SEN Updates

Solidarity Economy at the Left Forum, March 16-18, Pace University, NYC

SEN members organized or are participated in a number of workshops that relate to different aspects of the solidarity economy. You will find below a list of these workshops along with a brief description and a link for further details.
Community Economic Development and Worker Cooperatives

Sponsored by: US Solidarity Economy Network and URPE

Participants: Fred Rose -- Wellspring Initiative, Djar Horn -- Jersey Shore Neighborhood Cooperative, Al Campbell -- Union for Radical Political Economy

When times get hard, people often are forced to create their own livelihoods. The current economic crisis has seen an upsurge, especially in poor and marginalized communities, of efforts to create worker cooperatives. This workshop will explore the potential of cooperatives to not only create jobs, but also to consciously contribute to community revitalization and inform alternative strategies of community economic development. This workshop will look at examples of cooperative development in low income communities from the Jersey Shore, NYC and Springfield, MA. We'll discuss lessons about replicating these models along with the economic and community impact of this work.

The U.S. Solidarity Economy Network stands in solidarity with the Occupy Wall St. movement. As a network of groups, activists and solidarity economy practitioners, we seek to transform our economic system into one that puts people and planet front and center – an economy for the 99%. Another World is not only possible, it already exists, in many, many forms. The solidarity economy, grounded in principles of solidarity, participatory democracy, sustainability, equity in all dimensions, and pluralism (not a one-size-fits-all model) is a fast growing global movement. We offer these Solidarity Economy briefs to provide a glimpse into some of the aspects of the solidarity economy that exist all around us. (click title for more including links to the SE Briefs)

August 21, 2011
written by Emily Kawano, SEN Coordinator

Between January 2010 and August 2011, SEN has made exciting progress in meeting our overarching goals of 1) building the solidarity economy (SE) movement through education and organizing, 2) connecting with the global SE movement and 3) supporting SE with research and dissemination of best practices, tool-kits, data, and theory.

MOVEMENT BUILDING

Photo: Denise Obregon, Sewing Cooperativista

Venezuela's Experiments
in the Solidarity Economy

By Humberto Márquez

CARACAS, Nov 17 (IPS) - "I used to be a buhonera (street vendor), but I got tired of working in all weather conditions, rain or shine, so I joined the Venezuela Avanza (Venezuela Advances) cooperative. Here I earn less money and the heat in the warehouse is stifling, but we hope our working conditions will improve with time," Ana Ortiz, a mother of seven, told IPS as she sat at her sewing machine.

State-financed cooperatives are mushrooming in Venezuela, hand-in-hand with the boom in oil prices, and are supposed to be laying the foundations of a new socioeconomic model. However, some weaknesses are showing through, such as the creation of "phantom cooperatives" and a lack of self-financing.

Ortiz was one of 220 women working on a suffocatingly hot afternoon at the clothing cooperative set up a year ago in the Fabricio Ojeda Endogenous Development Nucleus, located in densely populated west Caracas. She works seven hours a day, five days a week, and is paid 117 dollars a month.