in contributing to the capital. Remuneration is often strictly limited and calculated according to the volume of transactions. The surplus made by the cooperative can be distributed among members according to the volume of transactions made with cooperatives.

Moreover, a certain part of the surplus must be reinvested within the coop as an indivisible reserve, which is non nominal. This often represents an important percentage of the equities. There are 2 opposing views on this crucial point:

• The reserves must be shared if the members decide so (UK, North of Europe)
• The reserves are indivisible and must be devoted to a similar organization or to the State in case the cooperative terminates.

Connection with the Commons:

• Contrary to the Commons, cooperatives start around communities, not resources.
• The multi-stakeholder coop model seems to be thriving, eg. the social coops model in Italy or the SCIC model in France. They are oriented towards general interest services.
• Three facts seem to have put more emphasis on the commons recently: shifts in property law, the rise of technological innovations, and a growing ecological concern.

Debates and reactions:

• How to connect the commons with employment rights?
• Can indivisible reserves be considered as commons?
• Can human capital be considered as a commons? See the education principle.
• The multi-stakeholder form of cooperative seems to be a structure facilitating commons (but multi-stakeholder coops are usually not a commons per se).
• New tools of open democracy are very interesting, but:
  • How can we lead good negotiations online?
  • How can we be aware of the stakes when we belong in several organizations?
  • How do we protect the weakest in open discussions, so as to avoid silencing people or taking decisions without someone’s opinion?*

The Social and Solidarity Economy

Presented by Nicole Alix (La Coop des Communs)

The Social and Solidarity Economy (SSE) includes all the private legal bodies with activities in line with social economy principles: social goal, democratic governance, and profit (if any) mainly put toward the development of the enterprise, non-divisible assets, etc. They mostly include associations, cooperatives, mutual societies, or foundations.

SSE is an umbrella concept for different kinds of organizations, which all need institutional recognition.

The statutes are important and so are the rules and tools for managing and governing. Isomorphism can result from management tools.

There are different national cultures regarding the SSE. For example, recently, French law recognized social enterprises organised as commercial societies in its scope, which is not the case everywhere in Europe. And as regards unions, they are not much involved in the French social economy because social services in the working world have traditionally been assigned to works councils.

There is a trend towards a higher recognition of the SSE in Europe. CEP-CMAF, which was created in 1989, has become Social Economy Europe, which creates a list of standards very close to those of the cooperative movement. The European Council took a resolution on the SSE in 2015, as did the European Parliament also; many national laws recently took the same direction. Right now there is a trend towards institutionalization of the SSE, which helps regulation and legitimization, as opposed to, for example, the woolly or unclear concept of social business.

SSE has always been involved in services of general interest, the defense and promotion of which have been a great fight in the EU for nearly 30 years now. General interest and common good are always the result of hard negotiations. Making a stand for common goods is essential.

The commons are, in this respect, a response to the marketization of the SSE. There’s been a shift from a civic towards an economic conception of the social economy. Public procurements have changed the spirit of social economy: professionalization, concentration of structures, marketization… Civic and economic worlds shouldn’t be separated (e.g. the disregarded Third Sector). The commons have the advantage of merging both things. The common good can be a unifying concept for making coalition partnerships between public authorities, commoners, businesses, social economy structures. The commons can learn from the volunteering culture of SSE, for instance, some people are simply giving, but don’t ask for direct reciprocity.

The SSE principles oriented towards sustainability (asset locks, devolution of equities to a non for profit organization) can be helpful for the commons. Can the commons be part of the SSE?

Trade Unions

Presented by Thiébaut Weber (ETUC) and Alison Tate (ITUC)

In a sense, trade unions can be considered as commons: they steward the workforce, they form the community of workers, and they have a set of rules. They are not a productive entity but they ensure that the value created is remunerated fairly.

Would trade-unions be useful in a world of commons and cooperatives? Our social model is our commonwealth.

Unions are fundamental to keeping things together in order to allow people to make the best of their growing autonomy (enabled by digital platforms, for instance) rather than being exploited. They should also protect commons (skills, infrastructures…) to allow workers have the productive means in their hands.

Trade unions’ claims regarding the digital economy are focused on more information on the productive processes of platforms, better coverage of non-standard forms of employment or independent workers, openness of data. They want to accompany change in order to reach an acceptable digital transition in terms of working conditions. They challenge this new conception of work, ie. “we are all entrepreneurs”.

Workers and unions are concerned by the global supply chain: they do not want to lose what they have fought to get. Previous experiences of transition were not successful. The narrative on the commons have to focus on these preoccupations: protecting together the standards we have.

There are two good entrances to convincing unions to commit to the promotion of commons:

• The sustainability of companies is more sustainable (the way the wealth is produced and managed)
• The quality of jobs, how to manage the work forces.

Debates and reactions:

• What brings us together is the quest of a better work (ILO’s “decent work”) and it goes through a revival of cooperativism, unionism…
• We have to extend the range of work and social protection. According to SMart, getting out of the employer/employee relation is the only way to come up with universal security.
  It is also important to recognize invisible/unpaid work. For the moment, no one recognizes those who contribute to the commons because they don’t get paid for it. The issue of universal basic income, proposed by Guy Standing and supported by many unions, is a federating concept to that matter.
• There is a need for alliances. Union coops have been successfully developed in the UK and the US. There is also an enormous field of collaboration to be envisaged at the ILO or at the European Commission.
• In many cases, it is more the role of states to regulate, so it is complicated to find alliances between cities and unions in Europe, while in the US, for example, it is more on the city level that things like wages are negotiated, as shown by the campaign ‘Fight for 15’. But unions can bargain with cities when it’s appropriate.
• Could unions use their pension funds to help? It is a longstanding discussion within unions but for now, nothing is happening. Pension funds of union trusts (essentially in the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian world) have investment criteria like tobacco disinvestment or labor conditions, but focus just a little on the social economy.
• We have to be careful about the commodification of all sectors, like the care sector.

Unions and Cooperatives in the UK

Presented by Pat Conaty (Co-operatives UK)

Developed economy is becoming undeveloped economy. We see new enclosures of work, of social protection, of land. Precarious housing is accompanying precarious work.

British unions go way beyond their core mission of defending the workers’ rights: because precarious workers and social issues are intertwined, unions in the UK are supporting initiatives like housing coops, social coops, community land trusts, and try to create a synergy between those fragments of life.

In the Anglo-Saxon world, community development is very important (especially in the US with the Civil Rights Movement) for empowering marginal populations in community-based enterprises.

There are several unions that work tightly with coops to provide good employment to the community, eg. the musicians’ union in London, self-employed teachers; they somehow act as labor brokers.

A sectoral strategy should be considered.

In the UK, cooperatives widely resort to capital raising. Community shares have been issued in the UK (“cooperative crowdfunding” with equity) for land trusts, pubs, football clubs, etc.

Cities and Municipalities

Presented by Erdmuthe Klaer (Reves Network)

REVES is a political network bridging cities/regions and local/regional social and solidarity economy structures. The context of cities/regions is really specific depending on the country, culture etc. However, everywhere you see that more and more, they recognise the need to build partnerships with other local actors (social and solidarity economy, other community organisations, universities, etc.).

Regarding the digital economy, cities/regions might act from different motivations. In some cases, the link is by accident, for example, when there is an issue with a platform like Uber or AirBnb. Others might already have strategies for the development of the digital economy as the economy of the future – but not all link them to other objectives they might have in parallel, such as the promotion of the social and solidarity economy. In other words, a kind of overall vision linking both might not exist in a number of cases. Some cities have begun to develop these overall visions and consider the digital economy also as an instrument to promote SSE. Still others may wish to do the latter, but do not have resources and capacities.

REVES developed, tested and adapted the Territorial Social Responsability (TSR) method, with experimentation in Italy, Sweden, Poland and Spain. Starting from a territorial analysis of needs and a reflection on the vision of inhabitants of their community (via tools enhancing participation), principles are developed. These principles are used by public authorities, enterprises and organisations to review their practices and strategies.

Based on TSR, the Community Foundation in Messina was built. It works based on funds, fixed assets and knowledge shared and further developed by a broad alliance of local actors (including the social and solidarity economy) with the aim to serve the local community and well-being of all. In Poland, social policies were developed using the TSR method. In Berlin, the Pfefferwerk Foundation is a good example for community-based urban development.

Public procurement has to be rethought: is the government entitled to make all choices for the citizens? Is it good to put social economy actors in competition? In cities such as Brescia, they do not carry out public procurements, instead they are convening diverse local actors to discuss what the needs and potentials are, and the projects they should launch.

It would be interesting to define a bit better the relationship between these examples, open cooperativism, and commons.

Debates and reactions:

• In Great Britain, a coalition of community land trusts acquired about 50 lands in several years without almost no help from public authorities. Maybe this model can be replicated, especially as physical spaces are much needed. Therefore, help from cities would be highly valuable.
• Developing territories/real spaces is a key issue, because even digital commons need physical spaces. But let’s speak of spaces rather than of cities because otherwise we would forget rural areas, which are already marginalized.
• We should consider the strategy of rezoning: when people favor local shopping, local development, rather than big brands and so on. It could be a strategy for the commons.

The experience of collaborative commons in Barcelona

Presented by Bruno Carballa (Dimmons, Commons Network)

The commons culture of Barcelona is rooted in a tradition of self-management, cooperatives and autonomy. The election of the Barcelona en Comu mayor can be partly explained by this ethos, and the city government is very local (≠ Podemos), coming from social movements, which can explain this cohesion.

There are many networks of common use in Barcelona and the digital commons mostly replicate the physical world interactions and are generally neighborhood-rooted. This policy is supported by the city hall. They have a sort of incubator for digital social projects: La Comunificadora, there are also research projects in line with this commons strategy (Dimmons for digital commons, IGOP for political science and urban commons). They bring knowledge to policy makers/actors and have a role of networking (eg. the Procomuns conference).

However there are downsides. Despite the city’s will, they don’t have much legal power to promote these initiatives, and some decisions can be contested at national or European levels. There is also a lot of wishful thinking, and they don’t have many resources. Another problem is that many initiatives happen but don’t mutualize.

Debates and reactions:

• In Brussels there will be be a regional election soon and there is a movement that wants to push for a commons strategy. How to replicate the Barcelona example? Barcelona has a very territorial spirit that goes beyond political divisions (often people identify with their district’s name); there is also a Barcelona en Comu narrative.
• There is a neoliberal independent party in power in the region so it’s hard to have a complementary strategy between the city and the region.

Territorial commons

Presented by Julien Lecaille (L’Assemblée des Communs)

After the festival Le Temps des Communs, which took place in Lille some years ago, they created the Commons Assembly of Lille.

Their activities include a mapping of the ecosystem (eg. coworking spaces), launching a territorial web search engine (Communecter), developing a General Political License, a Legal Service for Commons (free servers hosting community websites). They use a wiki.

They also work tightly with POP, a social enterprise specialized in the commons. POP has contracts with cities, businesses, etc. These contracts recognize the participation of commoners in the creation of services, and reciprocity agreements define how the company reinvests in the commons (tools, particular individuals, etc.).

In Tournai (Belgium) the Co-Construire event will take place from August 29th to September 1st, consisting of 4 days of workshops on writing a reciprocity contract, legal, fiscal implications and more.

Reflections on the Deep Dive Dialogue

These are the general reflections that emerged from the group’s dialogue, compiled by Guillaume Compain. They do not necessarily reflect any collective agreements, but more mutual understandings and a general train of thought to take our efforts forward. It is also important to note that the reflections were made on a personal level by those present at the Deep Dive and do not necessarily reflect the official position of the organizations or sectors they represent.

The commons as a paradigm shift

At once a system of regulation, a social process and a way to see the world, the commons offers a new paradigm in how to consider the production and stewardship of resources. In a commons approach, a community manages a specific resource and sets itself a range of rules for use, adaptable through time. The commons can be used to steward a physical resource, such as a fishery or a hunting ground, or a digital resource, like the knowledge pool Wikipedia, for instance.

The rationale of the commons is to take care of resources, not to extract value out through a process of commodification. It is a generative economy rather than an extractive one. The commons fight against marketization and enclosures, and in turn favor the openness of resources. At the same time, care must be taken regarding commons-washing (similar to greenwashing and sharewashing). A commons approach can be demanding and needs to have clear rules.

Promoting economic democracy

The commons bring a new perspective to economic democracy by introducing a new kind of regulation of resources, where the people are no longer in the dichotomy of producers or consumers; these roles are intermingled. Although it deals with a resource rather than with a need (as cooperatives do) commoners share with the cooperatives the vision of a democratic way to organize human activities. The commons are in line with the spirit of multi-stakeholder organizations such as the SCIC cooperatives in France, the social cooperatives in Italy, or the model of open coops promoted by the P2P Foundation, ie. transnational multi-stakeholder cooperatives contributing to the commons and oriented towards the common good.

All agree that the multi-stakeholder cooperative should be supported more deeply. The multi-stakeholder cooperative could even be a structure facilitating the commons (even though it can’t be a commons per se).

Empowering the community and favoring local development in new partnerships with public bodies

In recent years there has been a shift from a civic to an economic conception of the social economy. Notably, public procurements have changed the spirit of the social economy: professionalization, concentration of structures, marketization. Civic and economic worlds shouldn’t be separated (as it is with the disregarded “Third Sector” term).

The commons are a response to the marketization of the SSE and they can be a unifying concept to make coalition partnerships between public authorities, commoners, businesses, and social economy structures in order to enable participatory local development. This is in line with REVES’ strategy. REVES have tested and adapted the Territorial Social Responsability method to enhance citizen participation (eg. Community Foundation in Messina, Social Services Charters). For example, they push for a rethinking of public procurement whereby cities should convene a diversity of local actors to discuss what the needs are, what are the potentials and the projects they should launch. We should consider strategies of rezoning (local shopping, local development). The British model of community land trusts, acquiring urban spaces often with the help of cities, also seems to be an interesting option. Let’s also not forget rural areas, which are already marginalized.

The latest improvements of digital tools also help enhance the direct participation of citizens. P2P technologies, for example, allow the free collaboration of people, a new kind of collaboration, not designed a priori nor from top-down approach. Yet, developing physical spaces is a key issue even to support digital commons, because commoners need physical spaces for their activities.

A commons cooperative economy?

An economy where networks of cooperative organizations would use and steward shared commons can be envisaged. This is essentially the concept of open coops. The use of these shared resources could be based on certain criteria (socio-environmental purpose, openness, contribution to the commons) and through different mechanisms, like licenses.

Several territories are beginning to experiment with the development of an economy of networked organizations using commons. In Barcelona, the commons culture is rooted in a tradition of self-management, cooperatives and autonomy, and is now backed by the municipality (Barcelona en Comu, a left-wing government close to social movements) through some instruments like La Comunificadora (a sort of incubator for digital social projects) and two research projects bringing knowledge to policy makers/actors and having a role of networking (Dimmons for the digital commons, IGOP for political science and urban commons).

Yet, at the city level, they lack resources and legal power. Another example can be found in Lille with the Commons Assembly. Among their activities, they are doing a mapping of the ecosystem, launching a territorial web search engine (Communecter), developing a General Political License, and Legal Service for Commons (free servers hosting community websites). They also have an interesting interaction with POP, a social enterprise specialized in the commons, whose commercial contracts recognize the participation of commoners in the creation of services and define in what terms the company reinvests in the commons (tools, particular individuals,etc.). The Co-Construire event will take place in Tournai (Belgium) from August 29th to September 1st, with 4 days of workshops on writing a reciprocity contract: legal, fiscal implications, and more.

Supporting commoners and promoting decent work

Considering all the potential virtues of commoning for the empowerment of the community and economic democracy, there is a need to help those who contribute to the creation of commons get recognized, paid and able to defend their rights and interests.

First of all, it is important to find out how to connect the commons with employment rights. Unions were also worried about the role that would be offered them in a commons world. We have to extend the scope of work and social protection. According to SMart, considering access to social protection and labour rights outside of the employer/employee relation is the only way to overcome many current challenges. Multistakeholders coops and common based initiatives allow that frame, as participants are also owners.

It is also important to recognize invisible/unpaid work. For the moment, those who contribute to the commons aren’t recognized for their economic and social contribution because they aren’t paid, and aren’t paying social contributions. The solution of universal basic income, supported by some organisations, is challenged by others as too liberal. This issue has to be studied.

The necessity of being inclusive

Moreover, new tools of open democracy, although very interesting, carry certain risks. Can we lead good negotiations online? How can we be aware of the stakes when we belong to several remote organizations? How do we protect the weakest in open discussions, so as to avoid silencing people or taking decisions without someone’s opinion?

The commons can learn a lot from the volunteering culture of SSE. For instance, sometimes people just want to give without asking for direct reciprocity, so measuring the contribution to a commons is maybe not always necessary, although recognition and acknowledgement of such contributions is always helpful.

A need for alliances within the social and solidarity economy

The commons are both a way to empower citizens and to strengthen the actors of the social and solidarity economy. Therefore, it requires and allows for stronger collaborations between coops, unions, cities, associations, etc. We have a large window of opportunity here, all the more as there is a trend towards a higher recognition of the SSE in Europe, that helps regulation and legitimization: the European Council took a resolution on the SSE in 2015, as did the European Parliament, and several national laws recently took the same direction. At a more micro level, self-help organizations like coops, mutuals and unions are appropriate answers to the shortcomings of our current social model.

The world of cooperatives can be highly valuable for the support of commoning. In the UK for example, cooperatives often resort to capital raising. This model could be expanded and used to support the commons. Another idea emerging from our discussion is to study to what extent the indivisible reserves of cooperatives could be considered as commons.

We have a wide field of collaboration between our respective organizations, notably at the ILO or at the European Commission.

The path to alliances with the unions

More than ever, unions are required to face the growing precarity of workers under the digital economy.

Union cooperatives have been successfully developed in the UK and US. In various cases, unions have acted as labor brokers and worked tightly with coops to provide good employment to the community (e.g.: a union supporting a musicians’ coop in London, another union supporting a cooperative of self-employed teachers). Community unions go way beyond their core mission of defending workers’ rights. Because precarious workers and social issues are intertwined, they support initiatives like housing coops, social coops, community land trusts and try to create a synergy between those fragments of life. A question is raised: could unions use their pension funds to help support this commons economy? It is a longstanding discussion within unions but for now nothing is happening. Pension funds of union trusts (essentially in the Anglo-Saxon and Scandinavian world) have investment criteria like tobacco disinvestment or labor conditions, but barely consider social economy. However, we can see that unions can be a precious ally in the promotion of commons and more cooperative models of organization for the future economy.

Two good entrances to convince unions to commit to the promotion of commons would be to show them i) how useful the commons can be to help the companies become more sustainable and ii) how it could impact the quality of jobs.

As a conclusion, we all agree that we should all join forces and go deeper in our common research, strategies and actions. Hence, a further reflection on the missions of our group is developed below.

Tentative Conclusions

Throughout the deep dive meeting, participants reached several common understandings as follows.

• The idea of commons can be an umbrella concept of this encounter. It was agreed that the idea of commons which has been strongly promoted by the commons movement can be also found in the value and practices of the SSE, the cooperative movement and the labour movement. More and more cities and regions adopt the idea of commons for managing citizens’ common resources through more participatory and democratic partnership. New initiatives and experiments are put in practice across different fields.
• To solidify the idea of commons, specific organizational forms in the SSE (in particular, multi-stakeholder cooperative model) might be one of the good frameworks. Certain parts of traditions and practices in the SSE and cooperatives may be renewed and reactivated in light of the idea of commons. For example, some practices such as indivisible reserves could be rethought as creating and increasing common wealth in the community across generations. The concept of general and collective interest which is one of the core missions of the SSE may be enriched with the idea of commons as well. It is also expected that the idea of commons and its innovative methods might counter the tendency of instrumentalization of the SSE by the State and by the market.
• As a broader but more concrete field, the role of cities and regions in promoting the commons received special attention. With the experiments already practiced in many cities and regions, it was stated that cities and regions have a growing interest in the idea of commons for building participatory partnerships with other local actors, as well as for developing the digital economy as an economy of the future.
• It should be noted that there are increasing concerns about new forms of work and employment in the changing world of work, in particular in the digital economy. Whereas the digital economy allows people to organize their work and life in different ways and to engage in the creation and promotion of the commons, it has also produced a significant level of precarisation and informalization of work and employment. In this regards, trade unions have focused on the protection of workers with non-standard work forms and an acceptable digital transition in terms of working conditions. Interesting experiences of union cooperatives, of the collaboration between trade unions and cooperatives for protecting workers with non-standard work forms, and of SMart as a specific form of cooperative for providing social protection and rights at work to freelancers were shared.

Based on the 2-days discussion, the deep dive meeting participants agreed to maintain this community, tentatively named “Co-Communs” (COmmons with COooperatives, Municipalities and UNions) and to develop common actions for

• research and knowledge
• organization of meetings and events
• political and legal advocacy
• service provision

This nascent community is as still flexible and inchoate as the phenomenon it want to focus on. However, the participants of this community believe that in this way, diverse ideas, experiences and competences from different fields may contribute to the development of the phenomenon around the idea of commons and as a consequence, a broader alliance for making better and sustainable our society and promoting decent works in the digital economy will be constructed.

Appendix

List of Participants

What is the social mission of this group?

Deep Dive participants were encouraged to summarize in one sentence what the objectives of the group would be. Here are their answers:

Lieza: “Encourage cooperation between the networks and see what are the resources that we can mutualise in an ambitious way”

Sarah: “Analysing present, future and desirable organizations of human activities that make a sustainable society: particularly issues of visible/invisible work, participatory governance, institutions…”.

Erdmuthe: “Forming an alliance of organizations, able to create and spread a pool of knowledge and competences for sustainable and participatory local development and solidarity between territories”.

Alison: “To develop a platform to share experiments, experiences, best practices, and a knowledge base of democratic economy at local/village/city/regional/provincial/state/national/multinational levels”.

Hyungsik: “Maintain a network to inform and be informed of what each is doing on our common issues”.

Stacco: “If P2P/network dynamics are moving from the periphery to the center of the economic activity, let’s ensure the economic benefits are circulated towards the commons/production of social value and not absorbed by capital”.

Pat: “Develop effective union/coop partnerships to create good work in the solidarity economy and as commons”.

Nicole: “Using, through common activities, the commons framework and practices to empower ourselves and our organisations to transform us and the world in order to take care of commoning and prevent commodification”.

Bruno R.: “Better analyze and define the commons and its categories as well as the link between the commons and the creation and preservation of:

1. decent and sustainable employment,
2. local and regional development
3. the preservation of natural and knowledge-based resources”

Alex: “From welfare to commonfare: promoting economic democracy, sustainable employment and livelihood”.

Bruno C.: “Provide expertise and do political advocacy to promote the development of the commons, SSE and new forms of ensuring decent work along with other similar organizations”.

Julien: “Contributing to the platform coop movement from a SSE, commons, trade unions and cities perspective”.

Guillaume: “Researching on and promoting (experimental) forms of multi-stakeholder cooperation (production or mutualization of resources) that include: a social mission, decent formal/informal work conditions, democratic governance and the stewardship of commons”.

What are the next steps?

As an emerging coalition, it is difficult to settle on concrete goals for the group. Certain directions emerged in the discussion, including:

Maintaining the community while helping and strengthening partner organizations by:

• Mobilising our communities’ capacities (people, resources and underlying relations)
• Mutualizing digital & physical infrastructures
• Encouraging dialogue between our organisations
• Collaborating with municipalities

Conducting research and knowledge work:

• Pilot and quantitative research projects, studies, joint experimentations, support of experiences, mapping (Commons & Coops & SSE), European research projects.
• Possible topics:

• social protection, social insurance, model of decent work

• good practices

• data protection/digital rights

• different models of commons

Organizing meetings/events

Creating an accessible online presence/narratives

• Training
• Pedagogy
• Glossary & vocabularies

Pursuing political/legal advocacy:

• Policy Papers
• Outreach

Provide services:-

• Funding base/access to fundings
• Legal services
• Training

These are all the possible directions the group put on the table, these must be prioritized and converted into specific actions.

This report was prepared by Guillaume Compain and collaboratively written by the workshop participants.

Lead image by Aaron Burden, other images by TODO, Chris Kay, Chris Lawton, Stephen Wolfe, Jaromír Kavar, Mercado Social Madrid, Marc Kjerland,Waldo Pepper, and the workshop participants.

The post Organizing and Governing the Commons: A Coop-Commons Multilevel Dialogue with Municipalities and Labour appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Alexandre Bigot-Verdier, Lieza Dessein and Thomas Doennebrink: The past year has been an exciting one for the platform coop movement. In December 2016, Nathan Schneider launched the “Buy Twitter” campaign. Twitter was for sale and he suggested that its users buy it and to change its legal structure into a cooperative. This would allow the redistribution of the value created on the platform among its community of users. The idea got more attention than expected and the campaign was even presented at the Twitter stakeholders’ annual meeting in May 2017. In the end the campaign failed but it had managed to question very publicly who controls the tools we use daily. Why are we accepting that the value we create on platforms is extracted and distributed to private stakeholders? Would we be willing to invest in the technology of tomorrow to ensure more ethical surroundings? How would we govern the platforms if we were in charge? And how could we reconnect the digital economy to the local communities?

During the Ouishare Fest 2017 many speakers addressed those questions in their presentations. The city of Barcelona invests very proactively in new ways of connecting citizens, encouraging a bottom-up approach. A former Twitter employee is currently building a co-governed platform to facilitate the construction of resilient digital collaboration tools by social movements. And freelancers are developing networks and tools to create resilient ecosystems of entrepreneurs.

The platform co-op movement is only two years old. Slowly but surely the movement has grown and it is now looking into ways to get organized. Trebor Scholz and Nathan Schneider did a tremendous job inventorying existing coops and advocating their actions throughout the world. They are connecting people with one another in an effort to ease knowledge exchange. Through this movement, coops, academics, policy makers and people involved in social economics found a communication channel to spread their ideas. In all corners of the world the notion of platform cooperativism is being promoted and debated. Nevertheless, the community is aware that if it wants to compete with the Silicon Valley’s mastodons there is still a long way to go.

Every year, Platform Coops enthusiasts gather at the Ouishare Fest. This year they decided to set up a spontaneous workshop. Their objective was to gather the main learnings and challenges encountered by their community. The rest of this document will relate the exchanges that took place among the participants during and after this encounter.

How to fund the platform co-ops?

Building platform co-ops implies patience. The coop business model is a patient one, it is built for long term benefits. A coop is a company that is nurtured and this is the main difference with the short term vision of the startup world. Private stakeholders invest heavily in startups hoping to be betting on a “unicorn” and to have a quick return on investment. This creates a hyper competitive environment that makes it very difficult for holistic companies to emerge and compete. Investors quickly lose interest when business models are not build towards fast and high profits. To make platform coops emerge quicker there is a need for regulation and funding.

Local authorities start to question and to regulate the digital economy. They realize that it is in their best interest to keep a close eye on these companies because they have a direct influence on their communities. The challenge for them is to look into ways to reconnect the digital economy to their local communities. For communities to thrive, the digital economy needs to be inclusive and not extractive. City policymakers from all over the world are taking measures to avoid invasive platforms and encourage local initiatives.

The harder challenge to tackle is funding. Private foundations and investment funds are starting to partially fund ethical digital compagnies. For example, Nesta (UK) and the city of Barcelona or Brussels are investing in this field. CoopVentures (FR) is a 16M euros fund dedicated to fair digital initiatives. We also see the emergence of alternative models such as crowdfunding platforms. Opencollective (US) and Startnext (DE) are exploring new ways to propose crowdfunding solutions to their communities. But is this a viable strategy to compete with the classical start ups?

The attendees of the workshop wonder how to involve bigger coops. Do traditional coops have the money to fund fair platforms and would they be ready and willing to invest in those companies? How can we create the necessary incentives? Some of them seem to be ready. Maif (FR) is investing in the broad specter of the collaborative economy. The “Conseil québécois de la coopération et de la mutualité” launched a lab on the sharing economy in Montreal (CA). So it seems that there is an ability and willingness to fund initiatives. It would be interesting to verify which initiatives are funded and if they are part of the fair-side of the sharing economy.

Another question raised by attendees is whether we should invest in a series of initiatives or consolidate existing ones. The reason behind this question is that money in the platform coop movement is scarce. So wouldn’t it be more sustainable to invest in initiatives such as Stocksy (CAN) or Fairmondo (DE/UK)? Those platforms have shown traction, enjoy a certain visibility and have an active community. Wouldn’t it be wiser to invest in these companies to ensure sustainability and help them become known worldwide?

This proposal was counter argued by other attendees who value local impact more than worldwide deployment. Should all platforms seek global domination and is that the only way to be sustainable? Should coop models scale, and if they do, how can they keep in touch with their community? And how can smaller coops get real traction if nobody knows that they exist?

Maybe Loconomics (US) will manage to bring a solution to the issue of smaller coops. Loconomics is a cooperatively owned app on which you can find transportation, child care and other services that are all cooperatively owned.

SMart (EU) on the other hand managed to scale and implement their business model into 9 european countries, respecting existing legislation and adapting the model to the local communities. They provide services to freelancers with whom they share a company. The value created is redistributed through the development of services for the community.

All attendees agree that funding is an issue and that there is a real need to develop and raise awareness on the social benefits of the (platform) coop movement. If we manage to highlight the positive social impact of cooperative entrepreneurship we might find more traction amongst ethical financiers and policymakers to invest in this sector.

How to transfer knowledge and know-how?

Raising awareness about coops seems central if we want this movement to grow. The coop model is not well known. It’s a model that is not often studied in business schools where students are introduced to more liberal ways of entrepreneurship. This is even more true in the startup culture where business models are very capitalistic and dehumanized. It looks as if the digitalization of the economy is obliterating the human aspect of entrepreneurship. The quest towards efficiency seems endless and the main purpose is way too often monetary benefits for private external stakeholders. The immediate collateral damages are the impact on the working conditions of the platform workers and the disappearance of much needed local tax money.

The good news is that the digital economy is fairly new and people still remember the internet of the nineties. An internet that was fairer, where our data was not yet outsourced and exploited at our expense. Patronizing companies took over huge chunks of the digital landscape but today people start to get organized and look into ways to regain control.

Movements like “Occupy Wall Street” and “Nuit Debout” revealed the growing concerns about social and economic inequality. Appetite for change also emerges with what we like to label “the Y generation”. A growing part of the population is showing interest in social economics. Schools start designing masterclasses studying alternative business models. Academics and journalists such as Trebor Scholz, Naomi Klein and Nathan Schneider encounter considerable attention. Think-tanks gather knowledge around holistic organizations. Cities are surrounding themselves with specialists of the P2P movements to better understand the needs of their local communities. Governments are looking into ways to regulate the digital economy to prevent the disappearance of local tax money. And entrepreneurs are (re)discovering the coop model and its benefits. In return, the coop sector is surprised to find itself scrutinized.

There is a real opportunity detected by the attendees of the workshop between the old bigger coops and the new emerging ones. The “old” coops have an expertise in holistic entrepreneurship and developed a set of tools required to operate in democratic ways. They also invented sustainable business models that are serving their communities. The newer coops are eager to benefit from that experience. Attendees would also love to experiment with digitalization in the coop sector. Digitalization could ease processes and collaboration within the coop sector. Open sourcing appropriate technologies could ease scaling and reduce operational costs.

One of the seven principles of the coop sector is “Cooperation Among Cooperatives”. Everyone agreed on the fact that solidarity amongst structures is needed. This solidarity could take different forms: financial, service oriented, consuming products of other coops, P2P exchanges, …

This topic brought us back to the educational part. How can the new sector learn from the old one and vice versa? How can we make the coop model and its benefits better known amongst entrepreneurs? According to some attendees, the best way for coops to transfer knowledge is by being involved in incubators or even by creating their own. They could mentor entrepreneurs and give them insight in their operational knowledge. By doing so, they would gain an insight in the visions of the younger generation and could integrate these in their own companies. The young entrepreneurs would benefit tremendously of the expertise of the older coops. For the attendees of the workshop, this could be a first concrete goal to advocate for.

Does the juridical status really matter?

A major debate between the activists of the platform coop movement is the one concerning the juridical status of the coop. Is a coop the unique way to implement decentralized governance and a fair redistribution of created value?

One of the founders of Affinity.works (US) indicated that they are a for-profit company operating in the same way as a coop. They were strongly inspired by the coop model but chose not to be one because it would have made their funding opportunities a lot more complex. Some attendees think this is a risky bet, as the collective ownership and the distributed governance are not principles linked to that particular juridical status. Others argue that it is not the juridical status that is the unique token of responsible ethical entrepreneurship.

The founder of Open Collective (US) pointed out that some initiatives are not even looking for a juridical status. The complexity of administration often is a disincentive to community driven initiatives. Not every initiative is willing to constitute a juridical entity but they do need a legal structure to be able to raise funds and redistribute gains. The situation is even more complex for transnational or international communities.

SMart does not have solutions for volunteers, but it is tackling this problem for “regular“ workers. Indeed, not every freelancer wishes to set up his individual company so SMart is sharing theirs. Every member can use the company as their own. By doing so, they mutualise a part of their revenues which in return gives them access to services designed to ease their entrepreneurial activities.

Attendees seem to agree that, when possible, the coop model should be favored, but that it is important to remain open to hybrid and alternative solutions. There is a strong attachment to the distributed governance and the social impact of the companies. There was a consensus about the fact that we should be inclusive in an effort to learn from each other and by doing so to better our entrepreneurial endeavours continuously.

Context :
This document has been initiated by Alexandre Bigot-Verdier, Lieza Dessein and Thomas Doennebrink after the workshop held at the 2017 OuiShare Fest. This workshop was a spontaneous gathering of platform coops enthusiasts. The next Platform Cooperativism conferences in Toronto and then in New York will be occasions to challenge these orientations.

Lead image copyright: © www.StefanoBorghi.com. Used with permission.

The post Platform Coops Looking for the Next Steps appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Who are the freelancers of Europe? How do they live and work in the different countries of the European Union? How many of them choose to be freelancers and how many simply have no alternative? What are their needs and expectations? How do they deal with the uncertain, precarious nature of freelance work?

These are some of the questions that i-WIRE, the first European-wide survey of freelancers, is meant to answer.

Our colleague Sarah de Heusch, a project officer and advocate at SMart has recently forwarded us this survey for autonomous workers. If you’re a freelancer working in Europe, please take the survey here. We also encourage everyone to share the links in their networks.

Sarah de Heusch: The i-wire project is currently disseminating a survey addressed to freelancers and broadly autonomous workers (that is self-employed or salaried through coops or other) that are skilled and that work in the service sector, in traditional professions governed by professional orders and rolls, but also for those active in new professions that lack such established structures.

The project analyses trends on new autonomous workers and prospects best practices of Unions, Quasi-unions and Labour Market Intermediaries regarding representation of autonomous workers across Europe. More info here: http://www.i-wire.eu/.

I-wire stands for “Independent Workers and Industrial relations in Europe” it is an European-wide project, co-financed by the European Commission and lead by Università degli Studi di Milano & Université de Liège (LENTIC lab), together with partner universities (check here to see them all), and in partnership with ACTA, SMart and UPTA.

Link to the questionnaire is here http://www.i-wire.eu/survey/. There is one questionnaire per country, make sure you pick the right one.

Thank you for supporting the project by answering the questionnaire!

The post I-Wire: Surveying Autonomous Workers appeared first on P2P Foundation.