The Rhode Island Worker Cooperative Alliance launches
The Rhode Island Worker Cooperative Alliance launches
"In times of uncertainty, we will continue to build solidarity, democracy, and cooperation within and between our workplaces, organizations, and communities."
Supporters of worker cooperatives celebrated the public launch of the Rhode Island Worker Cooperative Alliance (RIWCA) on Thursday evening at the White Electric Coffee Co-op.
Co-ops and advocates gathered and shared ideas for the local co-op economy.
“In times of uncertainty, we will continue to build solidarity, democracy, and cooperation within and between our workplaces, organizations, and communities,” said RIWCA.
There was a speaking program, as seen in the video below. The transcription, edited for clarity and brevity, includes links to the businesses’ websites.
Chloe Chassaing, White Electric Coffee Co-op: I am a worker-owner and have been involved with a bunch of other people who co-organize this organization. We’re all celebrating the Rhode Island Worker Cooperative Alliance tonight. It’s awesome to see this many people here as a testament to the goodwill and support that people feel toward worker co-ops, especially when we might feel a little disappointed with our electoral process. It’s nice to think about ways we can focus on democracy at a local level in our communities. It feels good to be building something resilient, empowering, and full of love.
Let me share a little bit about our workplace. For those of you who might not know, White Electric Coffee was a traditional business. Co-workers organized four years ago, then we unionized, and on the day we did our successful card check, our shop was put up for sale. So we decided to purchase the business and reopen it as a worker co-op, which we did about three and a half years ago. That was thanks to a lot of hard work and community support. It wouldn’t have been possible without the community’s emotional support and the little donations we got. A perpetual thank you to the community for making it possible.
Part of what’s been exciting for me is to try to help pass on some of the tidbits we learned in the process. Seeing all these budding co-ops in different stages of their process is great.
Danny, White Electric CoffeeCo-op: It’s inspiring to see all this, and it’s great that everyone here is coming out to make this organization happen—to push and advocate for democracy in the workplace. I’ve read all the emails and look forward to advocating for workplace democracy.
I got hired at White Electric back in 2019 before it transitioned to a worker co-op. I grew up in Providence. My high school is right across the street, so working with this group has always been a worker co-op-y. We always, as a team, ran the business. When we organized, we just assigned ourselves tasks. We’ve been essential to making White Electric what it is. It’s important to see how much this shop has grown and how much I’ve grown to be a part of something incredible.
I look forward to seeing what else we can do to promote worker democracy. We’re proving this is a viable alternative to traditional workplaces, and I’m excited to see together what we can achieve when working cooperatively.
Eric Beecher, Sol Power: I’m the president of Sol Power. We are a solar installation worker cooperative. We’ve been in business since 2013. We have 12 member-owners and installed over a thousand solar installations. We are living proof that employee ownership and worker cooperatives are the best way to run a business. For the past 11 years, we’ve provided the best solar in Rhode Island. We still do. Maybe the best solar anywhere. This is a living testament, and I attribute all our success to our ownership model. Everybody’s invested in what we do. It’s an amazing place to work, and I love it. I love to chat about worker co-ops. It’s my thing. If any of you don’t know Sol Power, catch me later. We are happy to have an older co-op in the room, and it’s possible and the best show for everybody.
Chloe Chassaing: Eric always answers obscure questions in our email lister because he knows from experience.
L. Villegas, Four Buds Floral Collective: We’re over on Wickendon Street, so see us anytime. We’ve been open for business since July 11th of last year, almost a year and a half. There are four of us, hence four buds. We’re friends, and it’s also a flower word. We met while working at a different flower shop across town. The owner was getting ready to sell and was enthusiastic about us converting his business into a worker co-op. We did all the legwork. We spent about a year doing all kinds of business analysis and figuring out what a sustainable price point would be for us to keep the business going and continue his legacy.
Then, he received an offer for twice as much as we had assessed as a reasonable amount to pay for his business.
But we didn’t let that stop us. We decided that we could still make our dream come true, and we marched across town to another flower shop and said, '“Hey, do you want to retire? Can we write you a check?” And we worked our butts off with the help of CFNE, which is the Cooperative Fund of New England. CFNE is the unsung hero of our story. So yeah, we made it happen.
My most significant message to all of you is that things don’t always go as planned, but that doesn’t mean you can’t do them. We are making the best flowers in town—we just got voted best in Rhode Island.
As a testament to just how genuinely practical and smart a worker-run business is - I don’t know if you have worked in a flower shop on Valentine’s Day, but it’s like the Super Bowl and Black Friday from hell. In every flower shop I’ve ever worked in, I’ve never had a Valentine’s Day that didn’t have at least a little drama, like an order that went to the wrong address or two cards that got swapped, or someone who showed up to pick up an order that straight up just got lost and we didn’t make it, and we don’t have any roses left.
We were terrified of our first Valentine’s Day and had no idea what to expect. We all sat down, exhausted, and our feet swollen. We hadn’t slept in two days and realized we had no drama. We got every single order right on our first Valentine’s Day.
It’s almost like when the people who do the work decide how things get done, it gets done the right way. So weird. So yes, I am here to say that worker co-ops are where it’s at. Don’t give up. If at first you don’t succeed, try again. We are all here to support each other. We could not have done it without people like Chloe and the amazing co-ops that have paved the way. So join us.
Connor, Nuts & Bolts: I help run a small worker cooperative nursery with some friends. We’re a very small business based in Smithfield. Small businesses are the heart and soul of our communities. Everybody knows that small businesses are better when workers are happy, and the best way to make workers happy is to have them own the business.
Chloe Chassaing: Connor has been doing a lot to help organize the alliance.
Aaron Olsen, 3D Anatomy Studios: I founded 3D Anatomy Studios. We create anatomy education products, mostly for universities. We’re a little different. We don’t have a shopfront or anything - yet. As some people have already said, starting a business is hard. Starting a worker cooperative is even harder because starting a business costs a lot of money. Capital is the number one challenge if you ask a lot of us. The people who have capital can do a lot more. A lot of us who want to start worker cooperatives don’t have that kind of capital.
The answer, I think, is people. The answer is networks. The answer is social support and numbers. That’s why I’m so excited about RIWCA. I’m excited about RIWCA because it’s a coming together of people passionate about either starting worker cooperatives, getting involved in worker cooperatives, or wanting to join a worker cooperative. Through that people’s power, we’ll be able to start more worker cooperatives and support the existing ones to lift each other up. Join us.
Sam, Milk Thistle Kitchen Cooperative: Me and a friend are soon starting a worker-owned cooperative bakery. That’s the gist of it. We’re getting our ducks in a row. We’re going to have a meeting soon to invite more people. Tell your friends we’re on Instagram. We’re going to do a Thanksgiving pie sale. Sorry to be pitching, but we’re new, and I think cooperatives are great, and it’s a dream of mine to do this.
Tameka Eastman-Coburn, Small Format: We’re from Small Format. We technically became a worker-owned co-op within the last month. Small Format opened in 2020. I’m the founder - that’s an awkward word - but I signed the lease in 2019, and then the world changed drastically. Small Format was always intended to be a queer-centered space for us, by us, and now, in the most authentic way as a co-op, we are for us, by us in practice. We’re excited to be here and see so many familiar and new faces, and we’re looking forward to continuing to build a more sustainable world, a world where we’re a little more free.
Hunter, Commonplace Cooperative: Commonplace Cooperative has long-term aspirations of being a new kind of co-op called a platform cooperative, building digital platforms that, instead of being owned by the most evil entities alive, are owned by their users and workers. In the meantime, we’ve been offering services for a few years doing media and tech stuff, making websites for people, doing publicity materials, and anything you need.
We’re excited to be launching in a new and exciting direction. If you’re interested, there are materials on the table. In the next couple of weeks, we will launch a digital magazine. In January, we will make it into a more concise print. The tentative title is Cooperative Rhode Island. We love this community. In the last few years, I’ve been organizing for worker ownership.
Cooperation is the future, and not nearly enough people know about it. There are so many incredible stories. A disproportionate number of people here have heard the term co-op before, so we would love to help you guys tell your stories, get the word out, and introduce you to this new, exciting adventure.
Maya Gutmann-McKenzie: I’m from the Birth Workers Cooperative and a couple of other groups of doulas. For anybody who doesn’t know what a doula is, we support people in reproductive transitions like birth, postpartum, abortions, and miscarriages. We’re autonomous healthcare-adjacent workers. We’re like spiritual and emotional workers. The birth workers co-op supports doulas. It’s a worker co-op, and we support each other in taking, accepting, and processing insurance claims so that people can use their medical insurance, including commercial and Medicaid, all across the State of Rhode Island. A bill passed two years ago that made it a State mandate. And so anybody who has Rhode Island-based insurance has to have doula coverage. The co-op makes it so there’s a process by which doulas can do their job and not be billing insurance the entire week - we have somebody who does that for us, and we pay into it.
That’s the main function of the co-op. There are many other collectives of doulas, including Doulas Conectadas RI, a collective of Latina doulas who serve their community. I’m part of the Rhode Island Abortion Doulas. We support people through abortions. Corinne is another doula on her way. She is starting a community health worker co-op, a similar idea of essentially autonomous healthcare workers who are accessible because we take insurance, but we are not working through agencies or hospitals. We work for people directly, a significant part of what we do because we don’t report intimate information to the Department of Health personnel. We don’t work for hospitals and have to follow what they would like to have done. We get to show up for people and support them in their chosen ways. We’re the healthcare adjacent side of the co-op tonight.
Shelby Mack, The Providence Bike Collective: I am from the Providence Bicycle Collective. We are a worker-run community bike shop based in the Valley neighborhood. We do four things. We repair bicycles and have open hours where people can come in and bring their bikes and get free repair help from skilled mechanics. We redistribute bicycles, fix used bikes, and give them away for free through partner organizations like Project Weber Renew, DARE, and Clínica Esperanza. We do mechanics education, and we run a host of workshops around many different topics.
Lastly, we’re a community space where people can come as they are, connect with their people, be in a place other than their work or home, and find belonging.
It’s more apparent than ever that we’re in an economy where we are pitted against each other so that the people at the top can profit from us. Cooperatives are a powerful way to build the unbreakable solidarity we need to transform that system. Every day, I work with my fellow members, and we deepen our trust in one another. We are doing amazing things together in ways that feel so easy. I’m so grateful for that experience. It’s been one of the joys of my life. I want to thank my fellow members and celebrate that. This alliance will help us build the solidarity we need to impact the greater social change that we all need together.
Dylan, PVD Things: 15 minutes. If you were to hold an electric cordless drill’s trigger for 15 minutes straight, that is how long an electric drill is used, on average, before it’s thrown away.
PVD Things is a democratic, participatory nonprofit governed by cooperative principles. We share the cost of running a library of tools. We rent space and store valuable things like cordless drills, ladders, tents—any tool you can think of. The average PVD Things member saved about $500 last year by borrowing instead of buying. One member did so much home renovation that she borrowed over $5,000 of equipment instead of buying it. That’s the power of cooperation.
David-Allen “Bear” Sumner Sr.: I’m from Break the Cycle Cooperative Hub. We attempt to help formerly incarcerated citizens come home and understand the cooperative model. We’re trying to get that into the school system as well. I can’t speak enough about the joy and pain co-ops bring us. Is there a better way of working than with people you can see and say, “You know what? I want to work with you for 15, 20 years.”
Jessica David: Raul and I are here representing two organizations. Local Return is a nonprofit organization created a few years ago to build community wealth in Rhode Island through community ownership and investment. We intend to close the opportunity gaps that exist from neighborhood to neighborhood in Rhode Island and close the racial wealth gap. We think that happens through ownership. We share the mission that you all have.
Then, Local Return launched a second organization, the Rhode Island Community Investment Cooperative. That’s not a cooperative because no cooperative model meets our structure, but a public benefit corporation acting with the spirit of a cooperative. We just launched an offering for Rhode Island’s first community investment fund. Suppose you are a Rhode Islander who cares about your friendly local worker-owned co-op or other small business. In that case, the economy and investments you want to make are hard to do unless you’re a wealthy and accredited investor. Investing in Apple, Amazon, or Elon Musk is a lot easier.
We’re trying to democratize capital. We’ve tried to create a model where every investor in the fund gets an equal vote. Folks can invest as low as $500 with some income qualifications or $2,500 for everyone. We try to reverse the return structure so that the people taking the greatest risk proportionately get the greatest return. We will invest in real estate because we think real estate is a way for people and neighborhoods to build wealth.
Lastly, I want to recognize my co-founder, Raul Figueroa, who is why we have worker-owned co-ops in Rhode Island.
Raul Figueroa: Everything Jessica described has been our vision for many years, and we have been lucky to execute it. It is a good opportunity for regular folks to invest in our local economy, know where they’re investing, and be part of it. It allows you to say where the investment goes, which is unique. This explains why it took so long to get it off the ground.
Emma Karnes, United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local 328: We are a labor union. We represent thousands of workers around Rhode Island and Massachusetts in grocery, retail, cannabis, and other industries. We are happy to support worker cooperative organizing in this State. Unions exist to provide better jobs and better lives for working people. As many people have described, working at a worker co-op is one of the best jobs you can have. You have power in your workplace and a voice in how decisions are made. You can build generational wealth by taking home the money you earn with your coworkers.
At UFCW, we are trying to build examples of this union co-op model by having unions work directly so that worker cooperatives get all the benefits of union membership and get to tap into these networks of solidarity where you get to have cheaper healthcare, retirement plans, and be part of a political voice that gets to wield real power with the State and the federal government.
Andre Dev, Cannabis Cooperative Initiative: When Rhode Island legalized cannabis in 2022, we set aside a bunch of new licenses for worker-owned businesses. Nobody in the country had ever done that before. I’m convinced we only did it because our legislators did not know what it was. We are trying to organize these cannabis worker co-ops. My feeling is that if Cannabis and worker co-ops in America are growing industries, I’m going to mash them together and build a seat of power because that’s what solidarity needs.
The people in this room get it, but maybe the people you go home and talk to don’t realize that all of this work, even though it’s just basic work, just like emotional labor, is all political work. That’s why we must work with the union to build power in the places where it’s obvious that things are unfair, like cannabis. Then, show everybody that this model works. It works in competitive industries. We are looking for something other than handouts. This is us taking charge of our destinies.
Chloe Chassaing: I want to thank some elected officials here, including Representatives Cheri Cruz, Jennifer Stewart, David Morales, Senator Tiara Mack, and City Councilmember Miguel Sanchez.
Derek Bowman, Urban Greens: Urban Greens is excited to support RIWCA based on our core co-op principles and our commitment to strengthening our local community and economy. Since 2019, Urban Greens has operated a consumer co-op grocery store down the block at 93 Cranston Street to provide access to locally sourced, culturally inclusive nutritious food. Also, if you don’t live in this neighborhood, we have a web cart and do deliveries. Supporting RIWCA expresses and strengthens our shared commitment to social and economic justice, local ownership, and sustainable community development here in Rhode Island.
By participating with RIWCA, Urban Greens hopes to promote the cooperative ownership model further and help allow more of our neighbors to own their labor, share in profits, and have a real say in the businesses that operate in our community. RIWCA offers a collective voice advocating for public policies that support cooperative associations, fair wages, and local economic development. Urban Greens is eager to lend its voice to these efforts while benefiting from the collective power of the growing cooperative community here in Rhode Island. We’re excited for this partnership to help build a more vibrant, resilient, collaborative economy that will benefit workers and consumers in our community. As many others have said, as co-ops and neighbors, we’re all stronger together.
David Molina-Hernández: Fuerza Laboral is a nonprofit worker center. We became involved with co-ops because we were looking for labor justice. We came from the immigrant and low-income community. There are ways to help one, and then help another, and help another, but nothing changes. With cooperatives, we can change structures. We can change the balance of power in the economy.
We must go this way to give justice to the people we work for. Worker-owned cooperatives are an emerging movement and an economic initiative that can transform us. We can all become mutual aid networks and benefit from each other.
A Worker Cooperative Alliance is the next logical step for us to begin to trade among ourselves, build alliances, find mutual clients, share resources, amplify our visibility, and, most importantly, grow the movement. We feel empowered to see this happening. As you know, Fuerza Laboral has been at the forefront of cooperatives in Rhode Island, but seeing this happening, it’s like, “Oh, we feel good again. We feel empowered again. We feel the hard work. It’s paying off, and it’s going to pay off.”
So we’re very happy to be part of this movement here in Rhode Island. Remember that Fuerza is here for everyone, both our space and our time.
Varun Khattar Sharma, Cooperative Connecticut: I’m from Hartford, Connecticut, where I organize Cooperative Connecticut, our membership-based co-op network that catalyzes cooperative ownership and power and builds a solidarity economy. I’m glad I could be here in person. Bless you all for this exciting moment in your co-op movement’s history. I hope we find opportunities to work together across our borders here. In Connecticut, where insurance companies and financial institutions have a stranglehold on our economy, we are ground zero when it comes to racial and economic inequality. I know our struggles are not that different than yours, and we need to work together, locally at a statewide level, at the regional level, at a national level, and at a global level, to confront these systems that are killing us and the planet.
And I was up in Maine this summer for their Co-op Alliance conference, and one of the speakers, Jillian Goddard,1 shared this metaphor about how developing an individual co-op is planting a plant in a pot. What we have to be doing is growing the forest. I believe that co-op alliances like this one and Cooperate Connecticut are growing. I’m sure that what we learn and the resources we can acquire forest and enrich the soil so that other co-ops may grow.
I look forward to continuing to be in the community and the struggle with you all.
Caroline Vericker, Heartleaf Books: We are the founders of Hartleaf Books. We’re a worker- and consumer-owned co-op over at Atwells. We’re the only workers now, but we hope to have more someday. We have about 400 community members - owners - which is amazing. It’s a scary time right now. Buy your books from us and meet our cat. Her name is Penny,
Mads Vericker, Heartleaf Books: We’re going to have a shelf here at White Electric. You can buy books from us here and we’ll do some profit-sharing.
Great idea!! Geeat to see all sorts of groups coming together!