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Religion and Justice
Welcome to "Religion and Justice," a podcast brought to you by the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt Divinity School.
Hosted by Gabby Lisi (she/they/he) and George Schmidt (he/him/ours), we explore the intersections of class, religion, labor, and ecology, uncovering their implications for justice.
This podcast is a space for investigation, education, and organizing around these intersections. Join us as we engage in thought-provoking discussions with experts, fostering dialogue for actionable change.
Together, we navigate religion, justice, and solidarity for a more equitable future.
Religion and Justice
The Power of Cooperatives
Benny Overton and Rosemary Henkel-Rieger share their journey building the Southeast Center for Cooperative Development and explain how cooperative businesses create a democratic alternative to traditional capitalism.
• Origins in labor organizing and union work with UAW and AFL-CIO
• Different types of cooperatives including worker-owned, consumer, and producer co-ops
• Cooperatives address power imbalances structurally rather than just contractually
• Co-op Academy provides training through 10 modules and 6 specialized deep dives
• Biggest challenge is overcoming hierarchical mindsets conditioned by traditional business
• Faith and cooperative values align around interconnectedness and community care
• Innovative housing cooperative model creates permanent affordability through community land trusts
• Cooperative principle of "care for community" naturally extends to environmental sustainability
• Residents democratically control housing decisions unlike traditional public housing
• Worker cooperatives demonstrate viable alternatives to extractive economic systems
Reach out to the Southeast Center for Cooperative Development at www.co-ops-now.org to learn more about starting or supporting cooperatives in your community.
Welcome to "Religion and Justice," a podcast brought to you by the Wendland-Cook Program in Religion and Justice at Vanderbilt Divinity School.
We explore the intersections of class, religion, labor, and ecology, which bring together diverse populations and publics uncovering their implications for justice and solidarity
This podcast is a space for investigation, education, and organizing around these intersections. Join us as we engage in thought-provoking discussions with experts, fostering dialogue for actionable change. Together, we navigate religion, justice, and solidarity for a more equitable future.
Head to religionandjustice.org/podcast for our webpage!
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You have to reach out to your friends who think they are making it good and get them to understand that they, as well as you and I, cannot be free in America or anywhere else where there is capitalism and imperialism, until we can get people to recognize that they themselves have to make the struggle and have to make the fight for freedom every day, in the year, every year, until they win it. Thank, you.
Speaker 2:Welcome everyone to today's episode. We have with us two incredibly special guests. We have Benny Overton and Rosemary Henkel-Rieger. I said it wrong, even again. I was trying to think of how I was supposed to say it. Rosemary, could you say your name again?
Speaker 3:for us. I'm Rosemary Henkel-Rieger.
Speaker 2:Henkel-Rieger. Okay, thank you so? Much I've been saying your name wrong for I think the last four or five years.
Speaker 4:Way to go, george, way to go.
Speaker 2:You both work and really developed the Southeast Center for Cooperative Developments. We're really wanting to talk to you both about that work and where it's sort of headed and even kind of like maybe a little more generally, about cooperatives, co-ops and the cooperative economy in general. With that, I was wondering how did you two originally find each other? How did you two meet?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I had been doing work with the unions, afl-cio and a group called Jobs with Justice in Dallas, texas, trying to organize folks and engage church congreg around and inquiring who's doing similar work. And I'd been interested in cooperatives but couldn't really find traction in Dallas. But I had heard that the year before we moved there was a guy who had organized a conference that attracted like over 200 people and it was around labor and solidarity, economy and cooperatives. And so I sought out Benny Overton and was happy to meet with him and, yeah, we started discussions around how we could, you know, make co-ops real in Tennessee, and I'll let Benny give his side of the story.
Speaker 5:Well, I was fortunate to have met Rosemary.
Speaker 5:I've been working with the UAW years ago, was a union president for several years, but prior to that we had started self-directed work groups which empower workers to make decisions, to control their work spots, their operations, operations, and I was so impressed by the impact that it has on workers and the sense of, I guess, honor and respect, I guess the valuation of the worker.
Speaker 5:To me it was so impressive that I looked into that form, that model of organization, more and learned more about co-ops. So it was, I guess, that human aspect of it, as well as the ability to address the inequality issues, the growing inequality issues we have here in this country, that made co-ops even more appealing. And so, yes, I was definitely interested in it. We had a conference, as Rosemary had mentioned, back in 2015, a conference, as Rosemarie had mentioned back in 2015, in which we discovered that the people in Nashville were open to co-op and co-op development, co-op economics. Around that time, rosemarie came and she was interested in organizing and doing something in that area and I guess that was the hand and the additional inspiration that I needed to go forward and together we started the Southeast Center.
Speaker 2:This is so interesting because you both have this longstanding relationship with organized labor. I mean, Rosemary, with the AFL-CIO in Dallas, you as the local 737 president you were. Even you did work with the NAACP, am I remembering? Also in Dixon County there is a stereotype that unions are in opposition a little bit to cooperatives. Is that accurate?
Speaker 5:I don't think so. I think when you look at the essentially the what we're trying to achieve, we're very much the same. We just have different avenues of addressing the issues, because it's about power and addressing the power imbalance that exists between, say, labor and capital labor and those who are driven more by the profit motive, and that power imbalance is addressed through unions with, basically contractually, with co-op. We try to address that power imbalance structurally because the organization is structured to empower and provide equality to the workers, to our workers.
Speaker 2:Is it just typical provide equality to the workers, to our workers? Is it just typical? Because I remember I had, I have family members who worked in factories and my grandfather worked in factories and there was a sort of union squashing technique that almost like looked like a cooperative, like it almost was trying to go like well, we're democratizing the workspace by giving you stocks in the company. Could you describe how that's different than the cooperative movement?
Speaker 5:That's like recognition without power, so that you get to participate so much I mean, I guess, somewhat in the economic fruit, but you have no power, you have no control. But with co-ops you have both control and, I guess, a share of the wealth. So I think the co-op does more to actually honor the humanity of the workers and the fullness of the workers by giving you not only part of the economic fruit but an opportunity to bring your whole self and to express your whole self in the workplace.
Speaker 2:So could we talk about the different types of co-ops and the ones that you all are kind of the most aggressive and trying to push for at times? Maybe that's not even the right word, aggressive, but could you lay out sort of the landscape of the kind of different types of cooperatives that we often see like?
Speaker 3:with the credit union, which is a financial cooperative, and so they're the consumers you know are the co-op members and technically like control a lot at the credit union, but that you know, sometimes it's straight away from that. They're also like utility cooperatives. Those are also consumer co-ops. They're producer cooperatives and people might be familiar with, like Sunkist and Ocean Spray, these brands. So these are producer cooperatives. They're made up of independent farmers who've come together and, you know, pulled their resources to create like branding and marketing, distribution channels, manufacturing or plants, you know, for the products. So they do that collectively and all benefit from that what is ace hardware?
Speaker 2:which one is that is it? How would you describe ace hardware?
Speaker 3:that's the one that I usually am the most familiar with, to like buy their products together and that gives them like an advantage, right, they can negotiate cheaper contracts for you know, nails and screws and ladders and stuff and then like to brand that under like the Ace Hardware brand, and so they can share marketing costs and things like that. I think Best Western is similar and actually I think some of the fast food chains, some of the franchisees, get together and form a cooperative and then they can like negotiate better with, like the mothership of Kentucky Fried Chicken or what, and get better deals.
Speaker 2:I didn't know Kentucky fried chicken was also a cooperative too. I'm going to run out today and get more.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's not the company as a whole but like some of the franchises like come together to do that Wow.
Speaker 2:I've heard. It seems like cooperatives are also very resilient structurally right. Benny, you're sort of nodding. Do you want to just respond to that immediately?
Speaker 5:Well they are, because I think it's because co-ops tend to place value on people and doing what it takes to preserve people's economic means. So they do a much better job as perhaps sacrificing something in the way of profits to better the workers and the people who are dependent on the business for their sustainability. And I think that in itself unleashes people to be more determined to succeed, and that determination shows up in the greater operating performance and I guess in other means as well. But they tend to be more resilient. I think people have skin in the game and when you have skin in the game you tend to take, I guess, extraordinary means at times to see to it that it succeeds.
Speaker 2:Yeah, even structurally, though, though too right, I'm thinking of the company that I'm the saddest about it going out of business is Toys R Us. If I'm remembering correctly, it was a successful business and it was thriving. But there were a bunch of traders who basically found a way to buy up toys r us stock and then sell it off in pieces really butchering the economic language here, but it was. It was basically taken advantage of by predatory forces, and a cooperative like would make that incapable of, or it would make it impossible for something like that to take place, because, particularly in a worker owned cooperative, right, they just wouldn't sell themselves off, right.
Speaker 5:To you're not. One of the principles is autonomy and independence for co-ops, and so they do not enter into agreements or arrangements that would compromise their autonomy and independence and I think Joanne Fabrics right now would compromise their autonomy and independence.
Speaker 4:And I think the loss of Joanne Fabrics right now, that's such a loss. You know that's a big hell. That's a big loss Because the same thing happened to them, george, with the just selling it off. They were a thriving, thriving business. They've had up and coming numbers for a while.
Speaker 2:There's a story that I've heard, also when it comes to cooperatives, like the sad story of cooperatives they become very successful and then the members sort of sell off the cooperative. Is that an accurate story to say, like where, like you have like a very good, like grocery store, that's worker owned cooperative, and then, like, all of a sudden somebody wants to come in and like, purchase it. Is this an accurate story?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it doesn't happen as much because, just because the worker owners like are interested in, you know, retaining their jobs and having those jobs there long term for their kids, and so it happens. But I don't know. I'm trying to think of an example that I've heard of recently and I can't. The other thing that co-ops try to do when they create their operating agreement or bylaws is to put in some kind of dissolution clause that makes it very unattractive for that to happen. And so one way co-ops do that is to say that, like at the sale, like no one will benefit from the sale but that the proceeds might go to, like, the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives or another nonprofit that like helps the co-op development. So that's kind of one way to put in like a poison pill so people don't get the idea. Like you know, this would be a good idea.
Speaker 2:That's interesting because I was working with the Institute for Social Ecology and some of the members there had experiences with co-ops and they talked about them and like that they had seen so many examples of cooperatives going the way that I just described and I like that you guys are going like, well, no, it's very small amount. You haven't even heard of examples really like in the real world. And then there's even this poison pill that can be built in to really protect and make it even more resilient to sort of outside forces wanting to come in and exploit. It is there, uh, so what do you all do as a cooperative development? So the southeast center for cooperative developments, sec, the number four, cd, um, and so what do you all do?
Speaker 5:I think a lot of it's. It's centered on just creating the awareness of co-op principles, teach about business and help our clients develop their business model, business model canvas. Do a feasibility assessment, so we help with the technical and financial support basically and provide financing in some cases Do we talk more about the co-op academy.
Speaker 2:So what is that? What is that several month program will look like? What do you all do?
Speaker 3:There are 10 modules or classes that Benny and I teach and he mentioned, like, some of the content that we offer. You know it's like talking about the. You know how to build a democratic culture within the business. You know how to create a compelling mission and vision statement, putting together a business model canvas we touch on. We touch on kind of work, you know, thinking through workflow, finances, of course, all the components they would need to start up a cooperative business. And we ask that they're a team of at least two, because you can't be a co-op alone, so might as well start off right when you're doing the academy.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so there are 10 of those like modules. And then we have six deep dives, we call them. We bring in kind of outside experts who like dive a little deeper into certain subjects. We just had one this week on feasibility and then some weeks are reserved for the students or participants to work through a workbook that we've created along with those 10 modules. If they do the exercises and a lot of people are doing this next to one, two, three other jobs, and so while they're kind of working on these exercises, at the end of completing the workbook they would be ready to move on to the next step of potentially like applying for financing through our new Economy of Tennessee fund, which offers startup financing for worker cooperatives.
Speaker 2:So when someone goes through the academy and they start their cooperative, what's usually the hardest part for them to sort of like, take in, what's the biggest roadblock usually?
Speaker 5:I think, in a way from the, because we've been so conditioned to accept this sort of autocratic view of organization what we call Taylorism after Fred Taylor, who considered the father of scientific management and, I think, surrendering that mindset, that hierarchy, boss, workers mindset, and some people come to realize that they are more comfortable with that mindset and so that co-op isn't particularly for them. They want to be the boss, they have a need to be in control and control over others. So I think, coming to grips with the fact that people can work together without an authoritarian leader or authoritarian presence, I think it's probably one of the most challenging things to grapple with when you are introduced to co-op and the co-op culture.
Speaker 2:It starts really early. It seems like, oh, go ahead, Rosemary.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I was just going to say I just pulled up one of our partners who did offered one of the deep dives on conflict resolution, did a survey with the participants and I thought it was interesting because she asked you know, what are your obstacles to overcome? And more than half of the folks said fear and self-doubt. And I think that goes into what Benny was saying about how we're conditioned to like and we see this because we work with on conversions so already existing businesses that are converted to worker ownership and you know a lot of people doubt that. You know workers can run a business like you know they're not that smart and you have to have an MBA. Or you know workers can run a business Like you know they're not that smart and you have to have an MBA. Or you know I'm the owner and you know I'm smart and they don't know what's going on.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, I think like that fear and what it too is like, ingrained in people, like can I really do that? I, you know, I've never run a business, or yeah, so we try to instill, you know, self-confidence and and that cause we, you know, by trying to create a different economy. We're, you know, I guess we're the, the. What is it? We're the answer we're waiting for. You know, if we don't do it, who will? So you know a lot of things we have to take in our own hands and we might not have like traditional you know schooling or education but that doesn't mean you can't do it. So just trying to give people that confidence and the skills and, you know, the support they need to start a co-op.
Speaker 2:You gave kind of like you had a. I saw a glimpse there of a larger vision, the sort of cooperative economy vision. Could you describe that a little bit with what you mean when you think, when you talk about cooperatives like we are the solution that we've been waiting for? Could you lay that out just a little bit?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I guess it might not be evident to everyone, but to most people. Right, the economy doesn't work for us. Right, it doesn't work for everyone. It works very well for very few people and it doesn't have to be this way, right? What is it? Was it Margaret Thatcher? Right, who said there is no alternative? Right, but there are, and we can start creating those alternative systems.
Speaker 3:We do have to work in the shell of the old right. We are within capitalism, you know. Wish ourselves out of that. But you know building something new, that a real alternative, where you know communities govern and answer. You know the solutions belong to the community. Around the questions that the economy community. Around the questions that the economy asks, right, like if the economy is the way we, as humans, use the resources we have to meet our needs, right. Then the questions around what we produce, how we produce it, who gets what we produce and what is done with the surplus right, that those questions, then, are answered by the people who are creating this value. Right, the workers and the community as part of the community. So, and it's done in a democratic fashion, right. So everyone, yeah, everyone's voice needs to be heard.
Speaker 5:Everyone has a vote Right. One worker, one vote, and yeah. So that's how we envision, you know, a new economy. It can look and will look, so just a matter of time, thank you. We call it democratizing society as well, because it's a great equalizer, and I think this hierarchy that we've been conditioned to accept and tolerate is the thing that seems to be a great part of the problem, not just economically, but in human terms as well. So democracy is at the heart of co-ops, and democracy is what really brings equality economic equality as well as equality in human terms and recognizing the worth of labor and the worth of people and encouraging people to contribute what they have, their skills or talents, what they have, and work together, creating this solidarity effort.
Speaker 5:And it's a belief in the power of the solidarity, are you sure?
Speaker 2:because I thought we already lived in a democracy. But it is interesting. It's almost like we're seeing more of uh you all are sort of talking about the democratization of, like the workplace, right and uh and almost that the way in which, like democratization of the economy in the workplace feeds into democratization again at like the more formal political structures, because we're seeing how a very unequal hierarchical economy can now bleed into a now very, very unequal hierarch, hierarchical political situation where the votes are not just one person, one vote. It's now, you know, large amounts of money are defining things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and it's about, like community controlled solutions. You know, if you're talking politically, you know not just about voting, but you know if you're talking politically, you know not just about voting, but you know people are creating like participatory budgeting systems where the citizens, you know, get together and decide, like you know, what should our budget look like? Or, even further, I know, in Nashville I hope it's still there, but there's a community oversight board right where, like citizens, you know, regular everyday people right, help make decisions about like what should the budget look like of're buying, right, and so, yeah, to have like these really community based solutions to problems, that goes beyond just, you know, voting warrants in a while.
Speaker 2:There's a history of cooperatives being these hubs for political action, more formal political action too. Am I right on that?
Speaker 3:People, yeah, like anecdotally I know we've gotten that question before too like you know, is there research that shows that? But what anecdotally right people do, you know? Once they have the self-confidence and see that it's possible, right, it kind of spills over into their private lives.
Speaker 5:So, yeah, we get a chance to actually exercising and expressing their voice that carries over from the workplace to the larger community. Could you talk about the Co-op Cafe? Real quick Co-op Cafe. Part of what we do is try to allow the people within our co-op network, our ecosystem, to interact and socialize, and so part of our co-op cafe is designed to do that, to encourage that social interaction and getting to know each other, because it's all about collaborating and communicating and sharing ideas, sharing thoughts and working together. So it's not just work, it could also be part of our social lives.
Speaker 2:If you go to the Southeast Center for Cooperative Development's website, there is a bunch of tabs at the top and one of them says faith and co-ops. Yeah, what is the connection between faith and co-ops for?
Speaker 4:you. Well, it sounds like they had a hacker, George. I don't know if they meant for this.
Speaker 2:Okay, all right.
Speaker 3:Faith and co-ops.
Speaker 3:That project, I guess, has a longer history.
Speaker 3:So we've been collaborating with my partner, disclaimer, yorg Rieger, and the Wenlin Cook Program in Religion and Justice and for many years kind of looking at, you know, power of the economy, labor and how faith, you know, is shaped by that, how faith can shape and does shape uh economics and labor and um, so so that's been a a topic that york and I have uh talk about a lot and um and.
Speaker 3:But you know, especially in the south, where um, faith is like a um, a column or a support right, A big support in people's lives, that you know labor leaders and other folks who were working on projects that think about creating better workplaces. And we did a study for, oh, was it like 18 months or so? And we interviewed people who had been doing work around co-opshart and other people and created a toolkit for people of faith who are interested in thinking about this more that the theologians put together for us and pastors. And we have a section of explaining cooperatives and how they function and a section two of where we were thinking about what could this look like for churches, how can people of faith become engaged in creating cooperatives?
Speaker 4:The South often gets like a bad rap from the North for not necessarily being the best place to organize or the place where people are trying to organize. There's a meme that goes around social media. It's an image of the Simpsons. Uh, bus drivers driving the bus says don't make me tap the sign. And then it jumps to what the sign says. You could basically put anything there, but the one that is my favorite is the South is full of good people that are on your side that are held back by gerrymandering, disenfranchisement and regressive policies. You work in Nashville, you work in Tennessee, you work in the southeast. How does the regional context and you mentioned that faith is a huge pillar in the south how does that context influence y'all's approach to cooperative development?
Speaker 5:I think there's a great deal that we have paralleled with the church and the Christian movement.
Speaker 5:Once people are aware of just what co-ops are about, or what co-op developers envision, or what we as co-op participants, the future that we envision, I think, is very much in parallel there, because what we see is this I guess the church would call it brotherhood but it's this connectiveness and this realization that we are truly interconnected and that what happens to one of us impacts us all, and I think it goes to.
Speaker 5:I used the example in class of Abraham Maslow, who was a psychologist who talks about the needs that motivates our behavior, and we went from, you know, some of the basic physiological needs up to the security needs, actualization needs, and it went to the highest level, which in his latter years he determined was what he called transcendence, which is a need that I guess reveals that there's a part of us that extend the I.
Speaker 5:You know, we transcend self and we recognize how interconnected we are, which is what he expressed as the highest need. And so it's that interconnectedness and what we call the solidarity economy, the fact that we can work together and achieve and build that new world that we are envisioning or that we should be envisioning. I think I think that's something that we very much have in common with the church and the church teachings. I think that the non-hierarchical means of interacting as people, be it organizationally or informally, I think that's more in keeping with the Christian values of the teachings of Christ. So I think we have a lot in common and I think once people really get to see the values and principles that guide co-ops, those with Christian beliefs, I think they see that connection or see that parallelism.
Speaker 2:It's interesting, like so many people, like Maslow, like all these others, like Marx talking about species as being religion, talking about, you know, the beloved community and all these different ways they're all trying to speak to, this way in which, like we're not just individuals trying to increase our own equity, but like we are these social creatures that are free and productive and engage in work and labor and so much, and it seems like the cooperative effort and the cooperative economy and the movement is really trying to help us remember that almost, because you guys both talked about the ways in which we've been habituated in so many you know, in school and society, in so many ways to just sort of like get towards an autocratic sort of mindset where you know we are workers ordered around by a boss and an owner, um, and to sort of like almost, uh, deprogram. It's almost like you guys are doing like deprogramming work as if, like everyone, has been in a cult for a really long time yeah and, uh, you're trying to get to them to remember their essential humanity.
Speaker 2:in some ways it's a very religious activity, almost.
Speaker 3:Yeah, or just make people realize it's not a disconnect, like churches on Sunday and maybe Wednesday evenings, but it should be a part of your whole life, right, and that you're a worker. I think a lot of people don't realize that and bring the two together, like you know, and does our economy, or does you know, capitalism? You know, is it in line with my Christian or my faith values? And I think if people really thought about that, they come to the conclusion that no, yeah, and you know, can we change that and what can we do?
Speaker 2:And so yeah, for those who want to learn more about that, there's the Bible study that you described already, that sort of like walks a congregation through these sort of questions about, like what does the solidarity economy sort of do, and then you have even a lovely little breakout session what can churches do, which I think is a fascinating list as well. There is you have a new initiative, or it's not really. I wouldn't. I don't want to say it's new, but could you all talk about the Nashville's first publicly funded cooperative housing development that you all have been working on? You start about like maybe what is it, and then what was the genesis of this, and then you know what's the future of it. Could you answer that sort of those three part questions?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'll let Benny answer that. He was a major force behind it.
Speaker 5:I think at the core we realized that we can do something about the affordability of housing. And it started because a group that we had worked with called Workers' Dignity had some members who were facing displacement, imminent displacement, and so, as part of the, I guess, the gentrification that was happening here in Nashville, it was causing real harm to people, immediate harm to people, and they came to us looking, seeing if we could assist, and so we suggested or we delved into possible solutions and one of the things that was brought to our attention by our friends at Vanderbilt Law Center.
Speaker 2:They're not all bad people.
Speaker 5:Oh no, no. They were a great help because they pointed out the structure of the limited equity co-op that could provide, in a sense, permanent affordability for housing, promoted, advocated, advocated it with the mayor's office and people in housing, which led to eventually an opportunity through the Barnes Fund, which is the local housing fund, to try the model. Let's do a demonstration project. So we have an opportunity to do that. We're doing that now so that we can demonstrate the, I guess, the viability of affordable housing through co-ops. And one of our hopes was that if we could receive some land and we was hoping we could convince some of the churches who have a mission of affordable housing to maybe repurpose some land so that we could develop housing cooperatives that would provide permanently affordable housing for the citizens.
Speaker 2:Wow, so residents don't pay rent.
Speaker 3:No, they pay a monthly carrying charge which would cover their fair share of the mortgage cover, you know, their fair share of the mortgage insurance taxes.
Speaker 2:Property management a reserve fund, you know, in case the roof starts leaking. So it is yeah, so there are monthly charges, and that goes into also the joint ownership right as well.
Speaker 5:Well, yeah, the residents jointly own um the cooperative. The cooperative, the, the business entity owns the property. Yeah, uh, they lease the land from community land trust. Uh, the community land trust is there to ensure that the terms of affordability are permanently maintained. But the residents, they are owners, share owners of the cooperative. The cooperative owns the property. But what we take out, what you take away, is the profit motive, this nonprofit, and instead of the profit being siphoned out for the typical landlord, the profits is used or the surplus is used for the continuation of the maintenance of the property, any upgrades and things of that nature. There's a modest equity bill, but it's very modest. It's very modest and you try to keep it so that it doesn't exceed the growth in income. Because that's where the problem starts when the valuation of the property exceeds the growth in income, then people can no longer afford it. So if you keep it pegged, almost indexed, to something at or below the growth in income, then it would be permanently affordable.
Speaker 2:I feel like, if I went through the co-op academy, my problem would not be I don't have enough confidence, or I need to relearn what it is to be democratic, but it would almost be like my brain shuts off as soon as you start using economic language. But what you're describing is, though, is incredibly radical thing that you all put together, because you're really reminding people that you're socializing things again. Well, you're putting people over profits.
Speaker 5:Yes, yeah, planet over profits.
Speaker 2:I've written that on a sign before Benny and I feel like it didn't do a lot, but I feel like you guys are legitimately generating that in the material world. It's fascinating to me. Well, yeah, describe for those who don't know, a community land trust. So what is that?
Speaker 5:Again, that's another nonprofit entity that exists just to hold titles of land. It provides a very, very low-cost lease of the land to the housing cooperative and it's there basically as an oversight, to ensure that the land is being used for affordable housing, so that you don't fear market forces that come in and offer these exorbitant prices for the property that you can't resist, and so you end up selling out and the people end up being displaced. So the land trust is there to hold the land and lease the land on the terms that affordability is preserved, and if you do something to attempt to dishonor or violate the terms of affordability, then you violate the terms of the lease and you could lose the leasehold and thus lose the property. So it's there to ensure that the permanence of the affordability is preserved.
Speaker 2:So what I'm hearing is oh, go ahead, sorry is preserved.
Speaker 3:So what I'm hearing is oh, go ahead. Sorry I was going to say. What's also interesting about community land trust is the board is made up of the residents from the cooperative residents that live in the area but aren't members of the cooperative, just community folks, and then stakeholders, kind of like just community folks, and then stakeholders, kind of like you know, co-op, development center or other entities that like work around affordable housing, and so you have this tripartite board so that, like, everyone's interests are there at the table.
Speaker 4:Is there any difference at all between sort of what you guys are describing that this community land trust, and this sort of communal ownership of the building itself, in comparison to maybe like city, affordable housing projects? Because you're both talking about affordable housing, but I'm pretty sure they're different. And there's some key differences there, and could you just sort of flesh that out a little bit for our audience?
Speaker 5:I think one of the great differences again, just like with worker cost, comes through control, where the people, actually the residents, are the ones who make the decisions through the board, through their board, make decisions about what happens there at the property. So they have a very large stake in how they build and shape their community. So they are empowered to establish the culture and the form and the interaction that goes on in their community.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so they really shape it Like it's. You know they set the house rules and the policies. They elect their board, you know they put their budget together and decide, you know, will the monthly charges go up this year, you know, or because you know they've all decided they want to put in a playground or something, and so yeah, so those decisions are made by the residents. And I think in public housing yeah, I don't think that's the case it's probably where, you know, some other entity, government entity you know, makes all those decisions.
Speaker 4:Well, often, I think, the city is the one that owns the property in those situations as well, and so really it's just like a rental cap or rent restriction, where the members who live there maybe are not, they don't actually have an ownership stake at all and they're not, you know, contributing to communal ownership as well.
Speaker 5:And I think it goes to that that again with work in co-ops that when you have involvement, real involvement, you have a greater level of commitment, and it's that commitment that really makes the difference.
Speaker 2:It also seems like I heard another poison pill that was sort of built in as well, right that if they make the space unaffordable, they're sort of like losing their capacity to access the space again right.
Speaker 2:So it almost sounds like Southeast Center for Cooperative Development is in the business of generating poison pills. But I'm wondering at Wendell Cook we also focus on ecological issues. I'm fascinated by co-ops in the ways that they address ecological concerns and the ecological crisis. I understand the ways in which a co-op and it almost seems like built into the structure that co-ops are infrastructurally incapable almost of exploiting workers, because the workers would have to be exploiting themselves, which seems to be an oxymoron in this situation. Right will also not exploit the land or nature in general. However we define that, because there's sort of an idea in Wendell and Cook that we assume that what exploits labor is the same force that exploits nature. And it seems like cooperatives really attack head force, the forces that attack workers like really attack head force, the forces that attack workers. And I'm just wondering can you draw the line and help me understand how those same structures, that same infrastructure that a co-op has, addresses the exploitation of ecology or does it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it goes, you know, back to the principles. So cooperatives are, you know, principles-based businesses. And principle seven is care for the community. And so you know that's a big one that a lot of worker co-ops you know think about. And housing co-ops, you know, can we put solar panels on our housing co-op, can we, you know, put in an energy efficient HVAC, like it's part of the DNA right To keep thinking about those things? And in worker cooperatives, you know, it's anywhere from like that, being their value proposition, like creating a co-op to help, like restaurants, use their food waste right and composted. And we work closely with Co-op Cincy. It's a development center in Cincinnati, ohio, and they've one of their first cooperatives was one called Sustainergy. So it's they do insulation and like energy efficiency for homes and solar panel installation with their day-to-day operations, to actually starting a co-op that does that full-time, whose mission it is to help with sustainability.
Speaker 5:And I think also that it goes to, I guess, what we said earlier about our realization of our connectedness and that principle seven concern for community connectedness. In that principle seven, concern for community, it recognizes that we are connected not just to the community but to the planet as well. So part of that is is, as again, as part of our true reality. Our true nature is our connectedness with with all, be it people or planet or a more general community has anybody ever built in a poison pill for following principle seven?
Speaker 5:I don't think that is as robust as what we do for, I guess, protecting the organization itself. I think it's more in terms of our values and trying to instill that value.
Speaker 2:Yeah, rosemary, were you thinking more, or was that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, was just thinking too like, since we're, you know, working on, you know, concrete alternatives to our extractive and exploitative capitalist system, like it's. It's part of that thinking too like, if you know, if traditional capitalist companies, you know, produce whatever in this way, like we don't want to do it that way, right, we don't want to exploit workers, and you know and you think about the whole supply chain and so you know we want to do it differently. Like you know, fair trade coffee. So some of the earliest cooperatives, like modern cooperatives, were like these, these coffee cooperatives. Like buyers, you know, getting together, working with, with coffee growers and other parts of the world, you know helping them like grow it sustainably and and then importing that and using that. So it's kind of, yeah, like building this circular economy. One good example are the industrial's created and using that waste, for example, to stuff upholstery. So, yeah, there's no waste and you can use this in a circular fashion that reduces waste, reduces pollution and all of that.
Speaker 2:Thank you both so much. If people wanted to learn more about cooperatives and the Southeast Center, where would you send them or what would you tell them to go to?
Speaker 3:Check out our website at wwwcoopsnoworg, and coops is hyphenated.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much, so we like to end each interview with what makes you angry today and what gives you hope today.
Speaker 3:We look at anger as fascist regime. That pretty much tops it tops the charts yeah, that pretty much tops it.
Speaker 5:Yeah, tops the charts. Yeah, the surprising level of tolerance for this autocracy, this that's now empowered.
Speaker 2:So yeah, that's and then, what gives you, uh, the most hope today?
Speaker 3:we just got off a call before this with a new co-op and, out in rural West Tennessee, three African-American women who are starting a home care cooperative.
Speaker 5:So that's exciting. Yeah, it gives me hope that democracy will prevail in many functions, in many ways, so economically, perhaps even politically.
Speaker 2:Thank you both for being with us today.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having us.
Speaker 5:Thank you both for being with us today. Thanks for having us. Thank you, George.
