Posted Thursday, October 23, 2014 11:30 am

In 1844, a group of weavers in Rochdale, England opened a co-op grocery. Workers pooled their money to provide for their economic benefit. Their principals of governance and operations made the Rochdale Co-op the cornerstone for the cooperative movement worldwide ever since.

Today, cooperatives help members get a fair share in many sectors of our economy. In agriculture, farmers realized that the middlemen gained greater profit from their labor than they did, so they organized cooperatives to control the process between farm product and final product. Dairy co-ops such as Land O’Lakes and Cabot Creamery take raw milk from farmers, produce butter and cheese, and market the product, keeping control and profit in the hands of farmer-owners. Ocean Spray, Dairylea, Blue Diamond Growers, and Sunkist are among the cooperative brand names you may know.

Small mom and pop hardware stores realized they could better compete by purchasing cooperatively. ACE and True Value are examples of small businesses benefitting from purchasing co-ops.

Today, worker cooperatives comprise a growing sector of the cooperative movement. Here in NYC, the City Council and Mayor recently provided $1.2 million to support worker cooperatives, promoting workplace democracy and improving the lives of low-income workers. The largest worker-owned cooperative in the nation is here in the Bronx, Cooperative Home Care Associates. CHCA offers quality health care for clients by providing quality jobs and training for home care workers. There are co-op cleaning services, restaurants, tech companies and more. A good source of information can be found at www.nycworker.coop.

Then there is the financial sector. While Wall Street bankers caused the financial meltdown, credit unions served their members without scandal, without sub-prime mortgages, without bailouts and with no credit union accused of criminal activity. Credit unions serve their members, and offer financial services that one could get from a privately owned commercial bank. NCB, the National Cooperative Bank, also stayed free of the financial chicanery practiced by the private banking sector.