A conversation about workers, communities and social justice

CWOP

The Community and Worker Ownership Project (CWOP) supports efforts percolating around the nation and New York City focused on worker-owned cooperatives, economic democracy, and community planning. In this age of burgeoning inequality and pervasive challenges to political and workplace democracy, this project supports projects in worker participation and control, as well as grassroots leadership in community development in collaboration with a broad array of organizational stakeholders, including unions, worker centers, community-based organizations, businesses and worker cooperatives.

  • Photos: Cooperative Events at Murphy

    Photos: Cooperative Events at Murphy

    By Rebecca Lurie This Thursday, the worker-owned cooperative Action OSH hosted their Grand Opening at the Murphy Institute, celebrating the National Day of Workers’ Health and Safety. Along with allies from the Center for Family Life, United Steel Workers, NYC Network of Worker Cooperatives and the Murphy Institute Community and Worker Ownership Project and elsewhere, this group…

    Read more

  • Taking a Systems Approach to Social Impact

    Taking a Systems Approach to Social Impact

    By Rebecca Lurie In a recent paper on the Pinkerton Foundation website, Steve Dawson describes how social purposes business can accomplish business growth and social impact: In a burst of entrepreneurial spirit, the workforce development field is showing new enthusiasm for an old idea: creating “social enterprises” to employ low-income jobseekers. The theory is enormously…

    Read more

  • Video: From Economic Crisis to Economic Democracy

    Video: From Economic Crisis to Economic Democracy

    In honor of the birthday of W.E.B. Du Bois, who amidst other great accomplishments authored Economic Co-operation Among Negro Americans in 1907, the Murphy Institute hosted a forum on Friday, February 28th to explore the stories, struggles and successes of workers who have taken control and bettered their lives through the cooperative history of African-American communities, and…

    Read more

  • Black Communities Leading the Movement for Economic Democracy

    Black Communities Leading the Movement for Economic Democracy

    By Rebecca Lurie Black History Month is here — and we must declare Black Lives Matter well beyond any one month. Dr. Phil Thompson shares some important facts and insights in a recent article in the New Labor Forum, “The Future of Urban Populism: Will Cities Turn the Political Tide?“ He clearly lays out that the…

    Read more