Size of worker co-op sector

I collated some info for the last worker co-operative council meeting (Co-operatives UK's representative body for worker co-ops). I thought you might be interested in some of the figures.

This does come with a warning however: These are my own own calculations and not that of our specialists. These may not be the same as our official figures in the more rigorous annual report on the co-operative economy and don't include large employee trust co-operatives like John Lewis (they just massively scew the figures by a few £bn).

This table does however give an indication of the split of worker co-ops by different industry sectors, which may be of interest.

Industry Sector	Numbers	Turnover
Food Retail & Wholesale	41	£74,398,944
Non-food retail	23	£51,047,281
Engineering and Technology	8	£30,947,437
Media and Communications	32	£4,544,368
Newspaper & Publishing	8	£4,302,618
Research and Consultancy	8	£2,871,121
Education, Employment and Training	40	£2,435,466
Business Services	30	£2,416,334
Business Consultancy	19	£1,494,555
Environmental Services IT Services	21 14	£1,336,807 £1.186,368
Health & Social Care	25	£1,103,153
Creative Arts	34	£1,074,211
Childcare	30	£961,133
Manufacturing	15	£532,305
Financial Services	5	£410,023
Architects	9	£408,706
Community	12	£295,697
Energy	8	£165,624
Leisure and Tourism	11	£122,332
Café, Catering	9	£36,501
Agricultural	17	£23,681
(blank)	12
Grand Total	431	£181,314,665

Unfortunately as there is no specific worker co-op legal form and therefore regsiter, we only know figures for the worker co-ops that tell us and usually only from our members.

On the map below are all the worker co-ops we know about (and if their members). If you know about a worker co-op that isn't on this list, let me know (it may well be classed as another type of co-op or we just don't know it). A case in point is Northern Ireland and I don't believe there are only 2 in the whole of Northern Ireland.

I've also llisted if their paid up member of Co-opertives UK.  Membership is voluntary and the annual subscription may feel a lot for the smallest co-ops (£75), but the more members we have the stronger we all are.
 If you want to tell me about a worker co-op not listed below, or help me recruit a non member to Co-operatives UK  get in touch.

Also health warning about locations, due to the way "geocoding" is done business probably is not exactly where it says it is on the map and there will undboutly be errors, (first time i did 2 were suposedly in the US..)


View Worker Co-ops in the UK in a full screen map

Can we really create a co-operative economy?

All the talk at the moment is about public service co-ops and mutuals. How the co-operative model would be great for driving up performance, lowering costs, but at the same time keeping these new businesses accountable and lets be honest ethical.

I agree with this generally and particularly if the employees get a real sense of ownership and control of their work life. But the question I'd like to ask Dave and George is: If its so great for the public services (especially in this time of budgetary constraint) why is it not a great idea for the rest of the economy and particularly those areas of high capitalism that got us into this mess in the first place?

I know a number of you must be thinking the same, in a recent SEC survey showed 2/3rds of people want more employee owned business in the private sector.

We are not the only ones who want to create a more co-operative economy either.  Fidel Castro at the other end of the spectrum admits Cuba's centrally planned economy is not working and worker co-operatives should be promoted.(I find it slightly bizarre that a communist and a Conservative could agree on a economic model.)

Some people like the Basques in Mondragon and Emilia Romagna in Italy have been creating a worker co-operative economy on a regional level for years. Hugo Chavez in Venezuela is also a convert:

"When he took office, there were 762 co-ops in Venezuela with 20,000 members. Many of these were more credit unions than worker-owned cooperative work places. By mid-2006 there were 108,000 co-ops with 1.5 million members with half in the service sector and a third in production.
More information on his Bolivian Revolution here and here.

So creating a worker co-operative economy is doable, but is it doable in the England or the US?
Well some in the US are giving it a try; the steel worker union of America is looking to partner with Mondragon.  There is also an experiment going on in Cleveland to create a Mondragon like network of co-operatives, the first group of co-operatives are focused around The Evergreen Co-operative.

So is it achievable in the UK and what could it look like?  
Co-operatives UK is releasing a paper (more of a tomb) written by Robin Murray who was heavily involved in the formation of the fair trade movement: Twin Trading, Cafe Direct, Divine Chocolate etc. Its called Co-operation in the Age of Google,

Co-operation in the age of Google shows that we are living at a time of profound transformation. The information and communication revolution, widespread concerns about private sector greed, public sector finances and impending climate chaos present a wide range of possibilities for co-operative expansion.

Robin argues the UK Co-operative movement is not yet in a position to make the most of these opportunities. It needs to be more innovative, more integrated, more internationalist, to get better infrastructure and to find ‘the idea’ that can mobilise support for co-operation. The review proposes a series of practical initiatives for 2011 and 2012 to strengthen the co-operative sector.

Have a read and in true co-operative style add your own comments, thoughts and ideas.


Another report released by MIT in October looks at Mondragon and the Evergreen Co-operative Model case study them and then create a theoretical framework for what creating a worker co-operative economy.


"The most important lesson from Legacoop and the Mondragon is the importance of developing an economically integrated network of cooperatives rather than a single cooperative."

I've added a diagram from this report as it sums up their framework.But do have a read of that too.

We live and vote in a country run democratically and we may well soon have a public sector run in a more democratic and mutual way.  Why should we not work in a business that is run in a democratic and co-operative way?


Wider Reading
Co-operation in the Age of Google (Co-operatives UK) 
Sustainable Economic Democracy: Worker Cooperatives for the 21st Century (MIT Co-lab)

American Study Visit:

On Tuesday 12th June members of the Co-operative Charitable Trust (founded by Bob Giel) visited Co-operatives UK.  John Butler did a fascinating presentation on consumer co-operatives and I was asked to talk about worker co-operatives.  So here are the highlights and some of the things I found out in return.

I started off with the headline figures for the Co-operative Economy and how worker co-operatives make up roughly 8% of the UK co-operative economy by number, but less than 0.5% when you look at their turnover.

The size of the UK worker co-operative sector is very small compared to our Spanish, Italian and French cousins (something I will go into in my next post or two). But we are comparable to the US in number, although they do have some worker co-operatives that are larger (one has 1500+ staff!).

Although the US Federation of Worker Co-operatives doesn't collect data to the same extent as Co-operatives UK they estimate there are over 300 democratic workplaces in the United States, employing over 3,500 people and generating over $400 million in annual revenues.

He is a break down of the worker co-operative economy for 2009 (please always send back your annual return to help us keep our data accurate).

Our US visitors were particularly interested in our Worker Co-operative Code of Governance and the flatter more collective management structure in the UK. I focused particularly on some of our larger worker co-operatives like Suma, Edinburgh Bicycle Co-operative and Dulas. To show the different structures, governance models and industry sectors.

 
I could only find the 5 largest American Worker Co-operatives, but it is interesting to compare and contrast them.  There largest (in turnover) is comparable to Suma and mostly similar industry/size to our co-operatives, when you think how much larger the US is. The big surprise is Bronx based homcare provider with 1500+ workers, far larger than any of our worker co-operatives. I understand our own Sunderland Homecare a UK employee owned business were inspired by them (Sunderland are not usually categorised as a worker co-operative though).

Defiantly worth a deeper look into their governance mode and business; particularly in light of the Conservative Governments interest in public service delivery through Co-operatives.

Name	State	2005 Revenues	Workers
Rainbow Grocery Cooperative	Calif.	$38 million (£25mm)	200+
Cooperative Home Care Associates	N.Y.	$24 million (£15.8m)	1,500+
Equal Exchange	Mass.	$22 million (£14.5m)	70
Alvarado Street Bakery	Calif.	$20 million (£13.2m)	120
Isthmus Engineering & Manufacturing	Wis.	$10 million (£6.6m)	50

I finished off with a graph to give a flavour of the industries worker co-operatives operate in. I organised them under the below categories (my own creation). In the future our members will be able to tag and categorise themselves in our new directory hopefully improving the number and depth of our data.

Most of these should be self-explanatory apart from "Creative Arts" that brings together all the music, art, theatre and craft based worker co-operatives.

If you are an American reader I would love any links of info on your larger worker co-operatives, and what makes them successful.  Please leave comments.