jessica gordon-nembhard [email protected]

Jessica Gordon-Nembhard, Ph.D.John Jay College, CUNY [email protected]“Thinking and Learning in the New Normal,” Indianapolis

May 30, 2020

Thanks to Kheprw for inviting me Acknowledge:

The original occupants/stewards of the land; & our ancestors

The struggles of enslaved laborers, & all those who labor without just compensation.

Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020


Utilized by all populations, in every era, on every continent.

Notions of the common good, the commonwealth, The Commons,

Collectivism, mutual aid, revolving loan funds/rotating savings & credit/susu

“Collective work and responsibility” Indigenous cooperative efforts - First

Nations, early African civilizations, etc.

Marginalization forces subaltern groups such as African Americans to find alternative economic solutions.

Use racial self-sufficiency and African retentions. Chance to design & manage needed services in

culturally, racially& geographically sensitive ways. Free and enslaved African Americans shared

resources; pooled money to buy their own and their family members’ freedom, land & equipment; used solidarity for escape (underground railroad); started independent schools, intentional communities, mutual aid societies.


Survival Resistance Prosperity

psupress.org


Pool resources

Provide quality goods and services - and access; and culturally & geographically sensitive/appropriate goods & services.

Save costs, Increase income, Democratize wealth

Combat racial discrimination

Increase Black economic stability, self sufficiency & group independence and self-determination

Save or create decent jobs in communities

Develop collective agency and action

Develop leadershipJessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020


Cooperatives Investor Stock

Corporations• Member/owner • Investor/owner

• 1 member 1 vote • 1 share 1 vote

• Satisfy a need; problem

solve; accessible and

affordable high-quality goods

and services

• Profit motive first

• Capital subordinate to labor

and usage

• Capital supreme; capital rents

labor

• Democratic governance,

Democratic participation

• Majority and money rule

• Solidarity with members and

community; Returns to

community

• return to investor/owner

Co-ops address market failure: provide rural electricity or other utilities in sparsely populated areas; affordable healthy and organic foods; access to credit and banking services; access to affordable housing; access to quality affordable child or elder care; access to markets for culturally sensitive goods & arts.

Cooperatives overcome the historic barriers to development


contributes an estimated $154 billion to the nation’s total income. The co-ops have helped to create over 2.1 million jobs, with an impact on wages and salaries of almost $75 billion.


than traditional corporations/small businesses: after first year (10% failure versus 60-80%); after 5 years in business (90% still operating versus 3-5% of traditional businesses).

Evidence also shows that cooperatives both successfully address the effects of crises and survive crises better.


Co-ops Improve Income and Wealth and Develop Their

Communities


The pooling of family, neighborhood and local organizational resources, especially finance capital (money) but not just money

Shared skills and activities – for the purposes of community well being and betterment.

Using surplus, creating surplus and leveraging pooled resources in order to better allocate resources for grassroots community development.


Includes learning and teaching how to do this widely.

And the democratic, community and worker control over community assets such as cooperatives, community-owned businesses, credit unions and community-based institutions which include schools, libraries, social services and security agencies, non profits, etc.


Taking power, Making economic and political power

align with our values as human beings. The grassroots determine our needs

and how resources and assets are used. Since African Americans were first brought on

this soil enslaved as chattle and didn’t even own our own bodies, wealth and capital have been an issue and a mission for our struggles for liberation and prosperity.


400+ years of asset stripping and resistance to asset stripping and the stripping of our humanity in the US and Caribbean are the conditions that have lead Black people in the Western Hemisphere to pool resources, practice serious mutual aid and economic cooperation, and establish collectives and cooperatives.


We needed to pool our resources in order to survive and in order to resist enslavement and oppression.

Purpose to provide community care: burial, death benefits, day nurseries, orphanages, homes for the aged and infirm, hospitals, cemeteries, night schools and scholarship funds, non predatory loans, etc.


Mutual Aid Societies & Beneficial Societies provided joint purchasing and marketing, revolving loan funds, and sickness, widow & orphan, and death benefits.

Often operated through Black religious organizations and schools; often informal.

Many headed by Black women.Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020

“Provide people with the basic needs of everyday life - clothing, shelter, and emotional and physical sustenance” (Jones 1985).

Efforts at community care Pooled “meager resources,” sponsored fund

raisers, solicited voluntary contributions . Free African Society, Philadelphia 1787 (2nd

oldest). Established AME Church By the 1790s women established their own

mutual aid and beneficial societies around the country.


Co-ops are institutions of the Solidarity Economy, established to satisfy a need

Anchor capital and production in the local community.


In 1901 Odd Fellows Lodge established the Mercantile Cooperative Company in Ruthville, VA – cooperative store.

Shares at five dollars each (no one member more than 20), could be paid in installments.

Also bought trucks; built a school. Flourished for 20 years. Achieved a level of economic independence

that later aided in the struggle for political rights and racial justice” (Craig:134).


Co-ops used to provide needed goods and services

Address unemployment and poverty Replace investment where others have

disinvested Address multiple issues


Established first co-op grocery store in1935(Gary, IN)

By 1936 considered the largest grocery business operated by African Americans in U.S. -total sales of $160,000, annual dividends of 2%.

Add credit union, 2nd grocery store, and gas station.


Worked with state agricultural dept to create manuals & workshops to promote and develop Black credit unions and co-ops.

Growth: in 1936: 3 Black credit unions -by 1948: 98 credit unions, and

48 additional co-op enterprises: 9 consumer stores, 32 machinery co-ops, 4 curb markets, 2 health associations and 1 housing project.


Sewing cooperative started in 1967 by sharecropping women to sell their quilts for extra income.

Built a sewing plant, and provided other services to the community – child care center, after school programs.

FQB bought 23 acres of land to build sewing factory

Helped share croppers (evicted for registering to vote) to own their own land.

1992 largest employer in town.Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020

Keep the benefits of and returns to capital & production recirculating among those who produce them, service them, and

need them.


Co-ops (especially worker) re-circulate resources in a local economy and leverage local resources:

Local wages are used in the community and for goods and services that benefit the community.

Surplus is returned to members, who live in the community and invest in the community or leverage their local dollars out in the world.


Food co-ops spend more revenues locally, buy more products locally, buy more organic produce, recycle more plastic, and create more jobs than conventional grocers. For every $1,000 spent at a food co-op, $1,606 goes to the local economy; for every $1 million in sales, 9.3 jobs are created.


Credit Unions use local deposits to provide access to affordable financial services and loans, and opportunities for savings and investment retained in community.

Community boards, often democratically governed.

Good employment.


Co-ops (especially worker) often lead their industries in providing wages or salaries that are better than locally prevailing wages and/or higher than industry standards;

high quality work with a variety of benefits;

establish democratic control over income and work rules;

Results in higher productivity.


• Since 1987 employs unskilled Latina and African American women (often were on public assistance).

• Leads the industry in above average wages, benefits, career ladder opps, leadership training, and low turnover.

• Policy advocacy (city and state) to increase Medicare allocations and average wages.

• Largest worker co-op in US – 1700 owners


Began with art therapy Learned about co-op model and demanded

co-op education Changed co-op law – meeting with Governor Rephrased the 7 principles; internal rules MOU with Corrections Department – 15%

(office space, electricity, etc); have to pay for extra security

10% retained; 75% to owners Only 2 recidivists of 50 + who got out over 10

years.Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020

In addition to generating income, cooperatives contribute to asset building and wealth accumulation.

Stable jobs, equity in the business, patronage refunds and other returns on their investment do provide member-owners with wealth, although this is often difficult to document.


Joint ownership means Pooling scarce resources; Leveraging resources; Reducing individual risks; and Profit sharing. Addresses low income, capital flight

– and lack of experience.


U.S. coops and employee-owned businesses provide dividends and financial returns to members.

U.S. Ag Co-ops – have higher average payout rate to members than shareholder dividends from public agribusiness corporations.


Co-ops deliberately direct dollars to the community and support community development ($ donations, in kind contributions of meeting space and supplies, etc., volunteer hours).


Wealth creation: Annual dividends average 25% of

initial equity investment (of $1000) Bank the unbanked (direct deposit) Retirement accounts IDA accounts


WAGES reports: Co-op members median income

increased to over $40,000 from $24,000 after owning the house cleaning co-op.

Ownership in the co-op has put their income higher than the national average of $38,000 for Latinos/as.

Some home ownership.


Presumed equity advantage to home ownership through a cooperative.

Increases access to home ownership. AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust Leveraged investment creates equity

Housing equity increases over time

Tax benefits to homeownership contribute to wealth creation

Homeowners have higher net worth than renters


1920s, the Cooperative Society of Bluefield Colored Institute student cooperative

School supplies and book store Paid dividends to members of 10%

on purchases made.


Co-operatives provide economic stability by providing members with a viable community-based business; and

environmentally friendly products and services.

As residents, co-op members care about the environment and their working conditions.

Triple bottom line – profit, human & social capital, environmental capital.


In the Fall of 1992 students from Crenshaw High School (South Central Los Angeles) revitalized the school garden to help rebuild their community after the 1992 uprising, and in particular to donate the food to the homeless.


Students established a co-op to sell salad dressing made from the produce grown in the school garden.

At least 50% of the profits are saved for scholarships to college.

Awarded over $180,000 in college scholarships to 77 graduated student managers (over ten years).


South Bronx, NY Incubate worker-owned green businesses

rooted in democracy & environmental justice. Provides ecological benefits while doing no

harm to workers, surrounding community, or environment.

Co-op Academy Bits & Bites – Tech Center and Café Cooperativa de Tecnicos Especializados Hack the cycle


High job loss and joblessness Social isolation Lack of affordable health care and health

insurance Disinvestment and business closures

All issues that mutual aid and cooperatives address.

How do you think co-ops can help?


Adequate resources, and financing

Participation - human energy, enthusiasm

Solidarity and trust among members

Conflict transformation

Internal education and training, study circles; management training

public education, and publicity

Local control & Inter-cooperationJessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020

Importance of organizations: deliberate cooperative development

Most number of co-ops when have Black organizations dedicated to co-op promotion and education.

Community support – community involved in starting the co-op; study groups; donate to the co-op; defend the co-op


Co-ops/Mutuals change lives; develop skills, capacities, leadership

Change the nature of work, increase returns to such work

Humanize work and ownership More community control Economic and social benefits Pool Assets & create Wealth



Thank You! [email protected]

jessica gordon-nembhard [email protected]

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