Works for All

How Co-Op Cincy is shining a light on the humanizing power of worker-owned cooperatives and building the Beloved Community.

Challenging capitalism requires constructive, workable alternatives. Are worker-owned co-ops a viable solution? In this episode of Nonviolence Radio, Stephanie and Michael speak with Kristen Barker, co-founder of Co-Op Cincy, an organization that nurtures and supports a network of worker-owned co-ops in the Greater Cincinnati area. Applying principles from the Mondragon cooperative in Spain, Co-Op Cincy’s network reinforces that cooperatives are not just good for people and the planet, they are good for business. And nonviolence is at its heart: being together in constructive solution-building requires both the vision and skills of nonviolence. 

Transcript

Stephanie: Greetings, everybody, and welcome to another episode of Nonviolence Radio. I'm your host, Stephanie Van Hook, and I'm here in the studio with my co-host and news anchor of the Nonviolence Report, Michael Nagler. And we're from the Metta Center for Nonviolence in Petaluma, California.

On today's show, we are going to speak with Kristen Barker. She is the co-director of Co-ops Cincy. They work in the Greater Cincinnati area, and they nurture an interconnected network of worker-owned businesses. So, today's show is going to be about co-ops, the co-op model, the inspiration for co-op models that Co-ops Cincy is using, and perhaps even how you can get inspired to get involved in worker-owned business models.

So, welcome to the show. Kristen Barker.

Kristen: Thanks.

Stephanie: It's great to have you. And thank you so much for the work you're doing. It's extremely inspiring. We're big fans of the Mondragon model. In our work at the Metta Center, we like to point people to it and discuss it. So we’re thrilled to meet a kindred spirit. 

And also, we loved the film Co-op Cincy. We have a film club right now at Metta. That was one of the films that we got from the same distributor that we have a film at, called The Third Harmony. I found “Works For All,” and that's what introduced us to your work. So, we were so excited. And thank you so much for joining us.

Kristen: Sure.

Stephanie: We'd love to hear – first of all, just tell us about Co-op Cincy. What do you do?

Kristen: Sure. So, as you said, we're based in Cincinnati, Ohio. And our goal is to create an economy that works for all, especially for those that have been historically excluded. And so, the way we approach that – you mentioned Mondragon. That is our big, big model inspirer and someone we directly connected with – someone [laughs] – a group that we directly connected with as we got going.

They were really what brought us into being in many ways, because their experience of truly being a living, dynamic, proof of concept of what it looks to build an economy that prioritizes people above profit, people, and planet above profit. I used to work at a place called Inter-Community Justice and Peace Center. And my organization actually sent delegations to Mondragon in the 80s and the 90s to just experience and feel that. And one of the people that went on those delegations was the head of the Building Trades in Cincinnati. His name was Jerry Monahan. He came back, and he said to the Central Labor Council, “If we ever have a chance to bring this to life, we really need to.”

And so fast-forward to 2009, when the United Steelworkers made a historic partnership with Mondragon International. And that was all over the papers. And so, one of our co-founders, Phil Amadon, super active in the Labor Council and the peace movement, he came to me – I was working at IJPC. And he came to another co-founder, Ellen Vera, who was working with the United Food and Commercial Workers, and suggested that we do a study and see if we could really bring this to life. Based on his enthusiasm, after Jerry and Ellen involved her then boyfriend, who was an immigrant rights organizer, her now husband. And he's also a CEO of one of our first co-ops.

So, what we want to see in Cincinnati is what Mondragon has done. Which is they have taken an area that was full of polarization when they got started. Because it was the Spanish Civil War, so we're talking about fascism coming to life, and we're talking about – and nowhere is monolithic, right? And neither was Mondragon. Even though the Basque region primarily fought against Franco, there was all kinds of people living there, and it was a violent place.

Mondragon was a violent place where ideologies were leading to murders. And their story about how in the midst of this, they came together around needs rather than ideologies and created this integrated network of worker-owned co-ops. The level of employment inequality was through the roof. And then through this integrated network of worker-owned co-ops they shifted the region.

So, today, the Basque region has some of the lowest levels of inequality anywhere in the world, and the lowest level of inequality in Spain. So, it's so awesome.

Stephanie: I watched a short video on your website. One of the points that it makes is the child poverty in Cincinnati and pointing out that Mondragon also began with a high level of child poverty. Can you speak to that?

Kristen: Yeah. I mean, we see it as an incredible path forward. It's wonderful. I mean, so many people feel that these problems – poverty, whether it's childhood poverty, family poverty, inequality, these problems are intractable, is what many of us feel like. And to see a living, breathing model that experienced similar circumstances and truly move the needle, makes us feel that all is possible.

And also, even though our context in Cincinnati is very different than the Basque region, our population is almost identical. When you look at our Greater Cincinnati region of 2.2 million, and the Basque region of 2.1 million. Which is why we have this goal by 2072 to have 80,000 worker-owners.

How we came about, the four of us that I mentioned – Ellen and Phil and Flequer and I, we studied it for a year and had a big event where we brought just people that were connected to faith and community and labor together. And then of that group of about 90 that gathered, 35 decided they wanted to help bring it – had the energy and time to help bring it to life. 

And what we did was, actually we were already connected to the steelworkers, so we wanted to connect to Mondragon. So, we noticed that the North American delegate was speaking at the Ohio Employee Ownership Center in Akron, Ohio, later that year. So, just a few months later. So, we went up and met Michael Peck, and that's actually how we got started.

What he told us then was, if we worked on a specific project, and we flew him to Cincinnati, he would come once a month. And so, our group of 35 decided to advance three specific projects, and partly related to our union partners. One related to the United Food and Commercial Workers. One related to the building trades with Jerry Monahan. And one related to manufacturing with the steelworkers.

And so, we brought together steering groups around those and found a way to bring Michael into town once a month. So, then we did some feasibility studies for particular projects, but there wasn't something about our general region.

Stephanie: Okay. So, it was more finding general interest and people with this wonderful organizing background and vision and idealism, that was also nurtured by the support of Mondragon saying, “Yeah, you can do this. This isn't out of your reach.” And that's so cool.

Kristen: Yeah. Michael came once a month for over a year. And actually this – I mean, we still meet with him on every Monday in our staff meeting now virtually. But he was there this Monday.

Stephanie: Wow.

Michael: I wanted to flag something in your procedure as being worthwhile for all nascent nonviolent movements that we see. Because very often people get outraged by some kind of injustice, which is only too understandable. And they immediately leap into action without doing exactly what you did, which was some research. You know, study the models, study the applicability to the region that you are in.

Kristen, I just wanted to flag that as something that we can all draw a lesson from, as probably one of the reasons that Project Cincy has been so successful, is that you did a little homework ahead of time. And often this is –

Kristen: Yeah. We actually met for a year before we brought it out.

Michael: That's a year longer than a lot of groups do. And of course, you can understand the agitation, the outrage about a problem that needs to be addressed immediately. But often it's because we can pull back and take a little time and make sure we're addressing it correctly in a way that will have a permanent outcome that makes a difference between success and failure. So, thank you for that.

Kristen: That's good to hear, actually. I appreciate it.

Stephanie: Well, why don't we talk a little bit about the principles of worker ownership for our listeners so that we can paint a bigger picture here. So, what exactly are we talking about when it comes to worker ownership?

Kristen: Yeah. So, when we're talking about – I mean, I guess it's first say, what is a cooperative? And when we talk about cooperatives, we're talking about something that's jointly owned and democratically controlled by its members. And usually coming together for a common purpose. Well, always coming together for a common purpose.

And it maybe an easier way to think about it – in our case, if you think about a business that's owned by its members, controlled by its members, and its members are benefiting from it, in some ways simplifies it a little bit.

There's different kinds of cooperatives. And actually, in the United States, we have 50,000. More than $3 trillion are controlled by cooperatives. Because here what's more common is not that worker-owned co-op that so excites us from the Mondrian experience, but the consumer owned co-op is very popular. In fact, 110 million of us are parts of credit unions.

So, of the 50,000, 92% are consumer owned. And that is that as a depositor in a credit union, I'm a part owner, along with, say, 10,000 others. I can control it partially by running for the board, by voting for the board. I could even go to board meetings. I have various ways of having input. And I benefit in the sense that the credit unions are working to give us financial products in a most affordable way without, say, hidden fees. They don't have a profit motive. Cooperatives are there to benefit their members, not their shareholders.

So anyway, we have actually a lot. I mean, the Rural Electrics – 42 million people receive their electricity through Rural Electrics. And both credit unions and Rural Electrics came about as a result of market failures in the United States. When our country was electrifying, the investor-owned utilities were really excited to work in cities that had a lot of density. They could be profitable there. But it was much harder for them to consider moving into rural areas.

And so, the New Deal actually created a legislative opportunity for residents to organize and create their own utilities. They electrified 75% of the United States. Similarly, in the United States, forever, only white-landed males had access to financial services. So, credit unions were a form of broadening that way out. 

It's been an important part of our history, one I think we don't know enough about. I think our story is so much about rugged individualism that we miss this other really critical part of our story that is actually so much more ubiquitous than we even know. Because once you get past there, you get 70% of our co-ops are producer-owned co-ops. So these are farm owners that come together. Like cranberry farm owners that come together to form Ocean Spray because they can be so much more successful together than apart in terms of distribution and marketing and different economies of scale.

Or, similar to producer, a purchasing co-op, which is like Ace Hardware which is able then to be successful at the neighborhood level by joining forces, purchasing in bulk with other neighborhood level hardware stores so that they can compete with Home Depot and Lowe's, etc.

So, these are really all over the place. However, we're not really aware of them. So, the tiniest group of co-ops is the group that Co-op Cincy’s most excited about, which is worker-owned co-ops, which is less than 1% of all of them in the US. There's only about 10,000 people currently working in that, compared to over 70,000 just in the Mondragon Experience alone. Or multi-stakeholder, where you mix and match these groups.

But something cool about cooperatives is that they are also based on beautiful principles. So, there's seven international cooperative alliance principles. But Mondragon actually goes a bit beyond that, and they have ten that we really enjoy. So, they're things like social transformation and education and participation in management and democratic control and open admission. They're beautiful. They're powerful.

Stephanie: It seems to be the case that when we get to experience the right solutions for our world, that beauty is just inherent in them. It feels different to be inside, right? I think especially that came out in, “Works for All” the film, of meeting different people that Co-op Cincy is nurturing a different worker-owned co-ops. You're nurturing and hearing their stories from how it felt to just be another person working in a factory to being a worker-owner in that factory. So, can you tell a little bit about some of the people's stories.

Kristen: Yeah, absolutely. So, there's tons of stories. And I think what we as humans appreciate is we appreciate having dignity, having voice, having the opportunity to participate as fully as possible, and show up as fully as possible in all areas of our life, including work.

And so, there's a lot of different positives about coming together through a worker co-op. And one of them can certainly be this ability to more fully participate in this experience and get to make decisions that impact your livelihood and be right there. And that's been one of the things that I have felt so grateful for as I listened to some of our workers.

So, we have currently 15 cooperatives in the network. And some of them are in pretty low-wage, challenging jobs. Like our Harvest Cooperative, which was the first one we launched. And this is a farm, so it's at the lowest, like kind of the lowest level of the value chain. It's a farm and a food hub that distributes between 200 and 300 weekly harvest boxes a week, grows about 100,000 pounds of produce, does so many wonderful things. But this is a very low wage part of our world, unfortunately.

So, the goal of this is to create access to healthy local food in a way that honors land and labor. And Our Harvest is amazing at honoring land, doing all kinds of regenerative practices, sequestering carbon, all this good stuff, and honoring workers.

I think what I'm grateful for, and what you saw in that film, for example, is Zeke and Tia. Zeke’s highlighting that he had been at a chicken processing plant, where he felt that he had had a target on his back throughout his life. And there was only about 17 or 18 black men like himself working there. And after Obama's election, he started feeling like there was just a target on everyone's back. So, he just noticed that. And he was the last black man working there before he got fired in the union drive that he was helping to organize.

So, he actually started working for Our Harvest shortly thereafter and has been with Our Harvest now almost since six months after it began, which was April of 2012. He says that it feels like a family, that he feels dignity and control over his workplace. He didn't want his wife, Tia, to have any of the bad experience. She had been caring for their two children and out of the workforce for a number of years. And when she was coming back into the workforce, he was like not wanting her to have these intense experiences that he had so often had and wanted her to come there.

So, they both talked. She talked about what's it like that she's never worked in a place like Our Harvest before where your voice really matters, where you can bring up ideas and implement them. And for example, during the pandemic, you can bring your kids to work while they're not in school. And you can just create different possibilities and flexibilities. Just things that are human, you know? It's about how do we create the most human environments possible, where all can flourish.

And so, there's all sorts of stories like that. There's a cooperative now called Shine Nurture Center. And this was a regular childcare business, and the owner was ready to move on. And she sold it. We supported her in selling it to her workers.

And one really lucky thing that Co-op Cincy is a part of is the Seed Commons, which is this non-extractive financial cooperative that is able to loan to cooperatives. And so, in this particular case, we were able to help the original owner get fair market value and help this wonderful group of workers maintain this really special place that is focused on nature. It's actually in one of Cincinnati's biggest parks. It's located – it backs into it. And they have all these outdoor times. And it's a Montessori space. And it's just an incredibly nurturing place. I feel like excited about every child and family that gets to participate in it, because I think about these extraordinary humans being nurtured and what they'll be like for the world.

But another thing that happened though, I think we would have just lost this place had we not found this cooperative way forward. But the owner had to leave. She was leasing them their building, and she was moving. Her life surprised her, and she needed to sell quicker than she anticipated. And the loan fund was able to facilitate that. And so, it's just lovely to listen to those worker-owners being business owners describe how they feel.

Actually, it's not all positive because as you step into ownership. As you're a worker-owner, there's also responsibilities. So, there's things around accountability and working out that support and accountability. Stepping fully into power, which means, you know, sometimes – it means that if something's not going the way you want it, that you are coming forward with a solution to support it, to go in a better direction. So, you have responsibility. You're not so much the victim of it, and that's very exhilarating. But it's also a little hard at times. So, it's both ends.

Stephanie: Right. Wow. Thank you so much for sharing all of this. 

Michael: Thank you. Stephanie. Yeah. Kristen. First, I was always impressed by one thing about Mondragon, that they acknowledge that certain people have a capacity for being executives and managing things. And they're able to set that up without creating the sense of human hierarchy that happens in such a toxic way in American firms, for example.

Like, you could be elected to be a manager, and if you didn't perform well, you know, you wouldn't be elected the next go around. So, for me, this is very important that it wasn't any kind of ideological leveling off, where everybody is equal, but able to acknowledge that certain people had different capacities without meaning they were more valuable as people. Is that a characteristic of Co-ops Cincy?

Kristen: Yeah, I mean, I would say that if people think of cooperatives as collectives where everyone is flat and equal, that is definitely not a – I mean flat in like in there's no differentiation in terms of roles and things like that. That is not a representation of Co-op Cincy co-ops. There are often CEOs or co-directors in just about all of our co-ops. But I would say the differences are to what you are saying, is just that people have all kinds of levels of influence, input, participation. It's not on the shoulders of the managers that have particular roles or to figure everything out in any way, shape, or form.

So I think it's a delicate dance, but what I was saying before is also true. We expect people to step into that at whatever place they are in the organization. So, there's ways to exercise influence, to recognize that something is not going well, right? And instead of just complaining about it, to say, “This is not really working.” Ideally, “Here are some ideas about what we can do.” But at least to raise it up to a group and say, “Let's talk about this because this isn't really working. Does anyone have an idea of a different way we could do such and such?” You're wanting that to happen at every level, anywhere.

So, there is an idea that – or the goal is – I'm not saying it's always successful, and it's not something that I think necessarily happens exactly overnight. We meet with our co-ops every week or every two weeks for team meetings. And we meet with the leadership team every week or every two weeks also. We're also on the board.

But there's a ton of education that's happening. Because in order to be an owner, you really do have to understand the finances and that can be really intimidating. But there's an incredible – you may have heard of open-book management. And this particular version of it called “The Great Game of Business,” which is a really fun way to make things accessible, so everyone can see how they are impacting the profit and loss statement and gain confidence and understanding that, and understanding the balance sheet and so forth.

So, there's like a lot of education that needs to happen. And every year these ten principles I mentioned, we go over those like in small groups. And people will talk about how they're showing up, how they're not showing up, what could happen – I mean, at all, you know, and at all levels, right?

And then we do things like nonviolent communication training and other sorts of things because there's going to be – with everyone sharing their point of view and participating more and more fully, there's going to be probably more conflict. So, we need to get, you know, we have to keep building our muscles for handling that and allowing it to support us to get to better and better places.

Stephanie: Absolutely.

Kristen: So, it's – It can be messy.

Stephanie: Yeah. I was going to get to that with you and that – yeah, exactly. We're hearing about the ecstasy of the co-ops, but what about the other side? I think there's a book called “After the Ecstasy: The Laundry” that our friend keeps telling us about. And it's like the rest of it is really laundry after you’re working.

Kristen: That's awesome. I'm going to look that up.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Kristen: So, while I think of some of what I'm talking about – so, I think for folks who haven't been in a place before where, say, someone is in following agreements, right? Someone isn't showing up or showing up late multiple times. And they have good reasons for several of them, but you're counting on them.

And so, you're in a role in your co-op, say, now as an admin person, as a person that needs to, as a director, as something. And you need to engage the situation. So, that is new for many and uncomfortable. And again, what I was going to say, so not even just that holding people accountable, and there's a whole variety of ways to do it, but I think it can also be challenging for people to fully step in to notice that – they notice something's not quite right.

I think it sounds positive overwhelmingly to say that, “Okay, I notice that something's not right. In my work, I have the freedom to kind of highlight that, to propose solutions.” Like, that's all great. But it's also – like I think there's like a little bit of – sometimes they think it feels – maybe psychologically or something, to be like, “Oh, this is so dumb,” just to complain without doing something about it. Or to, like, there's something that you – that, I'm not sure – I think overwhelmingly it's a positive, but I think it's also it's asking for more, or it's asking you to think about it maybe beyond the workday too.

So, that's something that some folks have talked about that. That they leave there – what they noticed before was that they might leave their job and not think about it. But they might be leaving their job and thinking about, “Well, how could this be done differently? Or how might this work?” or something. Or some major thing happens.

Our Harvest, at one point, had to vote to – they voted to reduce their wages for a little while to get through something. I mean, there's all kinds of – I think there's a lot of responsibility to try to figure out ways forward, especially when things are going poorly. And you need to pay people and, you know, you need to pay each other, yourself and others, like together. That can be incredibly stressful.

Stephanie: Yes. What we’re getting is a deeper form of security and sense of self. Like I think about when we talk about conflict resolution in our communities, like policing, and kinds of structures that we set up to solve our conflicts for us, so we don't have to think about them in the same way. Like, go to court instead of working in a mediation first, you know, for example.

Kristen: Right. Yeah.

Stephanie: But that's capitalism, right? That has been set up so that other people solve our problems for us, but it's so disempowering that it's, you know, it's in us, and it's in us culturally still. And so, what the work that you're doing that I am really hearing is breaking apart that kind of lethargy of capitalism and saying it's going to be difficult, but this is going to make you feel more secure, more alive, and this is the way forward if we want to do anything about capitalism.

So, it's okay to vent. You know, venting is a natural expression of stress. We all should all be able to vent. But also that we actually have an outlet to do something that we don't have to just wait for someone else to fix it for us, if they choose to, is so empowering. And empowerment seems to be the antidote to capitalism in so many ways.

Kristen: Nice. I think I'm going to listen to that part if this is available to listen to again.

Michael: Kristen, I think you deserve an easier question after what I put you through. I was wondering if Co-op Cincy, or the movement as a whole, has much of a connection with international groups that have some similarity. Like the MST in Brazil where, you know, people move in and take over unused farms and set up a kind of community environment. This is mostly agricultural. So, I'm just wondering –

Kristen: That is awesome.

Michael: Yeah, it's the biggest social movement in Brazil. It has, I think, 90,000 families have been given farms and the responsibility and a livelihood. They set up their own schools, their own medical clinics. And in many ways, it's a similar vibe to what I hear about Co-op Cincy.

Kristen: That is awesome. No, we are not connected to them. In terms of international connections, I have mentioned we maintain our connection to Mondragon. We're part of the Seed Commons. So, we're a peer member. And we were, actually, just after the election, something that was incredibly heartening was there was an annual network gathering of the Seed Commons.

And two of the members, one from Argentina and one from Nicaragua, led a session basically on how they've been dealing and continuing to move things forward under the various forms of repression, some of which are wildly intense. It was heartening. I mean, it was in the sense of just their tenacity and perseverance and resilience, and kind of what's possible in the face of really substantial repression.

And so, we're really interested in connecting with international players and learning as much as we can. We have an event – we've had one since 2013, every two years. So, it'll be coming up this coming year in 2025, called the Union Club Symposium. And to that, we have brought in some different groups, again from Argentina, from Mexico, from different places. But it's certainly an area we could grow and would love to learn more from others, for sure.

Michael: Wow, Kristen. I have another international player for you to think about. And that's Muhammad Yunus in Bangladesh.

Kristen: Oh, sure. Micro loans.

Michael: Micro loans and the whole concept of the Gross Happiness Product instead of the Gross National Product being mentioned in Bhutan.

Kristen: But guess what? Here, I was so excited about that. But I just want to tell you, this is so surprising to me and just shows how everything – that we can never put anything in a box, right? As much as I want to. Like we have in Cincinnati, 10,000 Bhutanese refugees.

Stephanie: Yeah.

Kristen: So, one of our co-ops – and I was so surprised from the place of Gross National Happiness, I was really surprised – but they aren't allowed to be a part of it.

Stephanie: That's the bad side of that concept. There's scapegoating involved in that happiness concept. And so, we need to recreate that, too. But I think that it's a powerful measurement. And that's where really what we're looking at in other economies are other forms of measurement.

Kristen: Yeah. No, I love that. I was just – when they said that, “But you're from the country.” They have created a co-op, actually called Bhutanese [Party], and they work on our farm, so, grow very, very hot peppers.

Stephanie: As you all mentioned, micro-lending, but Co-op Cincy helps to nurture that among the network of co-ops, that interconnected idea, right? That –

Kristen: Right.

Stephanie: – that comes from the Mondragon principles as well, that everybody supports every other co-op in some way. So, if somebody needs some funds, those funds are somewhat available, right? Can you explain that idea of the lending between communities? Okay.

Kristen: Yeah. So, basically, part of what we believe has been Mondragon's substantial success is what you're speaking of – this integrated network of co-ops. So, it's not a trade association. It's a deep, deep tie like you're talking about where – well, in their case, much more than 10% of their profits go back to the larger whole.

And then they have different ways to democratically determine where that can go, which includes things like rainy day funds or towards research, all of that kind of stuff. So that was really important to us as we were getting started. So, we initially – our co-ops sign a network agreement as they get going, which involves following the ten Mondragon principles. It involves union neutrality. And it involves – well, it has a variety of ways in which you can participate in the network, but one of them is 10% of your profits before tax that goes back to the larger whole.

So, initially, that was just held at the Co-op Cincy level. And then the members of the co-op network would determine how it got spent. And again, in our case, it's much, much smaller than what happens at this point. Yet, people have used it for to take cooperative management, which you get a certificate from Xavier, to – it's been put aside. They've been creating a rainy-day fund that is slowly growing. They have sent each other to various cooperative workshops through it.

We have a co-op social once a month, where money from that pot goes to help make that possible, where clubs just hang out together, usually at a bar. But sometimes [unintelligible] so it goes to different things like that. Excitingly, it has recently incorporated as its own co-op entity. So now, each of those co-ops makes up this new co-op. So, it's a secondary co-op, a co-op of co-ops. And I think it's better positioned to grow in this particular way.

Stephanie: I keep thinking about the fears that people are going into the next four years with, and how this model feels so urgent as well. This sort of mutual community support as well as being able to protect each other in times of uncertainty.

Kristen: It's true. The week after Thanksgiving, we are having a strategic planning, several days. Where we are really going to be thinking a lot more deeply about the effect of this election and what all that means, and what more we need to be thinking about and considering as we prepare for 2025 and beyond. So yeah, definitely on our hearts and minds.

Stephanie: Yeah. I have a couple questions left before we wrap the interview up. Thank you so much for your time today, and all the work that you're doing. You are so full of information. And the enthusiasm that you speak with about the co-ops is so inspiring, too. It's regenerative to listen to you. So, thank you.

Kristen: Thanks.

Stephanie: I noticed that you have something called, “Dolphin tanks.” So, I just wanted you to talk about what that means, and what's up with the dolphins?

Kristen: Right. It's a good question. So, in order to get to that big goal we have, that 80,000 goal, we have four strategies to get there. So, one strategy is going to relate to the dolphin tank answer, and so I'm going to save that one.

One strategy is supporting existing companies sell to their workers through a worker-owned co-op or another form of worker ownership called ESOPs, which are Employee Stock Options. They've been around since the 70s. And they do not have the beautiful cooperative principles, but there is a way to structure them more democratically.

And so, anyway, we have a program that can support groups – and there's 12 million people that participate in that. So, while worker owned co-ops are pretty small at this exact moment in process of changing. Employee stock ownership, people that are participating in that is a much larger group.

So, our third strategy is working with our existing network of co-ops and supporting their growth through those team building activities and education activities and support to loans, etc.

Our fourth strategy is connecting with as many groups as possible synergistically, like you're talking about some of these international allies. Also, allies on the regional level, state level and, you know, national etc. And some policy work.

But the first strategy, which relates to Dolphin Tank, is we have something called Co-op U, which is a 14-week boot camp. We have a variety of versions of it. We have one that is tailored to a refugee program. We have a version called Power in Numbers, which is for black led co-ops especially. And our regular old Co-op U.

In any case, in any of those, when the 14th week of the program is a pitch night. And instead of calling it Shark Tank, we went for something – so it could even probably be better to not be in the tank. A friend of ours, Rebecca Lurie from CUNY, was like saying maybe it should be called “Dolphin Swim.”

Stephanie: Yeah, absolutely.

Kristen: Yeah. But the idea is simply that this pitch night is an opportunity to further strengthen. Like, our goal is to have as many cooperatives out there that are as impactful and as feasible as possible.

And so, in our event, there are some prizes, there are some monetary prizes, but every single team that participates gets quality feedback from the judges to try to further strengthen their project. So, we call it Dolphin Tank.

Stephanie: That ties into my other question. If somebody listening to the show says they want to learn how to start a co-op or turn their business into a co-op, can they participate in Co-op U?

Kristen: Yes, that is a great question. So, we have not yet put up our 2025 dates for Co-op U, but we will be doing that soon. There are a lot of national resources, though, to be aware of. There is a group called the Democracy at Work Institute that has incredible resources for starting a co-op, all kinds of webinars.

There's the US Federation of Worker Co-ops that has co-op clinics, and it has a listing. Because Co-op Cincy is just one of many co-op developers across the country. So, there may be someone very close to wherever the people are that may be interested. The Seed Commons itself has a list of 30 peers in the US – at least 30 in the US. So, those would all be resources to find support. But certainly, people can go to our website and see what's up.

Stephanie: What’s the website?

Kristen: I know that is nothing super forthcoming. CoopCincy.org.

Stephanie:Great.

Kristen: But there are some free resources there. We created a book called The Worker-Owner Workbook, which is for free under the Resource section. It's in English and Spanish. And it has actually history on co-ops, on labor unions. It has activities. It has information about Mondragon. It has communication activities and resources. It has some open book financial literacy pieces. So, it can be a support.

Stephanie: Thank you so much. And as this is Nonviolence Radio, my last question for you is about nonviolence. What does it mean to you, and how does it integrate itself into the work you're doing?

Kristen: I think nonviolence is a way of being. I think it's about flowing with life. What I work towards every day is building the beloved community. And for me, this is a community where resources are shared much more equitably, where everyone is honored, where everyone is valued, where the earth is revered holistically, and where conflicts are handled creatively, nonviolently.

I think for me, nonviolence is about recognizing how deeply interconnected we all are. And it's about finding ways forward that honor life and the flourishing of life.

Stephanie: That’s so beautiful. Thank you so much for joining us today, Kristen Barker, here on Nonviolence Radio. Thank you so, so much.

Kristen: I enjoyed it. Thanks for the opportunity.

Stephanie: For those of you just tuning in, you're here at Nonviolence Radio. I'm your host, Stephanie, and I'm here with Michael Nagler, my co-host and news anchor of the Nonviolence Report.

We were just speaking with Kristen Barker. She's the co-director of Co-op Cincy, and that website is CoopCincy.org. And really inspiring discussion. So, something to get involved in concretely if it speaks to you.

All right. So, let's turn next to our nonviolence report with our reporter at large, Michael Nagler.

Michael: Thank you. Stephanie, I don't feel terribly at large at the moment.

In our last program, we talked a little bit about a local hero, if you look at him that way, I sort of do. A fellow named Wayne Hsiung, who is now under threat of maybe up to 15-16 years in prison for what he did at a local farm, Ridglan Farms, which houses 3000 dogs, actually. And I cited his nonviolent courage. I cited, I think, the similarity to a problem that we call one of the gray areas in nonviolence, which is property destruction.

So, in a theoretical way, this is parallel to going in and banging on a nose cone of a missile. It is not ideal because you are not persuading your opponent. You are simply thwarting your opponent. Though there are times when you don't have the time, you cannot afford the luxury of a long term, educational activity. “You have to stop the worst of the damage,” to use a quotation from Joanna Macy.

So, in connection with what Wayne Hsiung and his group does, which is to liberate animals who they feel are being held under exploitive and cruel conditions, I wanted to mention a bit of history which illustrates something that today we call intersectionality. And was new to me when I learned it, namely that the suffragettes were vegetarian.

Now suffragettes were agitating for women's suffrage in the late part of the 19th century in the UK. Mahatma Gandhi was very much aware of them. And he was often asked, “Is this your model?” And he was at pains to state, no, there's a big difference. The suffragette’s position on violence was that they could not use it because they were in a position of weakness, but they might well consider using violence if they were in a position of strength.

And Gandhi was at pains to point out that this is very different from his idea of accepting and adopting nonviolence as a principle, as a way of life, as our, guest, Kristen Barker, was just saying, and not just as a tactic. You do it because it's the right thing to do and because it resonates with what Kristen was just saying, the flow of life. I thought that was a very good definition of principled nonviolence.

So, the suffragettes, on the other hand, did do something very parallel to Gandhi's efforts and namely, they were vegetarian. They set up meat-free eateries, and these were eventually essential spaces for their socializing and campaigning. And vegetarianism was a key moral touchstone for many radicals in this period.

There was one woman leader named Alexandrine Veigelé, who established the Women's Vegetarian Union in 1895. Only a couple of years after Gandhi got active in South Africa. And the diet was advertised as a cause for progressive women alongside of anti-vivisectional, rational dress, higher education, and so forth. 

And one of the early feminist journals that was set up by Margaret Sibthorp, describing itself as a magazine of progressive thought, frequently published vegetarian recipes and articles in support of the cause. And in one of these articles, a writer by the name of Edith Ward argued for the adoption of a meat free diet on the basis that, quote, “The case for the animal is the case for women.”

Incidentally, one of the very early Greek philosophers named Porphyry, who wrote in Greek, living in Rome, to whom we owe a great debt of gratitude because he systematized the works of Plotinus, a very deeply mystical, philosopher of the time.

They also pointed out that if people are cruel to animals, they will be cruel to one another. In other words, as I would put it, violence is violence. Any form of violence is going to facilitate another form. Contrarily, any form of nonviolence will facilitate nonviolence in many different forms. They said that the exploitation of non-human animals resulted from the same system of power, which included the gender hierarchy. I would say ultimately that's true, but ultimately, it stemmed from the same source of violence, which is the sense of separateness, which is the ego.

So, moving on, with a lot more material than I have time for today, which is good, I wanted to talk about something that take place in my old alma mater, Cornell University in Ithaca, New York. They have established, the Cornell Center on the Death Penalty Worldwide. And they are responding to the large number of executions which are taking place in Iran. Well, I'm not going to go into the details about that.

Now moving on. The United Nations biodiversity summit that happened in Columbia, 140 organizations collectively called on government representatives to pursue, quote, “an immediate halt,” unquote, to planned heating oil and gas projects. And what they are advocating for, if you like alliteration, you're going to love this one, is a full, fair, fast-funded and feminist phase out –

Stephanie: Whoa!

Michael: – of all fossil fuels.

Stephanie: On my goodness, I love that. That’s just, that's the best alliteration I've ever heard. Thank you so much for that very short Nonviolence Report. This has been a great show. We want to thank our guests. Kristen Barker, co-director of Co-op Cincy. You can find them at Co-opCincy.org. To Matt and Robin Watrous who helped transcribe and edit the show. Annie Hewitt, Sophia Pechaty, thank you so much, you make the show what it is.

To our stations. Our mother stations KPCA, Petaluma, KWMR, Point Reyes Station, to the Pacifica Network, who helps syndicated shows all over the US.

And to all of those who are getting these on podcast form. It's awesome. To Bryan Farrell over at Waging Nonviolence. Thanks for helping us share the show there, and you're doing great work. You can find the show at, NonviolenceRadio.org. And if you want to learn more about nonviolence, go to the Metta Center. 

And to everybody listening and our supporters and listeners, thank you so much. And until the next time, please take care of one another.