5 questions (and answers) about cooperatives and how immigrant women may benefit from them
These worker-owned enterprises empower members to form their own businesses and to take collective control over decisions. For immigrant women, they are a pathway to job opportunities, income, and fulfillment.
October is National Women’s Small Business Month – it’s time to celebrate women-owned businesses. Cooperatives are an important part of this ecosystem, allowing members to organize themselves in shared interests and goals as well as to form their own businesses. The cooperative model empowers workers in low-wage industries, including cleaning and child care, to access job opportunities and income, while also taking collective control over decisions. Female immigrant entrepreneurs, who are more likely to be unemployed or employed in these fields, according to the Pew Research Center, have become the driving force behind the recent boom of worker cooperatives in New York City.
Beyond generating jobs and income for low-wage workers, cooperatives have a key role in local and global economies. With their democratic operation, these people-centered enterprises prioritize the pursuit of equality and fairness, allowing members to create sustainable business models that may positively impact levels of poverty and racial inequality in the long run.
In honor of National Women’s Small Business Month, we prepared a quick guide on cooperatives and how you can get involved with one. Check it out:
1) What exactly is a cooperative?
A cooperative is a self-governed group of people who come together voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically-controlled enterprise. Cooperatives are businesses that are owned, run by and for their members. The members participate in running the business and can also have a share in the business profits. In this way, cooperatives can be economically empowering to their members, who work together to grow the business and boost their incomes. Cooperatives put ownership and control back into the hands of their members, including women immigrants.
2) Why are cooperatives particularly important for immigrant women?
For immigrant women, even recent ones, cooperatives can provide an opportunity to access the economy and own a business with a group of other workers who share similar values and cooperatives put ownership and control back into the hands of their members, which in turn can determine how the business should be run and how revenue should be spent. They can give lower income workers the ability to not only work, but to own the business for which they work. This can provide cooperative members with the professional fulfillment and satisfaction of owning their own business and economic empowerment if the business is successful. Cooperatives are also rooted in values that support their members’ rights and needs. Because cooperatives have principles that support their members’ well-being, they create a more inclusive workforce and society, providing a sustainable alternative to unemployment, labor exploitation and low wages – statistically, immigrant women are more likely to be unemployed or sub employed in jobs with poor pay and no benefits. The pandemic only exacerbated this fact, according to the Pew Research Center.
3) How to get started?
In New York City, the NYC Department of Small Business Services provides resources and referrals that support existing cooperatives and workers who are thinking about starting one. It also helps business owners explore ways to transition an existing business to a worker cooperative. A variety of references to support services is available through Worker Cooperative Business Development Initiative (“WCBDI”), including financing, legal and strategic/business development. Additional sources of information include the United Nations, the International Cooperative Alliance, and COPAC- Committee for the promotion and advancement of cooperatives
4) How are cooperatives different from other businesses?
A cooperative is different from other businesses because it is driven by its values rather than just by profit. Cooperatives are based on the principles of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity, and solidarity. In the tradition of their founders, cooperative members believe in the ethical tenets of honesty, openness, social responsibility, and caring for others. Cooperatives also agree on a set of principles to put their values into practice. The cooperative principles are:
- Voluntary and open membership
- Democratic member control
- Member economic participation
- Autonomy and independence
- Education, training and information
- Cooperation among cooperatives
- Concern for community
5) In which fields can a cooperative exist?
These self-governed groups exist in many different fields, including health, agriculture, production, retail, finance, housing, employment, education, and social services. There are more than one billion cooperative members across the world, according to the International Cooperative Alliance, and the cooperative movement strives to promote international solidarity, economic efficiency, equality, and world peace.
LEARN MORE: In NWNY’s podcast series Real People. Real Lives. Women Immigrants of New York, Bridge to LEAD graduate Rosa Pena, from the Dominican Republic, shares how her involvement with the cooperative movement has been instrumental in her path from undocumented immigrant to entrepreneur.
