Cooperative Financial Institutions

Worker-Owners of America, Unite!

michaeljohnson — Thu, 15 Dec 2011 15:17:40 -0500

Is the NY Times getting it?

Move Your Money Campaign --Amy Goodman

michaeljohnson — Wed, 02 Nov 2011 17:27:58 -0400

Campaign Grows to Divest from "Too Big to Fail" Banks to Local Banks, Credit Unions...Saturday Nov. 5 set as "Bank Transfer Day"

Mondragon Training Journal - May 16, 2011: What's the Word on Mondragon

ajowa — Mon, 16 May 2011 18:10:08 -0400

Author's self-portrait outside of Mondragon headquarters.

Five of nine of us touring Mondragon arrive on Sunday in Bilbao, make our way to Mondragon-Arrastata, get settled and find food at the Monte bar a short walk from The Hotel Mondragon where we are staying for the week-long tour. I fall into bed at about 10:30 (4:30 pm EST), the 12 hour journey and time zone change wearing me out. Tonight there is no reading of The Kemetian Tree of Life, my nightly fix.

A big idea for boosting our cooperative economy?

michaeljohnson — Wed, 24 Nov 2010 12:48:56 -0500

The New America Foundation (NAF) has made a large size policy proposal for basic economic development in the US. To these untrained eyes and ears it would seem that it is offering a public home for building on and expanding our cooperative economy here in the states. So I am passing it on to the more knowledgeable for assessment and action.

What should our movement look like in 2040?

michaeljohnson — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 10:13:27 -0400

Where will our movement be in another 30 years? In 2040, I will be 76 years old. Chances are, if I am still alive, I will be hopefully still be blogging (or whatever the kids will be doing in those days) but I will likely not be fully involved in the movement or physically working a 40-50 hour work week. Almost all of our current leadership will be in the same position. The current crop of Toxic Soil Busters will be pushing 50 (like I am now). What should our movement look like in that age?

Mondragon Diaries: Day Five

michaeljohnson — Sat, 02 Oct 2010 12:34:35 -0400

Our first stop is another component allied with Mongragon University called SAIOLAN. It's an incubator project for helping to launch new coops and high-tech businesses as well as training new entrepreneurs.

Mondragon Diaries: Day Three

michaeljohnson — Thu, 30 Sep 2010 09:49:07 -0400

Our topic this morning is the wider range of the cooperative movement, both in the Basque Country and Spain. Mondragon is a part of the Basque Cooperative Confederation. There are currently 755 cooperatives in the Basque Country, and only 80 of them are the worker-owned MCC coops. There are a total of 537,000 members of all the coops, but only 54,919 are worker members, and 37,860 of these are the MCC worker-owners.

Taking the cooperative advantage to scale: 2

michaeljohnson — Wed, 29 Sep 2010 18:12:37 -0400

In the recent series on his blog, The Workers' Paradise ,McNamara is very strong on the possibility of the cooperative movement being able to move to scale. But he wisely directs our attention to the big problems this is going to bring, problems that are already burdening cooperatives. The primary one he refers to is “the agency problem” (which is pretty much what I mean by “top/down problem”).

Mondragon Diaries: Carl Davidson's Five Days Studying Cutting-Edge People and Tools for Change

michaeljohnson — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 21:16:22 -0400

I'm with a group of 25 social activists on a study tour organized by the Praxis Peace Project. Our focus is the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation, a 50-year-old network of nearly 120 factories and agencies, involving nearly 100,000 workers in one way or another, and centered in the Basque Country but now spanning the globe. We're here to study the history of these unique worker-owned factories, how they work, why they have been successful, and how they might be expanded in various ways as instruments of social change.

Taking the cooperative advantage to scale: 1

michaeljohnson — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 13:16:09 -0400

Thank you, John McNamara for advancing the conversation about the opportunities, issues, and problems of taking the cooperative advantage to scale.