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?
During the early days of the American labor movement, there was a very close relationship. For example, by the 1880's over one hundred cooperatives had been established by the Order of the Knights of Labor. At one point in the 1880's the national membership of the Knights voted to reserve 60 percent of its money for starting cooperatives, 30 percent for a strike fund and 10 percent for education. Since the turn of the century the American labor movement has concentrated on improving the working conditions in privately owned companies.