Co-operative Development as a Trade Union Strategy

Abstract

This article argues that trade union and other progressive bodies in Britain, Europe and North America need to use their membership and broader labour movement contacts as a resource for financing worker co-operative development, not as a simple act of altruism, but out of self-interest. The author argues that such a strategy, properly regulated and managed would help to defend wages, extend trade union membership and organization, and could help promote majority shareholding in conventional companies by Trade Union Trusts. The author seeks to demonstrate that working people have the means from their own resources to eliminate unemployment.

The figures quoted in the text are based on U.K. Sources, however similar figures have been produced for North America by Caftel, B. in “The Billion-Dollar Low Income Neighborhood” in Co-op Magazine, Sept/Oct 1980, Ann Arbor, USA.