The big question: What contributes to the success of the worker co-op movement?

The first research entitled: The Worker Co-operative Movements in Italy, Mondragon and France: Context, Success Factors and Lessons analyzes the public policy environment, capitalization environment, availability of federation support, and the context for the worker co-op movements in each of Italy, Mondragon (Spain) and France.

These three countries or regions have the largest, most dynamic worker co-op movements in the world. To grow a large worker co-op movement, a system of supports is required to enable the transfer of appropriate knowledge to many people, in addition to having access to worker coop-friendly sources of capital.

Although there were some success factors in each region which could not be easily replicated in other places and although there were significant differences among regions, there were many common elements contributing to the success of the worker co-op movement in all three places. These were:

• sufficient capital accessible to worker co-ops;
• technical assistance provided to worker co-ops in the start-up phase;
• a mandatory indivisible reserve, at least for those “mostly mutual” worker co-ops which were able to receive government support;
• significant federation and consortia structures which support, guide, direct, and help educate the worker co-operatives;
• significant concentrations by industry;
• a strong sense of solidarity and inter-cooperation;
• and scale: having achieved a size and strength to enable the worker co-op movements to be taken seriously by governments, the broader co-operative sector, etc.

The second research paper entitled The Worker Co-op Sector in Canada: Success Factors, and Planning for Growth provides an analysis of the current state of the worker co-op movement in Canada with a focus on successful worker co-ops. A deepened review of a 2008 survey was conducted. Worker co-operatives which have failed were analyzed, and a full-day workshop with the CWCF Board of Directors was conducted to assess the factors that would lead to faster growth in the sector.

The research project also involved surveying 13 worker co-operatives across Canada to identify common factors of success. The survey results indicated that a large majority of founding members in these successful worker co-operatives did not have business experience. Overriding this was the willingness of members to work together and to continuously learn on the job in a working environment that allows them to express their values and social concerns. Through this, successful worker co-operatives were able to carve a niche in their business sector by providing high quality goods and services.

Other factors critical to success were access to capital and creative financing, including members’ significant commitment to sweat equity, and available technical and industry resources to assist with the challenges of business and co-operative organizational development. By better understanding the success factors for individual worker co-operatives, the goal of CWCF is to pave the way for more growth and more success for worker co-operatives across Canada.

These projects would not have been possible without the financial contribution of the Canadian Social Economy Research Partnerships, based at the University of Victoria and supported by the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.