Cleveland’s Cooperative Model

[BridgeTheGap]

Cleveland is playing host to an exciting experiment in employee-owned business, The Nation reports. The city’s Evergreen network debuted last fall with the LEED-certified Evergreen Cooperative Laundry in Cleveland’s Glenville neighborhood, where, The Nation notes, residents’ median income is around $18,000. “After a six-month initial ‘probationary’ period, employees begin to buy into the company through payroll deductions of 50 cents an hour over three years (for a total of $3,000),” The Nation explains. “Employee-owners are likely to build up a $65,000 equity stake in the business over eight to nine years—a substantial amount of money in one of the hardest-hit urban neighborhoods in the nation.”

Evergreen is also operating a solar-panel installation enterprise, Ohio Cooperative Solar, and hopes to open at least two more cooperatives in the near future: Green City Growers, a massive urban-food operation to be housed in a 230,000-square-foot hydroponic greenhouse, and the Neighborhood Voice, a community newspaper. All in all, The Nation reports, Evergreen hopes to launch 10 integrated companies, and create about 500 jobs, in the next five years.

The overall strategy is not only to go green but to design and position all the worker-owned co-ops as the greenest firms within their sectors. This is important in itself, but even more crucial is that the new green companies are aiming for a competitive advantage in getting the business of hospitals and other anchor institutions trying to shrink their carbon footprint. Far fewer green-collar jobs have been identified nationwide than had been hoped; and there is a danger that people are being trained and certified for work that doesn't exist. The Evergreen strategy represents another approach—first build the green business and jobs and then recruit and train the workforce for these new positions (and give them an ownership stake to boot).

http://www.utne.com/Politics/Cleveland-Worker-Owned-Cooperative-Model-6765.aspx?utm_content=03.01.10+Environment&utm_campaign=Emerging+Ideas-Every+Day&utm_source=iPost&utm_medium=email

[jsmithsen]

1. Northern Ohio rocks

John Brown
Abolitionism at Oberlin
Tom L Johnson - socialist Mayor
Toledo strike of 1934
First sit down strike (Akron)
First African American mayor
Center of Antiwar Movement (incl Kent State)
Kucinich and Kaptur

"Several nationally known individuals associated with antislavery activity and the Underground Railroad were active in Ohio. Levi Coffin, Harriet Beecher Stowe, John Mercer Langston, and John Brown were Ohio residents. Sojourner Truth gave her famous "Ain't I a Woman?" speech in Akron. Sarah Margru Kinson, youngest captive on the notorious slave ship Amistad, was educated in Oberlin. The National Park Service has identified ten Ohio Underground Railroad sites in its National Register of Historic Places, more than exist in any other state."