Worker Cooperatives Over Job Guarantees
Job guarantees are backward-looking make-work that create dependency. Worker cooperatives build ownership and solve real problems.
Government Support (Not Management)
We provide preferential government contracting where worker cooperatives get first bid opportunity on all government contracts. If a cooperative can deliver at competitive price and quality, they win the contract automatically. This is detailed in our Government Procurement section.
We offer low-interest loans for cooperative formation that are repayable, not grants. We provide technical assistance including business planning, legal support, and accounting. We create tax advantages for cooperative structures. We establish right of first refusal when businesses close, allowing workers to buy. We create cooperative incubators with shared infrastructure.
Strategic Sectors for Cooperatives
Healthcare delivery through nurse-owned clinics and home health cooperatives provides better care with worker ownership. Childcare and eldercare cooperatives give workers and families better options. Regional food systems through farm cooperatives and distribution networks keep food local. Skilled trades including electrician, plumber, and HVAC cooperatives serve communities while building worker wealth. Software and tech services cooperatives can outcompete consulting monopolies. Precision manufacturing and repair cooperatives bring production local. Local banking through expanded credit unions keeps capital in communities.
Why Cooperatives Beat Jobs
Workers build equity and ownership instead of just receiving wages. Real market discipline requires delivering value to customers. Innovation incentive exists because workers benefit from efficiency. Automation benefits worker-owners instead of replacing them. Profits stay local instead of extracting to distant shareholders. Democratic governance trains civic participation.
Integration With Full Platform
Cooperatives compete effectively through preferential government contracts as detailed in procurement, progressive corporate tax that penalizes monopoly scale as explained in anti-monopoly, and active anti-trust that breaks up extractive monopolies. Public alternatives in essential services create demand for cooperative providers. Universal basic services eliminate survival desperation that forces workers into extractive employment.
Why This Works
Worker cooperatives have no infinite growth imperative. Traditional corporations must maximize shareholder returns, requiring growth and increasing consumption. Worker cooperatives maximize worker wellbeing, achieved through stable income not infinite growth, sustainable practices that preserve long-term viability, community health because workers live in the community, quality products that build reputation not planned obsolescence, and meeting actual needs efficiently rather than manufacturing consumption.
This changes everything. No pressure to scale infinitely. No extraction to distant shareholders. No manufactured consumption. Just workers serving community needs while building equity.