Simel Esim (left) is Head and Senior Technical Specialist at the Cooperatives Unit International Labour Organization. Lenore Matthew is a Cooperatives Unit Intern.

The 104^th International Labour Conference has voted for the adoption of a Recommendation on transition from the informal to the formal economy after two years of deliberations.

It was the first ever international labour standard specifically aimed at tackling the informal economy, which comprises more than half of the world’s workforce.

Sí Se Puede! Women’s Cooperative – We Can Do It! Inc. provides house cleaning services in all five boroughs of New York City. In the space of nine years it has grown from 15 members to 67, almost all of whom belong to the Latin American community. Find out more

Domestic workers comprise a significant part of the global workforce in informal employment and are among the most vulnerable groups of workers.

When Ida Le Blanc, the former Secretary General of the National Union of Domestic Employees, talks about the launch of the Service Workers’ Centre Cooperative in Trinidad and Tobago she has a conviction and passion in her voice.

She says that after forty years of struggle for the recognition of domestic workers in national laws and policies, the union has now decided to support a membership-based, collective enterprise for the economic empowerment of domestic workers. The cooperative provides job matching, skills training, accountancy and awareness-raising among other services.

The domestic worker cooperative experience in Trinidad and Tobago is not unique. The National House Managers Cooperative of Korea, a cooperative of mostly middle-aged women domestic workers, is supported by the Korean Women Workers’ Association which, also provides professional development and awareness-building activities for its members.

As domestic workers launch their efforts to establish their cooperatives, it will no doubt be crucial for the workers’ and cooperative movements as well as governments to provide them with the support they need.

On a wider social scale, the cooperative/association partnership is helping change stereotypes about domestic workers in Korea, who are too often seen as “servants” instead of workers deserving of respect.

Other types of organizations have also supported domestic workers in establishing and managing their cooperatives. The all-women, worker-owned cooperative Si Se Puede! (We can do it!), which provides eco-friendly housecleaning services in New York City, was supported by the Center for Family Life, a non-profit community-based organization based in Brooklyn.

Si Se Puede helps women, particularly immigrants, secure gainful employment in the domestic sector and has succeeded in securing member wages at USD$ 20 per hour, up from the USD$ 7-8 per hour that most workers earned before. Si Se Puede also provides members with educational and skills-building opportunities. Dozens of other similar domestic worker cooperatives are being formed by immigrant women across the US with support from organizations including the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives.

In a mapping exercise undertaken by the ILO’s Cooperatives Unit in its Enterprises Department in 2013, over 40 cooperatives of domestic workers from around the world, which are facilitating their members’ transition to formality, were found. The mapping initiative shows that cooperatives of domestic workers help them with economies of scale, voice and representation, as well as a wide array of support services which help formalize their work. They provide their members with higher wages and better working conditions, member-controlled operations and decision-making processes, and greater bargaining power to leverage for improved wages and conditions.

Highlights of findings from the mapping on domestic worker cooperatives can be accessed in ILO COOP brief on cooperating out of isolation. For domestic workers, the collective platform of cooperatives is particularly meaningful, as it breaks down the social isolation which is common of domestic work, and introduces workers into networks that advocate for improved employment situations.

The ILO’s Regional Office for Arab States has recently undertaken research that shows the role cooperatives can play in providing services for domestic workers and even serving as a possible alternative to private recruitment agencies. A Validation Roundtable, ‘Cooperating Out of Isolation: the case of Migrant Domestic Workers in Lebanon, Jordan and Kuwait’, was held in Amman to validate the research outcomes, prioritize findings, and explore ways to provide services for migrant domestic workers through cooperatives.

The ILO’s Pretoria office is also folllowing upon the requests from the South African Domestic Service and Allied Workers Union (SADSAWU) with an assessment that looks into the needs of their members which can best be addressed through cooperatives.

A workshop is scheduled for early July to discuss the findings and identify the ways forward. The momentum around domestic worker cooperatives is growing as a means to enhancing their access to decent work. As domestic workers launch their efforts to establish their cooperatives, it will no doubt be crucial for the workers’ and cooperative movements as well as governments to provide them with the support they need.  

Simel Esim, Chief of the ILO’s Co-operatives Unit and Waltteri Katajamaki, Junior Professional Officer – ILO Cooperatives Unit

The cooperative enterprise model is seeing a renaissance around the world. The turnover of the largest 300 cooperatives in the world over the last 3 years has grown by 11.6 per cent to reach 2.2 trillion USD in 2012. Preliminary data from 76 countries points to more than 250 million people working in co-operatives. The International Co-operative Alliance recently postulated that cooperatives would be the fastest growing form of enterprise by 2020.

This is an ambitious goal, even taking into account the momentum of the cooperative movement in the aftermath of the crisis and following the 2012 UN International Year of Cooperatives. Their continued appeal in follow up to the global ‘great recession’ suggests it might not be off target.

During the recent and persisting economic crisis, the cooperative model proved its value time and again as a resilient business model. For workers of conventional businesses which were failing, cooperatives offered a socially, as well as economically viable alternative.  Empresas recuperadas (reconverted enterprises) in Argentina are just one example of firms where workers were able to save their jobs by taking ownership of the companies they worked for.

The Danobat Group in Spain, which makes chip-removing machine tools, has thrived by putting ownership in the hands of workers. Photo by Lydie Nesvabda.

Looking ahead and considering some of the pervasive drivers of change which will shape the future world of work, the cooperative model looks well placed. It’s clear, for example, that the cooperative principles are well in tune with the spirit of peer-to-peer networking which has become such a core feature of the knowledge economy. In fact, LSE economist Robin Murray has argued that this is precisely where cooperatives flourish best.

“Front line workers and plant managers have been given greater autonomy … work is being organized in teams and around projects. Projects draw in other firms in webs of collaboration. The capacity to co-operate, within firms and between them, is becoming more important than the principle of obedience,” Murray says.

Avanto Helsinki, a cooperative founded by university students in Finland, is an example of young people establishing cooperatives following such principles. Avanto is a “think-and-do-tank” offering participatory research, PR and communication services to companies, organizations and the public sector.  The cooperative model was seen by the young entrepreneurs as a low-risk start sharing both risk and responsibility.  It also offered a democratic (one member one vote) way to organize the day-to-day running of business, in addition to having fun with a group of likeminded peers.

Cooperatives have shown innovative flair in sectors such as social care, where there are widening  gaps between what communities need and what governments can provide.

Cooperatives have made some of their greatest strides in the green economy. In the renewable energy industry, for example, a recent ILO report found that they have a number of competitive advantages, including democratic local control over energy production and use, the capacity to create local employment, and reasonable pricing. Cooperatives could play a major role in achieving the goal of ‘energy for all’ – the drive to bring clean, modern energy to the 1.3 billion people in developing countries without access to electricity

Another recent ILO publication on tackling informality in e-waste management shows how organizing into cooperatives can help to improve the living and working conditions of e-waste workers. India and Brazil have had experiences where solid waste management cooperatives have extended their membership and services to include those working in e-waste management. During the official launch of the publication in January, discussants stressed the importance of an enabling legal and policy environment for cooperative enterprises at the national level, as well as more participatory development of regulations and guidelines around e-waste management at the local level.

Cooperatives have shown equally innovative flair in traditional sectors such as social care, where the  gaps between what communities need and what the government can provide are widening. Driven by global demographic changes, jobs in provision of care services are projected to be some of the fastest growing segments of the labour market. Cooperatives in Italy, for example, have expanded to the point of providing a wide range of services, from day-care for children to home-care for the elderly.

It’s said that need is the mother of invention. Cooperatives have historically emerged out of the need to provide goods and services not available from the public sector and conventional businesses. As such needs expand and become increasingly complex, cooperatives will find more and more space to meet them, advancing social conclusion and creating jobs for the future in the process.

Simel Esim

By Simel Esim, Chief of the ILO’s Co-operatives Branch

There’s quite a buzz in Manchester Central (United Kingdom), where 10,000 men and women from co-operatives around the world have gathered to share their ideas and experiences.

The three-day Co-operatives United event marks the close of the UN International Year of Co-operatives and highlights the staying power of a movement that is gaining renewed attention worldwide.

Personally, I find it inspiring to be in the land of the Rochdale pioneers – 10 weavers and 20 others who in 1844 decided to band together to sell food items they could not otherwise afford, as the industrial revolution forced skilled workers into poverty. They started off with just a few items – butter, sugar, flour, oatmeal and candles. A decade later, the British movement had grown to nearly 1,000 co-operatives.

Their story, 168 years on, still rings true.

For three days, the followers of the pioneers from all sectors will be attending workshops and engaging in discussions.

Looking around, one may well ask what these people have in common. The co-ops are from various parts of the world; they come in all sizes and represent a wide array of sectors – from credit unions to consumer stores. But their members all engage in collective economic action, devising their own institutions to address their needs together.

Pauline Green, the President of the International Co-operative Alliance, has described the Manchester event as “the global culmination of a momentous year.” She is a formidable woman with a quick wit and a powerful presence, quite an accurate reflection of the movement she represents.

Throughout this extraordinary year of activities, I had the opportunity to meet co-operative members from different walks of life: Members of a women’s dairy co-operative in Indonesia who were asking for better trade policies that would allow them to flourish in the national market and even compete in regional ones; the Turkish pharmacy co-operatives that got together to provide a lower cost alternative to the monopoly of drug suppliers and distributors; the financial co-operatives that continued providing credit for small businesses when no other banks would.

Co-operatives are institutions that can bring out the best in humans. In these times of crisis and change, we all need such institutions, and they do appear to be making a comeback.

It is also important to stress that co-operatives are not just here in times of crisis but survive and thrive across time. They may not have the same ups and downs as other businesses – because of their connection to members’ needs and the local economies – but they have longevity and breadth.

If this International Year of Co-operatives has taught us one thing, it is that co-operatives are an alternative model of sustainable enterprise whose time has come back to stay. A billion co-operative members can’t be wrong.

Co-operatives are everywhere we look, from banks to farms, hotels and bakeries. It’s high time that we stop and take notice.

2012 is the International Year of Co-operatives