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Cooperative Job Opportunities
Hope is renewed when you believe in yourself and your ability to build a prosperous and secure future for yourself and your family. Our thoughts and prayers are with the Wrangler workers during this difficult time. But more than offering good wishes, we want to be of practical assistance.
Cooperatives are an important job alternative for displaced workers.
Throughout the world, displaced workers have found that owning their own job via a worker owned cooperative is a primary support for job security and household prosperity. A cooperative is an independent "association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise." For example, the Mondragon Cooperatives of Spain have tens of thousands of worker owners in 120 different enterprises, doing everything from selling newspapers in kiosks on the street to manufacturing household appliances. Workers elect the management and own the profits.
The opportunities of cooperative enterprise are extensive, practical, and profitable.
As to what kind of business you might start, think about what you are doing now and consider trends in the marketplace and the advantages of cooperative ownership. There is definite movement in the marketplace towards custom service, individual attention, and high quality. By selling direct to the public, by mail order, on the internet, in your own stores, and/or at fairs and flea markets, your cooperative enterprise would have wholesale and retail revenues. There are guys who hate to buy shirts, for example, who would be interested in having someone make shirts for them. Since its getting hard to find Made in the USA jeans these days, by utilizing the advantages of cooperative ownership, you could perhaps launch your own brand of blue jeans in various styles for different segments of the marketplace, and sell them directly to the public.
You do not have to be dependent upon the good will of others to have a secure job.
By joining with other workers in a cooperative business, your job will be secured by your own hard work in cooperation with your neighbors, as you move forward together meeting the ongoing tests of the marketplace. One principle of the cooperative movement is to help others to "do likewise," so there are resources and people available to help you work through the cooperative organization process. You don't have to walk this road alone, or reinvent the flat tire. There is a world of practical experience in organizing and managing cooperative enterprises that you can take advantage of to build yourself a better future.
Opportunities also are available in growing food for direct sales to the public.
You can make money growing vegetables to sell directly to the public. By using intensive and efficient cultivation practices, you don't have to have acres and acres of land. There might be $10,000 in annual income in your back (or front) yards waiting for you to find it with a bit of work and effort.. If you have as much as a typical vacant lot (120' x 60'), you could be looking at $20,000 annual income. If you have access to land, the up front cost of this kind of small scale market garden is very minimal. Since we are organizing a cooperative that will only sell local foods, grown and processed by Oklahomans, we can help you market your produce.
If you start this fall, you could have money coming in by May 2004.
Even if you are not an experienced gardener, you can still make money your first year. Depending on how much land you have, you may not be able to make a full time living, but small scale market gardening is an excellent part time job that certainly pays better than most such jobs available these days. We can show you how, and help you find markets.
Are you interested in more information about these opportunities?
In September, we will have a free public presentation in Seminole to talk about these ideas at greater length, and later we will offer free workshops for those who are interested in exploring these challenging opportunities in more depth and detail. Please contact us at 405-605-8088, send us email at rmwj@soonernet.com, or write us at 1524 NW 21st, Oklahoma City, OK 73106 if you are interested.
Robert Waldrop, on behalf of the Oklahoma Food Cooperative Organizing Project and the Oscar Romero Catholic Worker Community, Oklahoma City
The future will be different
if we make the present different.
For more information about cooperatives, visit:
For information on small scale market gardening, visit:
For information about reducing your utility bills with energy conservation, visit:
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