NCBA Presentation to COPAC Open Forum (2000)-Coop Employment Trends During Economic Prosperity

Slide 12 of 26

Worker-owned Cooperatives

Cooperatives in the US are focused on creating jobs that provide people with a living wage. There are many examples of how cooperatives have helped families increase their purchasing power and income. Our nation is reforming our welfare system and millions of people have been cut off from their access to welfare. In many cases, the government has not provided the training needed to obtain a job with a living wage. Cooperative leaders have seen the need and are developing cooperatives to create jobs for low-income people. One successful example is Cooperative Home Care Associates. This worker cooperative was organized in 1985 to provide consistent, quality care for homebound persons, a goal its founders believed could be accomplished by generating paraprofessional jobs paying the highest combined salaries and benefits in New York City's home care industry. Most of the cooperative members are semi-skilled Latino or African American women who were on welfare. They perform health-related and personal hygiene tasks, light housekeeping, and shopping for the homebound under contracts to hospitals or health service agencies. Today the cooperative has over 1,000 members and wages and patronage refunds provide members with incomes substantially above the living wage. Start-up funding for this new cooperative was provided by the National Cooperative Bank. The cooperative has been so successful that similar cooperatives have recently been organized in Boston, Philadelphia, and Los Angeles.

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