Workers and supporters march in front of the Great Lakes Coffee shop in Midtown Detroit. Photo: Liberationnews.org
Baristas and other cafe workers are fighting for union recognition with UNITE HERE Local 24, and their first contract with the Great Lakes Coffee Roasting Company on Woodward Ave. in Midtown.
Striking worker and union organizer Beck Kaster told Liberation News: “Across the country you see more unions popping up in historical numbers. We all truly believe that working with a union can only better our workplace conditions. We all love our jobs and want to return to work; we’re just asking to be respected and have our company see us as more than names on paper.
What is the relationship between unions and cooperatives? It has not always been symbiotic, but there are some great examples of how cooperative businesses came out of union organizing, which you can read about here.
The Union Toolkit for Cooperative Solutions, developed by Union Co-ops Council member Rebecca Lurie and Bernadette King Fitzsimmons, delves into some of the incredible success stories of cooperatives and unions coming together to help workers and businesses flourish across the United States.
This Report:
↳ Shares key lessons on ways labor unions are interacting with cooperative businesses to
expand worker power through ownership and democratic governance.
↳ Demonstrates the consistent ways and means that unions are collaborating with economic
changes and the development of cooperative economies.
↳ Offers a toolkit for those interested in broadening strategies for owning and controlling
places of work.
Labor unions and worker-owned businesses share the objectives of generating better jobs and giving workers control over their workplaces. The scaling of worker ownership paired with unionization offers pathways to expanded worker power and wealth-building for working people. The purpose of this paper is to show strategies used by labor unions to support the creation of worker cooperatives and other worker-owned businesses. It gives a brief overview of the potential for unionization and worker ownership to strengthen workers’ rights, and a list of seven union resources to use toward the creation of worker-owned businesses. The paper includes seven case studies of interaction and collaboration between labor unions and worker-owned entities, in which unions get out their tools to apply their power and capacity toward worker ownership for expanding avenues for worker power.