Slide 12 of 13

New cooperatives = New opportunties for women

A new phenomenon is however that the majority of the new work opportunities that are created in the new work cooperatives are opportunities for women's employment. It is especially women that invest in cooperatives and that are the cooperative entrepreneurs. It was to meet this development that CECOP 1996 created our Women's Commission and it is in the framework of the Women's Commission that CECOP has developed the project "Participation & Flexibility: An Opportunity for Women's Employment". To meet the growing female participation in social economy CECOP has also integrated equal opportunities in our statutes and election procedures. Furthermore, CECOP hopes to be able to promote equal participation of women and men within its member organisations. CECOP (The European Confederation for Workers Cooperatives, Social Cooperatives and Participative Enterprises) is a European organisation representative at European Union level and a representative for the region of Europe, Cicopa Europe.

It is inevitable that an organisation like CECOP creases the opportunity of promoting female social economy entrepreneurship, as the new enterprises created by women are a veritable laboratory of social innovation concerning work organisation, elaboration of new methods for work sharing and methods for positive flexibility. This experimentation in the field of restructuring of working time has not only contributed to the individual aspirations of women, but also to better reconciliation of individual, family and working time. Furthermore, the female innovations show good examples of how the new "spare time" within the enterprise have been turned into new job opportunities for women.

In all, this experimentation constitutes an answer to the important deficits Europe is confronted with in the context of a high level of structural unemployment. It is an answer to the demands for modernisation of work organisation and for a growth of female employment. The special features of these enterprises that have put into practice models of advanced participation meet the demands of society, but through models of positive flexibility and work sharing they also meet the demands of individuals and enterprises. The creation of an entrepreneurial culture that include female participation as elected to higher posts of decision-making within the enterprise will also lead to a growing recognition of equal opportunities between women and men.

In Sweden new cooperatives are especially expanding in female-dominated areas, that is, in branches which are dominated by the work, professional skills and interests of women. One reason might be that the "flat", non-hierarchical organisation suits women particularly well. It provides an "easy" framework for starting a business and to run a cooperative might imply a useful experience in entrepreneurship.

The Swedish cooperative day-care centre "Sjöelefanten" provides an example of how women's participation and flexibility actually increase with the cooperative as it enables women to have certain jobs that they could not have had without this service. "Sjöelefanten" provides child care 24 hours a day to be compatible with the special working hours of employees on "Stena Line"- a passenger ferry between Sweden and England. "Kalabaliken", which is another cooperative day-care centre in Sweden is an example of how flexibility increases for single parents, as the running of the cooperative is organised by themselves with respect to their particular situation. Parents also collaborate when the day-care centre is closed.

One hypothesis is that cooperatives are generally more open organisations than private businesses, and in some cases they do also provide means for enhancing male participation. Experiences from Sweden indicate that fathers are more involved in cooperative day-care centres than in public ones. Firstly, they participate more in the development of their own children at the day-care centre. Secondly, as all parents usually carry out various duties at their cooperative day-care centre children get to know each other's fathers. In Sweden men's participation in the family life increases women's possibility to have interesting jobs.

Coming to an end, in the Cooperatives we have no use of nice and beautiful explanations and words. It's not enough to have the song on everybody's lips. There has to be a change and stronger concrete actions on global, European and national level.

We need a common cooperative strategy, develop a common language learning from each other We have to start a process in the field of social balance or audit; maybe it will be possible to develop criteria that are used by all cooperatives in the different countries.

With the help of new technology we may strengthen the horizontal links. Develop a list of common good experience in the starting process with a bottom up approach.

Comments or questions? Contact the COPAC Coordinator.
Posted: 19 July 2000