Research & Development Intern

Cooperation Texas seeks a Research & Development intern for the organization’s Cooperative Business Institute program.

About us

Founded in October 2009 in response to growing economic inequality, Cooperation Texas is an Austin-based non-profit committed to the creation of sustainable jobs through the development, support and promotion of worker-owned cooperatives. We believe everyone deserves equal access to dignified employment, which is why we place those most directly affected by social and economic inequality at the center of our work. We provide education, training and technical assistance to existing and start-up worker cooperatives in all sectors of the economy, helping launch and strengthen businesses across Texas that put people and the planet first.

Responsibilities:

• Research and review existing literature on worker cooperative development
• Conduct market & industry research.
• Assist with feasibility studies & business planning
• Work with staff on project management
• General program support for the Cooperative Business Institute
• Other tasks as assigned

Requirements:

• Education level: Bachelor’s degree in progress or higher
• Subject/Major: Financing; Business Management; Economics; Marketing
• Research-oriented and organized
• Demonstrated interest in business development and the cooperative economy
• Strong written and verbal communication
• Spanish-language proficiency preferred, not required.
• Ability to work independently
• Computer literate, including Word, Internet and databases
• Available at least 10-12 hours per week.

Please note that this is an UNPAID internship.

Start Date: As soon as possible.

To Apply: Send an email with your resume and cover letter to Carlos Pérez de Alejo at carlos@cooperationtexas.coop

Cooperation Texas is an equal opportunity employer and strongly encourages people of color, women, and LGBTQ individuals to apply.

Research Intern for Cooperative Opportunities Outreach Program

Cooperation Texas seeks a research intern for the organization’s Cooperative Opportunities Outreach Program.

About us

Founded in October 2009 in response to growing economic inequality, Cooperation Texas is an Austin-based non-profit committed to the creation of sustainable jobs through the development, support and promotion of worker-owned cooperatives. We believe everyone deserves equal access to dignified employment, which is why we place those most directly affected by social and economic inequality at the center of our work. We provide education, training and technical assistance to existing and start-up worker cooperatives in all sectors of the economy, helping launch and strengthen businesses across Texas that put people and the planet first.

Responsibilities:

• Become familiar with and comfortable talking about worker cooperatives
• Research possible funding sources for worker cooperatives
• Research possible partnerships with community based organizations
• Work with staff on research and design for presentations and educational materials
• General program support for the Cooperative Opportunities and Outreach Program
• Other tasks as assigned

Requirements:

• Education level: High School Equivalency in progress or higher
• Subject/Major: Community Organizing, Social Services, Finance, Business Development
• Demonstrated interest in community service, the cooperative economy, small business development
• Strong written and verbal communication
• Spanish-language proficiency strongly preferred
• Ability to work independently
• Computer literate, including Word, Internet and databases
• Available at least 10-12 hours per week.

Please note that this is an UNPAID internship.

Start Date: As soon as possible.

To Apply: Send an email with your resume and cover letter to Kim Penna at kim@cooperationtexas.coop.

Cooperation Texas is an equal opportunity employer and strongly encourages people of color, women, and LGBTQ individuals to apply.

Cooperative Business Institute

The Cooperative Business Institute (CBI) is a comprehensive training program designed to equip participants with the skills and resources needed to establish and manage a worker-owned cooperative.  CBI trainings and workshops are based on a participatory education model anchored in the tradition of popular education, valuing the knowledge and experience that participants bring to our work.  Through a unique interactive learning environment, our trainers help participants flesh out their needs and goals, and work with them to put what they have learned into practice.  The program provides a range of education and training opportunities on the cooperative model, the green economy, and the legal, organizational and business essentials specific to worker-owned enterprises.  Whether you are looking to strengthen an existing worker cooperative or start a new one, the CBI has something for you.  Choose from one of the following options:

General Assistance

Are you part of an existing worker cooperative looking to strengthen or grow your business? Do you have an idea for a worker cooperative but you’re not sure what to do next? We will work with you to design the right consultation/training package to meet your needs and budget. For a free consultation, submit a request today and email it to info@cooperationtexas.coop.

Startup Course

The CBI’s startup course is designed for teams of entrepreneurs seeking to start a worker-owned cooperative.  Composed of 13 classes, the CBI’s startup course covers a broad range of topics, including the fundamentals of the worker cooperative model, marketing, financing, democratic decision-making, business planning and more.  Throughout the course, participants will receive assignments to be completed outside of class that will help shape the development and implementation of their business plan.  All 13 classes are two hours long and are held twice weekly at 5604 Manor Rd.  Upon graduation, participants receive additional hands-on training and technical assistance from Cooperation Texas staff and other business professionals, providing legal assistance, logo and website design, and help in finalizing their business plan.   Graduates from our startup course walk away with the following:

• A deeper understanding of the history, principles and values of the cooperative model.
• Over 50 hours of training and consultation from Cooperation Texas staff and business professionals.
• A comprehensive resource binder on worker cooperatives.
• Logo and website design.
• A graduate certification.
• Assistance in communications to increase the public profile and visibility of their cooperative.
• Basic elements of a business plan, along with sample co-op business plans.
• A mission statement.
• Training in democratic decision-making, facilitation and conflict resolution.
• A basic understanding of cooperative accounting systems and financial literacy.
• An understanding of the possible business entities, tax issues, and other legal concerns related to starting a worker cooperative in Texas.

The next startup course will take place from February 23 – April 5th.  To apply, you must have a team of at least three people committed to a single business concept.  The cost per team is $1,500, and we will work with each team to create a payment plan that meets their budget.  To apply, fill out the following application and send it to info@cooperationtexas.coop by February 16th.

MARK YOUR CALENDAR! TO RSVP ON FACEBOOK, CLICK HERE

Gar Alperovitz of the Democracy Collaborative discusses his op-ed in the New York Times on Democracy Now!

Produced by Caroline Woolard, Cheyenna Weber, and Michael Johnson of SolidarityNYC.  Photographed by Alex Mallis.  Edited by Iva Radivojevich.  Music by Michael Rosen.  Reposted from American Worker Cooperative.

Third Root Community Health Center Worker Cooperative (Portraits of the Solidarity Economy) from Alex Mallis on Vimeo.

MISSION STATEMENT

At the Third Root Community Health Center, we strive to thrive and achieve social justice and community wellness by providing holistic, collaborative care in an accessible and sustainable manner. Our greatest intention is to watch students and patients walk out of the center with a heightened perspective regarding their own potential for good health.

We strive to be Accessible, Empowering, and Collaborative.

Accessible — We offer sliding scale fees, a staff trained in anti-oppression, and a clinic that is building bridges within a community.

Empowering — Third Root is a place where people learn to make informed choices about self-care. We offer health education workshops, herb walks, a resource library, and someone available for questions.

Collaborative — Practitioners from various modalities work together toward a client’s optimum health. We will be working with members of the local community to form a Community Advisory Board as well as help shape workshops on health and well-being that reflect the community’s needs.

About a year and half ago, after working for years in the food industry, three of us got together to discuss the idea of starting our own bakery here in Austin, TX.  We wanted to provide the community with superior vegan baked goods (starting with vegan donuts!), while building a business that valued equality, cooperation, independence, community and the environment over financial gain and exploitation.  The seed was planted and the idea for Red Rabbit Cooperative Bakery was born.  But while we all had commercial baking experience, none of us had experience starting a business, let alone a worker cooperative.

Luckily, just when we needed it, we came across Third Coast Workers for Cooperation in the local newspaper and enrolled in the full-length certification course through their Cooperative Business Institute (CBI).  That’s when our real journey began.  With Carlos Perez de Alejo and Andi Shively as our teachers and guides, we studied the history, values and principles of cooperatives, other worker cooperative models throughout the country, the basics of worker self-management, what it means to be a worker-owner, financial and business concepts, and began to develop a feasibility study and business plan.  Carlos and Andi shared their wealth of knowledge on worker cooperatives and business, engaging in and facilitating a dialogue with us, and were always receptive to any feedback we had.  It was an amazing learning experience that we won’t forget.  It gave us the tools we needed to start our cooperative, as well as the strength and confidence to do it ourselves and give it everything we had.

And the best part? The learning did not end after we graduated from the CBI.  In true cooperative spirit, Third Coast Workers for Cooperation continues to guide and support Red Rabbit, lending whatever resources they have, helping us make connections with the community, and answering our numerous questions.  They have been an integral part of our development as a small worker-owned bakery.  That’s why we mean it when we say we would not be where we are today if it weren’t for them, and we are so grateful for their work with us and other groups in Texas who are learning about or starting worker cooperatives.  Join us in supporting Third Coast by MAKING A DONATION TODAY to help empower future workers like us and strengthen the cooperative movement here in Texas.

Reposted via US Federation of Worker Cooperatives

4th NATIONAL WORKER COOPERATIVE CONFERENCE

Northeastern University
Boston, Massachusetts
June 22-24, 2012

NOW ACCEPTING WORKSHOP PROPOSALS

Contribute to the 2012 National Worker Cooperative Conference by submitting a workshop proposal. We will be accepting proposals until the 15th of December. Final decisions and notifications will be sent out by January 15th, 2012. For more information and to submit your proposal, visit our Workshop Proposal form.

Reposted via Dollars & Sense.

America Beyond Capitalism

How thousands of co-ops, worker-owned businesses, land trusts, and municipal enterprises are quietly beginning to democratize the deep substructure of the American economic system.

By GAR ALPEROVITZ

“Black Monday,” September 19, 1977, was the day 34 years ago when the shuttering of the Youngstown Sheet and Tube steel mill threw 5,000 steelworkers onto the streets of their decaying Midwestern hometown. No local, state or federal programs offered significant help. Steelworkers called training programs “funeral insurance”: they led nowhere since there were no other jobs available. Inspired by a young steelworker, an ecumenical religious coalition put forward a plan for community-worker ownership of the giant mill. The plan captured widespread media attention, the support of numerous Democrats and Republicans (including the conservative governor of the state at the time), and an initial $200 million in loan guarantees from the Carter administration.

Corporate and other political maneuvering in the end undercut the Youngstown initiative. Nonetheless, the effort had ongoing impact, especially in Ohio, where the idea of worker-ownership became widespread in significant part as the result of publicity and educational efforts traceable to the Youngstown effort—and because of the depth of policy failures and the continuing pain of deindustrialization throughout the state. In the more than three decades since that effott, numerous employee-owned companies—inspired directly and indirectly by the effort to save the Youngstown mill—have been developed in Ohio. Individual lives were also changed, among them that of the late John Logue, a professor at Kent State University who established the Ohio Employee Ownership Center, an organization that provides technical and other assistance to help firms across the state become worker-owned.

There has also been an evolution in the position of the United Steelworkers union. In the late 1970s the union saw worker-ownership as a threat to organizing, and it opposed efforts by local steelworkers to explore employee-owned institution-building in cities like Youngstown. Over the decades, however, the union changed its position as its leaders saw the need to supplement traditional forms of labor organizing with other strategies. The union has now become a strong advocate of worker ownership, and is actively working to develop new models based upon the Mondragón Cooperative Corporation in the Basque country of Spain. This highly successful grouping of worker-owned cooperatives employs 85,000 people in fields ranging from sophisticated medical technology and the production of appliances to large supermarkets and a credit union with over 21 billion euros in assets.

The developmental trajectory from Youngstown to today illustrates what might be called “forced institutional innovation”—a process that, once underway, also suggests further possibilities for larger-scale and more refined development both within Ohio and elsewhere—especially as many other parts of the nation now experience the massive job losses and community decay that hit Ohio and other rustbelt states three decades ago. Critically, all involve new ways to give concrete meaning to the idea of democratizing capital.

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One line of this development points towards increasing knowledge, along with local innovation and the buildup of new and ever more sophisticated strategies over time. The most recent and advanced of these is a major effort in Cleveland that has taken the idea of worker-ownership forward in new ways. The “Cleveland Model” now underway in that city involves an integrated complex of worker-owned cooperative enterprises targeted in significant part at the $3 billion purchasing power of such large scale “anchor institutions” as the Cleveland Clinic, University Hospital, and Case Western Reserve University. The complex also includes a revolving fund so that profits made by the businesses help establish new ventures as time goes on. (Full disclosure: I was one of the chief planners of the Youngstown steel effort, and The Democracy Collaborative, an organization which I co-founded, played a major role in helping develop the Cleveland effort.)

The first of the linked worker-owned companies, Evergreen Cooperative Laundry, is a state-of-the-art commercial laundry that provides clean linens for area hospitals, nursing homes, and hotels. The thoroughly “green” company operates out of a building that received a LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) “Silver” rating for its energy-saving design and uses (and only has to heat) less than one third as much water per pound of laundry as typical competitors. At full staff it will include 50 worker-owners. The enterprise pays above-market wages, provides health insurance, and is still able to compete successfully against other commercial laundries. Another company, Ohio Cooperative Solar (OCS), provides weatherization services and installs, owns, and maintains solar panels on the rooftops of large university, hospital, and civic buildings. In its first year of operations OCS installed 400 kilowatts of solar generation capacity and is on target to more than double Ohio’s current total statewide solar generating capacity of two megawatts by 2012.

A commercial hydroponic greenhouse that covers 3.25 acres and will be capable of producing three million heads of lettuce a year broke ground on October 17 of this year. Additional new worker-owned businesses are being developed at a planned expansion rate of two to four ventures per year. A twenty-acre land trust will ultimately own the land upon which many of the businesses are situated and will serve as a first step to facilitating development in targeted neighborhoods of urban agriculture, and, when conditions permit, affordable housing. Like the Steelworkers, the Cleveland group has also drawn upon the experience of the Mondragón cooperative model, particularly in the design of its revolving fund.

Although the model began as a foundation- supported effort, the trajectory of institution-building development also has clear political implications. The Cleveland worker-owned businesses, backed by the city’s mayor, shrewdly utilized many of the same municipal, state, and federal tax, loan and other incentives available to any business. In turn, the success of the effort has also bolstered political support for the city’s liberal mayor. It also has slowly begun to suggest ways to make city officials less vulnerable to demands by major corporations seeking huge tax and other inducements to locate, often temporarily, in the city. Put another way, the developing institutional form has suggested the outlines of a new power constellation that in effect slowly displaces corporate influence, a strategy that may one day take its place alongside more traditional “countervailing-power” strategies that attempt to regulate, tax, and “incentivize” corporate power. In a further development, the Cleveland model has become the basis for new national legislation about to be introduced by Sen. Sherrod Brown to provide federal support to test the approach in other cities.

The effort has also struck a chord among activists and economic development practitioners throughout the nation who are concerned with the collapse of the economic core of many cities. Exploratory efforts are currently underway to replicate aspects of the Cleveland model in Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Washington, D.C., and several other communities. The “demonstration effect” of the highly unorthodox model has also begun to challenge community organizers to find ways to incorporate worker-owned development into grassroots activist strategies.

§§§

The long evolutionary trajectory traced by developments in Ohio offers lessons worth careful examination by activists and scholars alike. First, experience in Cleveland and in many cities now exploring replication of the model demonstrates that worker-owned co-ops are well within American political possibilities. Local businessmen, bankers, and others, in fact, commonly support the idea both on practical and moral grounds. To the extent such efforts increase local economic activity they help the local economy. Moreover, the focus on work and even ownership is seen by all parties as a positive contribution. The atmosphere at the local level is far different from the ideologically driven national political debate: What counts above all is whether the projects are intelligently developed, practical, and serious. In the midst of the worst financial crisis in modern history, the Cleveland worker-owned co-ops were able to secure bank financing for key projects. The idea of creating wealth, not simply jobs, also has a powerful resonance. The Evergreen model takes us well past token job creation at minimum wages in states like Rick Perry’s Texas, to a very different conception of what people deserve and ought to be able to have.

Institution-changing projects like the Cleveland model also demonstrably have the power to alter ideas about what can be talked about in conventional discourse—particularly ideas about who should own “the means of production.” The developmental path, importantly, is an example of the historical creation of political knowledge: To use a concept put forward by Italian theorist Antonio Gramsci, the practical, the very down-home efforts challenge the dominant, hegemonic ideology in a very unorthodox American way. They introduce a new idea into common culture. Another question they pose is how, in practical terms, serious activists committed to the long haul might aim in this and other ways to self-consciously shift what can be discussed in politics over time. One obvious line of development that might flow from the Ohio experience would be a concerted and self-conscious effort to attempt to create more worker-owned businesses, backed by local political support, wherever possible. The nation’s ongoing and likely continued economic stagnation and decay appear all but certain to create conditions in many American communities similar to those that gave rise to the Youngstown effort, the follow-on developmental path in Ohio, and the Cleveland model.

A mere one percent at the top now owns roughly half of the nation’s investment capital—more wealth than the entire bottom half of society taken together. This is literally a medieval pattern of ownership. Worker co-ops are one way to offer a practical alternative to this pattern, but they are not the only way. There are many other ways to democratize ownership—to move ownership out of the corporate system and in one way or another to institutions that are community-serving. This is far less familiar ground for most activists and scholars. Nonetheless, at the community level where the pain has been greatest, many other ways to democratize ownership have been quietly developing over the last several decades. All in one way or another give practical meaning to the simple idea that wealth and ownership ought rightly to be lodged in institutions that serve the community or broader social purposes.

Just below the surface of media attention, for instance, there are more than 4,500 not-for-profit community development corporations that operate affordable housing and other community-building programs in cities throughout the United States. In many cities new “community land trusts,” once viewed as beyond the pale, now increasingly use nonprofit or municipal ownership to develop and maintain permanently affordable housing. “Social enterprises” that run businesses to support such community-serving missions as drug rehabilitation and training programs comprise an emerging “fourth sector” of the economy (different from the government, business, and non-profit sectors). Another 130 million Americans are members of urban food and housing co-ops, traditional agricultural cooperatives and, importantly, widespread credit unions. Additionally, approximately 1.5 million non-profits provide more than 10% of the nation’s employment.

It is also important to begin to take seriously the 11,000 other businesses that are owned in whole or part by their employees. More than 13 million individuals are involved, several million more than are members of private-sector unions. Though Employee Stock Ownership Programs (ESOPs) have often been the subject of well-deserved criticism, many are now experimenting with increasingly participatory strategies aimed at overcoming past difficulties. Some are both worker owned and unionized, suggesting further longer-term evolutionary possibilities in connection with this ownership model. In Ohio, moreover, preliminary research indicates that as the share of ownership increases over time, so too does participation. Other studies show that greater participation brings greater profit—another longer-term dynamic favoring change in this sector. At some point a serious effort to radically reform the ESOP model and build upon its long developmental trend might well converge politically with other democratizing efforts. Critically, even in compromised form, the various enterprises all demonstrate the political viability and importance of the principle that workers can and should own capital.

Virtually all the democratized ownership forms—including thousands of co-ops, land trusts, social enterprises, and worker-owned companies of one kind or another—are also characterized by another principle of political importance, especially as ongoing economic decay destabilizes city after city: All are inherently anchored in, and supportive of, the local economy. Unlike private corporations, worker-owned companies of all descriptions rarely move to another city. The fate of those who own the company is intimately tied to the fate and health of the locality in which they both live and work. Virtually all the many other non-profit and related institutions based on democratized ownership principles are similarly place-anchored.

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It is instructive to underscore the “situational logic” that is both allowing and helping generate long-term innovation and institution-building of this kind—and its relationship to possible new directions for progressive politics. The driving force is the ongoing failure of traditional policy—and a deepening awareness that traditional efforts have reached a dead end.

A careful review of developments in connection with health care and finance also suggests emerging democratizing possibilities in other areas as well—again, especially as pain levels increase, and again when understood not simply in terms of immediate politics, but in terms of longer evolutionary trajectories of committed development. Even as the Obama health-care reform law has come under intense attack—and indeed, in significant part because of this—more than fifteen states are exploring one or another form of single-payer health care. Another fourteen states are considering creating state banks, following the long-established North Dakota model, a trend that is also likely to intensify when further Wall Street financial crises again have an impact on Main Street. Other well established public forms might also potentially be built upon—including state pension fund investing for public purposes (as in California and in Alabama where a somewhat maverick public strategy has long invested even in worker-owned firms). The well-known case of the Alaska Permanent Fund is also of interest as a model that translates public ownership of assets into direct citizen financial benefits. Many states, moreover, now commonly invest in new companies through venture capital strategies, keeping significant shares under public ownership—an approach that in future could open the way to other, more expansive public possibilities.

Central to these various developments is the question of perspective: Many of the possibilities in one way or another have begun to take shape and move in a new direction, again, because as in Ohio traditional progressive reform strategies are no longer capable of providing solutions to ever more painful problems. Confronting—and taking advantage of—this paradoxical dynamic presents challenges to both traditional and radical understandings. The “evolutionary reconstructive” strategic approach they illustrate is a form of change different not only from traditional reform, but different, too, from traditional theories of “revolution.” The various efforts all also involve a sense of the importance of a long, evolutionary process that builds towards institutions (and ideas) that may offer ongoing ways to fundamentally alter economic and political relationships over time.

At this stage of development the central strategic questions are how to refine and expand various models—and how over time to legitimate the idea of democratized ownership in general. Ultimately, however, such strategies must converge with (and provide new content for) political mobilizations, movement-building and electoral efforts that take us beyond liberal and populist categories of change. As in the prehistory of the Progressive Era—when what subsequently became elements of the New Deal were first developed in state and local “laboratories”—it is also possible that the quietly emerging mosaic of experience and ideas could establish principles that might be applied to larger scale structures when a new progressive politics once again arises out of the pain. The U.S. government did, after all, nationalize two auto giants, G.M. and Chrysler, in the recent crisis for a substantial period. Given the huge financial flows it directed to major banks and other financial institutions, it also could well have established public control of one or more of these as well. Such possibilities are likely to return in future. Far-reaching change of this kind, and beyond, might one day be achieved if serious scholars and activist are able to build forward on the emerging developments to create even more advanced democratizing models—along with constituencies that have come to understand why they are important to a democratic future.

GAR ALPEROVITZ, Lionel R. Bauman Professor of Political Economy at the University of Maryland and co-founder of the Democracy Collaborative, is the author of America Beyond Capitalism: Reclaiming Our Wealth, Our Liberty and Our Democracy, a new paperback edition of which will be published this month by The Democracy Collaborative and Dollars & Sense. He is working on a new book on long-term institutional and systemic change.

Each October, cooperatives across the United States celebrate the cooperative difference, business model and the contributions of cooperatives to their communities. Minnesota was the first state to observe Co-op Month in 1948, and it has since spread quickly across the country.

For this years Co-op Month, Third Coast Workers for Cooperation will be celebrating the theme, “Cooperative Enterprises Build a Better World,” with a film series focused on worker-owned cooperatives. Join us at 5604 Manor every Friday evening in October @ 7pm for films, snacks and panel discussions on cooperatives:

CIVILIZING THE ECONOMY: THE CO-OP ALTERNATIVE, Oct. 7 @ 7pm

Part 1 of Civilizing the Economy deals with co-operation in a market economy, by examining the phenomenal success of Emilia Romagna in northern Italy, which is perhaps the worlds’ most successful example of a co-operative economy.
Emilia Romagna, with Bologna its capital, is the most productive and prosperous regions of Italy and generates 45% of its GDP from coops in food production and distribution, cement manufacturing and construction, ceramics and machinery, and many other manufacturing sectors as well as controlling food distribution through their own supermarkets and, increasingly, to the delivery of social services formerly provided by government.
This short film will be followed by a panel discussion by representatives from local cooperatives.

THE TAKE, Oct. 14th @7pm

The Take is a documentary film by Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein about how workers in Argentina are taking over the factories abandoned by their previous owners in the wake of the 2001 economic meltdown putting them under worker self-management. The film follows thirty unemployed auto-parts workers who walk into their idle factory, roll out sleeping mats and refuse to leave. All they want is to re-start the silent machines. But this simple act – The Take – has the power to turn the globalization debate on its head.

The story of the workers’ struggle is set against the dramatic backdrop of a crucial presidential election in Argentina, in which the architect of the economic collapse, Carlos Menem, is the front-runner. His cronies, the former owners, are circling: if he wins, they’ll take back the companies that the movement has worked so hard to revive
For more information on the film, visit: http://www.thetake.org/

BEYOND THE BOTTOM LINE: AMERICAN WORKER COOPERATIVES, Oct. 21st @7pm

Beyond the Bottom Line is a 30 minute documentary about a little known twist on the American Dream – businesses in which workers own the stock, reap the profits and decide for themselves how the company runs.

It is the story of worker-entrepreneurs in dozens of communities and nearly every kind of business… from manufacturing to health care to high tech. Some are tiny firms, while others employ hundreds and record millions of dollars in yearly revenues.

By giving the viewers a glimpse into the inner workings of these successful companies, Beyond the Bottom Line shows American workers, entrepreneurs and business owners that viable, community-oriented businesses are within their grasp.

This film will be followed by a discussion panel by local worker cooperative representatives.

CORAZON DE FABRICA, Oct. 28th @ 7pm

The film looks at the life of a group of workers, men and women, inhabitants of the Argentinean Patagonia. These workers start a fight to stop the deaths and accidents that happen in the factory where they work. They live complex and dangerous conflicts and they are taking more and more commitment, something many of them had never imagined could happen.

These strong episodes are affecting their perception of the reality, of the world. No one now can see himself or herself like the human he or she used to be. Something broke, something has changed and can not return to the original place.

In a poor country looted by its own governments and businessmen, the workers of Zanon Ceramic take the factory in their own hands when the owner closes it. They start to produce ceramics again, but without bosses.