Labor Café: Worker Cooperatives
Friday, December 6, at 5 pm
Geddes Hall, Coffee House
The Labor Café convenes the Notre Dame community for casual conversation on contemporary questions about work, workers, and workplaces. Participants choose the concrete topics, all people are welcome, and all opinions are entertained.
The topic for the final Labor Café of 2024 is, “Worker Cooperatives: How Do They Work? Are They Scalable? Are They Desirable?” Patrick Bunal, a first-year student and economics major, will facilitate the discussion.
Ten provocative pieces to get the conversation started (non-required reading; feel free to dip into any):
- “How a Worker-Owned Business Model in Spain Is Keeping Inequality in Check,” Bloomberg, Jun 30, 2022
- “Noam Chomsky on the Mondragon cooperatives and Workers’ Councils,” Workplace Democracy YouTube channel, Mar 15, 2014 [1994 interview]
- “‘In the US they think we’re communists!’ The 70,000 workers showing the world another way to earn a living,” The Guardian, Apr 24, 2024
- “Co-op Federation Seeks to Shift Worker Co-op Movement into a Passing Gear,” Nonprofit Quarterly, Oct23, 2024
- “Worker Co-ops: A Pathway to Good Jobs for Immigrant Workers,” Labor Notes, Aug 27, 2024
- “Montana’s First Worker Cooperative Is In It for the Long Haul,” Pressenza, May 11, 2024
- “The Baristas Who Took Over Their Café,” In These Times, Sep 12, 2024
- “When big co-ops fail,” Coop News, Jan 15, 2026
- “There Really Is No Ethical Restaurant Under Capitalism,” Eater, Sep 1, 2020
- “I Was Once a Socialist. Then I Saw How It Worked.,” New York Times, Dec 5, 2019