Worker and Employee Owned Co-operatives – the Future of Work?

The concept of a worker owned co-operative is still unfamiliar. We often think about the standard management and labour structure. Times are changing, and now just might be the time to consider something different.

On the third webinar of the series, ‘The Transformational Power of Co-operatives’ we met with Ellie Perrin and Andrew Harrison from Co-ownership Solutions and discussed the advantages of worker co-operatives and employee-owned models.

Ellie Perrin who has extensively studied workers co-ops in Northern Ireland and worked with local worker co-operatives, shared her knowledge of the Belfast Cleaning Co-operative, Loveworks Worker Co-operative and the Creative Worker Co-operative. 

In addition, Andrew Harrison from Co-ownership Solutions,  introduced employee-owned models and the advantages of considering those in succession plans, with case studies across UK.

You can see the full recorded webinar on Co-op Alternatives YouTube channel https://youtu.be/Kf0Q8RO4j4c

You can access Andrew presentation here Andrew’s Presentation

FUTHER READINGS AND RESEARCHES

The speakers also mentioned a wealth of resources on the topic during the Q&A session.

Ellie recommended on the worker co-operatives’ performance and resilience: Virginie Pérotin is an important researcher on this, she said and  Co-ops UK also produces reports on co-ops performance (not just worker co-ops), New Economic Foundation as well: https://neweconomics.org/2018/07/co-operatives-unleased. Reference was also made to Ellie’s recent policy briefing on Co-op Alternatives website for anyone interested to find out what an enabling policy environment should look like  http://www.coopalternatives.coop/wp-content/uploads/2020/07/Inclusive-Growth-Strategy-Briefing-Last-version-with-mutual-change-only.pdf

Andrew also mentioned the Nuttall Review https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/nuttall-review-of-employee-ownership and the practical guide he wrote with Co-operatives UK called https://www.uk.coop/sites/default/files/uploads/attachments/8364_cuk_simply_buyout_prf4b_0.pdf . Many other reports and evidence on the success of the model he described can also be found here https://employeeownership.co.uk/resources/what-the-evidence-tells-us/ .