The Cooperative Workplace
Author: Joyce Rothschild
Publisher: CUP Archive
Published: 1986
Total Pages: 236
ISBN-13: 9780521379427
DOWNLOAD EBOOKThis book provides evidence on how worker cooperatives are functioning today.
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Cooperatives and the World of Work
Author: Bruno Roelants
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2019-07-16
Total Pages: 459
ISBN-13: 1000012077
DOWNLOAD EBOOKAs the world of work and jobs is more uncertain than ever because of various trends impacting it, including the rise of robotics and the gig economy, Cooperatives and the World of Work furthers the debate on the future of work, sustainable development, and the social and solidarity economy of which cooperatives are a fundamental component. Throughout the book, the authors, who are experts in their respective fields, do not limit themselves to praising the advantages of the cooperative model. Rather, they challenge the narrow understanding of cooperatives as a mere business model and raise debate on the more fundamental role that cooperatives play in responding to social changes and in changing society itself. The book is unique in tracing the historical connection between cooperatives and the world of work since the end of the First World War and the recent shifts and restructuring in enterprise and the workplace. It presents a redefinition of the very concept of work, focusing on organizational innovation. This book is published in recognition of 100 years of the International Labour Organization, and gathers together research from leading experts who were brought together at an event co-hosted by the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA) and the International Labour Organization (ILO).
Cooperative Reference
Author: Celia Hales-Mabry
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2003
Total Pages: 302
ISBN-13: 0789023709
DOWNLOAD EBOOKExpert advice for more effective teamwork in the library! Cooperative Reference: Social Interaction in the Workplace addresses the need for reference librarians to work together to keep the system running smoothly. This book explores the various means of developing social professionalism, collaborating on projects, and combining forces with other libraries to remain on the cutting edge of information services in this new century. Using this guide, you will learn from the first-hand experiences of on-the-job reference librarians. This book will give youas a reference librarian, administrator, library science student, or educatorideas to support cooperative efforts in the library and beyond. This book will show you how to better interact with: other reference librarians face-to-face users online users library and academia faculty other libraries Cooperative Reference reveals how patrons perceive you from the other side of the desk. This book shows that first impressionshow you dress, your attitude, how you interact with other workers, and how you address the patron's questionsdirectly affect the patron's visit and influence his or her decisions about using your library in the future. The social skills in this volume can also directly benefit your library as library budgets can no longer keep up with the skyrocketing costs of library materials. To continue viability, many libraries must be willing to work together to share costs and experience. Other topics in Cooperative Reference include: tag-team referencinga dynamic, synergistic environment at the reference desk teaching librarians about interpersonal skillshow to establish professional, collegial relationships with one another librarians teaming up to teach a class together cooperative reference desk schedulinghow to create and implement tailored desk hours collection development between librarians for different departments working together to create online services a consolidation of reference services by two separate libraries Using several case examples, this well-referenced book takes an innovative look at the ever-increasing necessity for librarians to work together for the good of the patrons, the workers, and the library structure. Cooperative Reference will improve the reference services of public and academic libraries both large and small.
Conflict Prevention in the Workplace
Author: Robert Bacal
Publisher: Bacal & Associates
Published: 1998
Total Pages: 102
ISBN-13: 0968372279
DOWNLOAD EBOOKWorking Democracies
Author: Joan S. M. Meyers
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2022-06-15
Total Pages: 208
ISBN-13: 1501763695
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn this inside look at worker cooperatives, Joan Meyers challenges long-held views and beliefs. From the outside, worker cooperatives all seem to offer alternatives to bad jobs and unequal treatment by giving workers democratic control and equitable ownership of their workplaces. Some contend, however, that such egalitarianism and self-management come at the cost of efficiency and stability, and are impractical in the long run. Working Democracies focuses on two worker cooperatives in business since the 1970s that transformed from small countercultural collectives into thriving multiracial and largely working-class firms. She shows how democratic worker ownership can provide stability and effective business management, but also shows that broad equality is not an inevitable outcome despite the best intentions of cooperative members. Working Democracies explores the interconnections between organizational structure and organizational culture under conditions of worker control, revealing not only the different effects of managerialism and "participatory bureaucracy," but also how each bureaucratic variation is facilitated by how workers are defined by at each cooperative. Both bureaucratic variation and worker meanings are, she shows, are consequential for the reduction or reproduction of class, gender, and ethnoracial inequalities. Offering a behind the scenes comparative look at an often invisible type of workplace, Working Democracies serves as a guidebook for the future of worker cooperatives.
Cooperative Work and Coordinative Practices
Author: Kjeld Schmidt
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
Published: 2011-01-27
Total Pages: 471
ISBN-13: 1848000685
DOWNLOAD EBOOKInformation technology has been used in organisational settings and for organisational purposes such as accounting, for a half century, but IT is now increasingly being used for the purposes of mediating and regulating complex activities in which multiple professional users are involved, such as in factories, hospitals, architectural offices, and so on. The economic importance of such coordination systems is enormous but their design often inadequate. The problem is that our understanding of the coordinative practices for which these systems are developed is deficient, leaving systems developers and software engineers to base their designs on commonsensical requirements analyses. The research reflected in this book addresses these very problems. It is a collection of articles which establish a conceptual foundation for the research area of Computer-Supported Cooperative Work.
Worker Cooperatives in America
Author: Robert Jackall
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Published: 1984-01-01
Total Pages: 336
ISBN-13: 9780520051171
DOWNLOAD EBOOKCompilation of essays on workers cooperatives in the USA - covers historical aspects of production cooperatives, the role of state aid in employment creation during the economic recession of the 1930s; includes case studies of workers cooperatives in Berkeley, California, partic. Membership, management, pricing, marketing; discusses the role of workers stock ownership and financing, legal aspects, workers participation and future perspectives. Bibliography, questionnaire, statistical tables.
Making Mondragón
Author: William Foote Whyte
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Published: 2014-10-15
Total Pages: 352
ISBN-13: 0801471729
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSince its founding in 1956 in Spain's Basque region, the Mondragón Corporation has been a touchstone for the international cooperative movement. Its nearly three hundred companies and organizations span areas from finance to education. In its industrial sector Mondragón has had a rich experience over many years in manufacturing products as varied as furniture, kitchen equipment, machine tools, and electronic components and in printing, shipbuilding, and metal smelting.Making Mondragón is a groundbreaking look at the history of worker ownership in the Spanish cooperative. First published in 1988, it remains the best source for those looking to glean a rich body of ideas for potential adaptation and implementation elsewhere from Mondragón's long and varied experience. This second edition, published in 1991, takes into account the major structural and strategic changes that were being implemented in 1990 to allow the enterprise to compete successfully in the European common market.Mondragón has created social inventions and developed social structures and social processes that have enabled it to overcome some of the major obstacles faced by other worker cooperatives in the past. William Foote Whyte and Kathleen King Whyte describe the creation and evolution of the Mondragón cooperatives, how they have changed through decades of experience, and how they have struggled to maintain a balance between their social commitments and economic realities. The lessons of Mondragón apply most clearly to worker cooperatives and other employee-owned firms, but also extend to regional development and stimulating and supporting entrepreneurship, whatever the form of ownership.
Worker Cooperatives and Revolution
Author: Chris Wright
Publisher: Booklocker
Published: 2014-08-20
Total Pages: 260
ISBN-13: 1632634325
DOWNLOAD EBOOKSince the financial crisis of 2008 and the global popular protests of 2011, more people have begun to wonder and speculate: what’s next for civilization? The economic, social, and political status quo seems unsustainable, but what can emerge to take its place? In this book, a historian examines the past and present to argue that the seeds of a more humane society are already being planted, on local and international scales. Whether they will bear fruit depends, ultimately, on grassroots initiative. Focusing on the new worker cooperative movement in the West, this study not only contains the first systematic discussion of the solidarity economy in the light of Marxist theory; it also introduces a major revision of Marxism that both updates it for the twenty-first century and illuminates our historical moment. It includes an analysis of the history of cooperatives in the U.S., showing where they went wrong and how we can correct their past mistakes. It has a case-study of the successful new worker-owned business New Era Windows in Chicago, which has been celebrated internationally for its defiance of conventional paradigms. And it shows a way out of the age-old conflict between Marxism and anarchism, arguing that both are more relevant now than they have ever been. Which is to say: a gradualist “revolution” is, for the first time, within the realm of possibility.
Collective Courage
Author: Jessica Gordon Nembhard
Publisher: Penn State Press
Published: 2015-06-13
Total Pages: 325
ISBN-13: 0271064269
DOWNLOAD EBOOKIn Collective Courage, Jessica Gordon Nembhard chronicles African American cooperative business ownership and its place in the movements for Black civil rights and economic equality. Not since W. E. B. Du Bois’s 1907 Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans has there been a full-length, nationwide study of African American cooperatives. Collective Courage extends that story into the twenty-first century. Many of the players are well known in the history of the African American experience: Du Bois, A. Philip Randolph and the Ladies' Auxiliary to the Brotherhood of Sleeping Car Porters, Nannie Helen Burroughs, Fannie Lou Hamer, Ella Jo Baker, George Schuyler and the Young Negroes’ Co-operative League, the Nation of Islam, and the Black Panther Party. Adding the cooperative movement to Black history results in a retelling of the African American experience, with an increased understanding of African American collective economic agency and grassroots economic organizing. To tell the story, Gordon Nembhard uses a variety of newspapers, period magazines, and journals; co-ops’ articles of incorporation, minutes from annual meetings, newsletters, budgets, and income statements; and scholarly books, memoirs, and biographies. These sources reveal the achievements and challenges of Black co-ops, collective economic action, and social entrepreneurship. Gordon Nembhard finds that African Americans, as well as other people of color and low-income people, have benefitted greatly from cooperative ownership and democratic economic participation throughout the nation’s history.
