October 2025
This season has brought many activities to many of us at the Community and Worker Ownership Project. 2025 is the International Year of Cooperatives. And October is 2025 CO-OP Month!
Redneck Gone Green
We began the season on Labor Day with a visit on the Redneck Gone Green podcast, with David Cobb, connecting worker-owned coops solidly inside the labor movement as a way to deepen worker power in our economy. 1080x1080_Clip#3_RGG_DavidCobbWorkers.mp4
You can see the full episode here. Redneck Gone Green with Rebecca Lurie – Labor Day 2025
NYS Cooperative Summit
October started off with several of us joining The 2025 New York Cooperative Summit. We were able to network and build solidarity as we learned about many different types of cooperatives in the state and what opportunities they are creating. The conference keynote speakers were India Walton, recent candidate for mayor of Buffalo, and board chair of Cooperation Buffalo, and Melissa Marquez, with a long history of impact in cooperative financing. There was a clear call that, in these times, we need cooperative values and cooperative businesses to seed and nurture the world we seek by building a better system of solidarity in the belly of this beast of capitalism. India repeated the call for community engagement as a fundamental grounding act to help us build resilience together. Dylan Hatch (a graduate of Cornell ILR and student at CUNY SLU) and Chris Fox (a worker-owners at Action OSH Cooperative and board member of NYCNoWC) presented as members of the Union Coop Council of the USFWC, on the basics of how unions and cooperatives can benefit from alliances.
In this photo we see Ken Lewis from The Drivers Cooperative who was a Project Champion in the SLU course Cooperative Management for a Changing World in 2020! Here he is with Rebecca Lurie and SLU student and co-chair of the Student Union, Abbie Harper.
NCBA/CLUSA
Later that week we could be seen at the 2025 Cooperative IMPACT Conference – NCBA CLUSA. Rebecca moderated a discussion with members of two media cooperatives, Defector and 51st.news. As a result of two union classes with the Consortium for Worker Education and Writers Guild of America East; Coops 101, we have been getting to know more writers and more media coops. This conversation with media coops added to the overall theme of the conference about how the power of stories is so critical to spreading the message of coops and why they are such critical and effective building blocks towards a more just and sustainable world. In this photo you can see Rebecca with Jasper Wang from Defector and Maddie Poore from 51st. Defector has quickly become a go-to model for how to build a cooperative from the ashes of the old, as several laid off workers from Deadspin started Defector during COVID. Maddie frames the experience with this story; This moment isn’t normal, but here’s our glimmer of hope.
WDCO program graduates from SLU, Lydia Hatfield and Nina Stender, were at the conference. (See photo below!) Nina is one of the new and emerging co-op leaders accepted into the 2025 CLS cohort – NCBA CLUSA .This cohort really shines for deepening a class consciousness and intersectional awareness with both their political and financial acumen. What a joy it was to network with radical thinking professionals in the field of cooperative business development economics, hearing how people put to work values that matter to life and community.
Women Building Up/Building Solidarity in Brooklyn
October 11th found several of us active at the new Women Building Up site, where we helped to coordinate a dynamic event Building Solidarity, Building Power. 251003_WBU Promo Video FINAL-.mp4 Speakers included Kali Akuno, from Cooperation Jackson and People’s Network for Land and Liberation , David Cobb from US Solidarity Economy Network and Resist and Build, Camille Kerr from ChiFresh Kitchen and VOLTS Chicago, and Maria Garcia from the Cooperative Economics Alliance of NYC. Our engaging breakout groups included these speakers plays representatives from Brooklyn Packers, Maharlika Filipino Cleaners Cooperative and Radiate Consulting
You can see the full panel presentations here. Building Solidarity, Building Power, panel Oct 11, 2025
And here we are, a post-event brunch at Rebecca’s with David Cobb from US Solidarity Economy Network, two SLU students, Abbie Harper and Michael Nugent, and our friends from Flatbush Mixtape!
Next stop on our October run for cooperatives: Co-op Cincy
Coop Cincy Symposium
Over 200 people gathered for the bi-annual symposium. Featuring bi-lingual workshops, presentations, networking, great food, and a party we explored together the deep needs and capacities to grow the solidarity of our movements for worker power, for community empowerment, for sacred presence. The space cultivated discussions for unions and coops to strategize together and the Union Coop Council of the USFWC proposed the concept for a Labor Neutrality clause for members of the USFWC. We also witnessed the debut of the United Steelworkers union coop council. Many of us agree it is most significant for our work where we tie labor organizing to worker owned cooperatives for deep approaches to worker and community sovereignty. As stated by Kevin Gallagher a member of International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, a Labor Neutrality clause in a coop’s by-laws acts as an olive branch to labor unions and welcomes any union who wants to look this way. United we are stronger!
Rebecca here with SLU student Abbie Harper and a SLU Project Champion from Network of Ensemble Theatres.
Here we are with UFCW Local 1459 President Jeff Jones, Wellspring Cooperative Co-Director Emily Kwano, Co-op Cincy s Co-Director Kristen Barker and William Foley, PhD student at Rutgers University, working with CWOP and the Union Coop Council Case Study Task Force! While unwinding, we are strategizing and learning together!
Staff from U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives (USFWC)!
Coop Dayton
To end an intense but impactful two days, about 5 carloads of us went to Dayton and visited (and shopped!) at Gem City Market. They feature a Labor Neutrality clause in their Bylaws that promises to not fight any union organizing that might occur at their store. This is a feature of solidarity and a unity of worker and cooperative ownership that shows an alignment to the broader framework of workers united!
Back to NYC
Winding down the month, we attended two local celebrations of our local Solidarity Economy. First, we attended the fundraiser for Connected Chef with the launch of a new space in Woodside where a WDCO graduate serves on their board of directors. Shout out to Androniki Lagos with me and Kim Calichio, Co-founder and Executive Director of CC! And also to WDCO grad, Catie Fireman, from the Astoria Food Pantry who is an active partner with Connected Chef!
Here we see the reveal of their new mural, honoring the earth, the farmer and food for the people.
Second, we went to a fundraising celebration for Seen NY, the Social Equity Empowerment Network of New York, working for justice in the cannabis industry. SEEN’s director, Tavian Crossland, was a Project Champion in SLU’s course, Cooperative Management for a Changing World. Here he is with Rebecca Lurie and Deb Olson, a cooperative lawyer. Deb and Rebecca are active on the board of Co-op Rhody, a cannabis justice initiative in Rhode Island.
Although the month is just winding down, in NYC, we are siting with supporters of “he who may be the next mayor of NYC” and strategizing how a cooperative economy may lay groundwork and actual work for more options for more workers and communities in the solidarity economy. CWOP will stay on this, working with scores of partners and allies, teaching, networking and contributing as we can toward approaches for deep economic justice, mutual aid and solidarity.
