Traditional companies are becoming worker cooperatives, both to sustain during tough economic times and because years of success have enabled these companies to reward their workers. State and local governments are beginning to get wise to this trend, too, adding legislative influence to an already vibrant movement.
Making a New Economy: Getting Cooperative
Worker’s cooperatives are of course a logical move when the paternalism of family ownership has given way to giant corporate silos. Instead of unions which exist to insulate and protect workers from employers whose interests are not the same as theirs, small nimble firms that are needed today will rely on learning and the brains of labor, not large stocks of capital and physical resources.
The idea of banding together as workers whose interests are roughly the same, and whose fates rise and fall together leads to collectives and cooperatives.
Barbara K Iverson 