Tag: cooperatives

Took a trip out to Salford today.  Started off at the People’s History Museum, then walked along the River Irwell to Salford Quays.

Quite a lot of graffiti and street art along the way.

I went to The Lowry and the Imperial War Museum.  Really good exhibition called The State of Us at The Lowry, about the interface between biology and technology.

Also really liked Lowry’s paintings – I hadn’t realised that he did a lot more than just iconic paintings of factory life.  I really liked ‘Portrait of Ann’.  The graphic style.  And it’s very enigmatic.

There was a factory one of my hometown, Wigan, looking pretty industrial back in the 30s or so.

There was a particularly depressing exhibition about Yemen in the IWM.

Very grim stuff – so much suffering.

You get some nice views over the river around Salford Quays.

 

 

 

 

 

A walk to Salford Quays

Read Real Utopias: Switzerland’s Housing Co-ops (tribunemag.co.uk)

As countries across Europe struggle with housing crises, Switzerland’s innovative housing co-operatives point the way towards an alternative.

Despite a lot of interest, there’s only a small amount of co-op housing in the UK. Most non-profit housing is charitable housing associations. Large housebuilders have a stranglehold on the market overall.

“the Swiss example shows how these non-state and non-capitalist actors can build quality housing at a mass scale, if they’re encouraged — and that they can create a model of housing provision that moves beyond speculation into something more democratic and innovative.”

This article points to Switzerland and Zurich in particular as examples of more active housing co-op markets. Although it doesn’t give much insight into how to get to that point from our current position in the UK.

Housing co-ops in Switzerland

Read When Workers Takeover: From Redundancy to Ri-Maflow (workerscontrol.net)

Italian workers occupy the factory where they used to work and run it as a cooperative recycling electronic components.

It’s from 2013, but it is a positive story of workers taking over the factory and turning it into something with positive environmental and social impact.  And while I can’t read Italian from what I can understand they are still active, despite some attempts to shut them down.  http://rimaflow.it/

When Workers Takeover: From Redundancy to Ri-Maflow | workerscontrol.net

The seven co-operative principles:

  1. Open and voluntary membership
  2. Democratic member control
  3. Member economic participation
  4. Autonomy and independence
  5. Education, training and information
  6. Co-operation among co-operatives
  7. Concern for community