Are there different kinds of cooperatives?
Are worker cooperatives a new form of cooperative?
Is there a relationship between worker cooperatives and the Union movement?
How do worker cooperatives get started?
How do worker cooperatives get their financing?
If the cooperative fails financially, are the workers personally responsible for it's debts?
No! Worker cooperatives have been in operation since the late 1700's. The movement started in the British Isles but soon spread to other parts of Europe and to the United States. Today you will find cooperatives operating successfully throughout Europe, Scandinavia and the Americas. In the Mondragon region in Spain a complex of seventy-six co-ops is in operation with over 15,000 members. In the United States the most successful worker cooperatives are found in the Pacific Northwest where eighteen cooperatively owned companies supply eight percent of the nation's plywood.