‘When Someone Hires Me, They Get the Boss Herself'

COOP LA in Los Angeles is a commercial space featuring business commonly found across the city but with a distinct difference: they are all worker cooperatives. These cooperatives effectively create jobs and develop locally owned businesses as well as accomplish this without the neighborhood falling prey to gentrification.

Many small towns in rural Appalachia are struggling to adapt to the greater evolutions of the American economy away from the coal industry. But some places, like the little town of Hemphill in Kentucky, are using the opportunity to get creative with local enterprise and unite the community in launching new ventures. The Hemphill Community Center is now a central resource for launching new small businesses, arts and cultural events, and fostering shared resources and renewed growth for the town.

As gentrification has flourished and Baby Boomers age out of the workforce, “legacy businesses” struggle to find a way to maintain a presence in communities of color. In response, a multi-city fellowship called Shared Equity in Economic Development (SEED) was developed to educate business owners on transferring ownership to the employees to ensure its future. Four cities—Philadelphia, Atlanta, Durham, and Miami— paired three city employees with one community member to work together over a two year period to leave the city with “clear plans, clear roles and good foundations for future business conversions."

Albuquerque, New Mexico, has the second highest unemployment rate in the country. To solve this problem, the Healthy Neighborhoods Albuquerque, a city wide initiative was formed. Their strategy is to train, hire and buy locally.

Bureaucratic impediments previously blocked Timo Santala from opening a mobile bicycle bar, but he used this barrier to establish 'Restaurant Day' which has now spread worldwide. On these days people sign-up to open a temporary eatery, bringing the community together and helping spark entrepreneurship.

The Coalition of Immokalee Workers developed a framework called the worker-driven social responsibility paradigm, which is designed to help protect migrant employees who often don't have the right to unionize but are vulnerable to workplace manipulation and abuse due to their immigration status. The paradigm targets the supply chain, using legal agreements to require that migrant workers have a direct say in designing and enforcing workplace protections, and the model has been implemented in initiatives such as the Fair Food Program and the Milk With Dignity Program.

Unite Here, a 300,000-member labor union of hotel and restaurant workers, has organized mass protests to pass voting rights legislation. In 2020 they ran a huge door-knocking operation with 500 full-time paid canvassers. The weekly salary helped canvassers, many of whom were hotel workers that lost their jobs due to the pandemic. And the well-organized ground campaign that encouraged over 48,000 infrequent voters in Arizona to vote for Biden, likely helped push Biden to a narrow and surprising victory in that state.

A collective for Brazilian women artisans named Rede Asta provides training, production networks, links to consumers, and an online market to empower them to make a livable income. The group is also environmentally-conscious, focusing on creative waste reuse solutions that result in upcycled products. There are challenges as the collective grows, but they have supported more than 1,500 artisan women since opening.

A small town in Virginia has been divided over whether or not they should allow a compressor station to be built, so to help mend this rift, a local non-profit brought community members together for a weeklong solar boot camp. The nonprofit, which marries "green workforce development and environmental justice," used grant-funding to offer a cross-section of community members training that gives them the means to pursue careers in solar employment.

An organization in London called the Participatory City Foundation funds projects and initiatives that give local control to residents and inspire economic and social equity. One such project, "Every One, Every Day,"allows neighborhood residents to take action to make their communities healthier and more sustainable.