worker coops beat the credit crisis

Statistical assessment and surveys show that worker coops have been more resilient than conventional enterprises in withstanding the economic crisis.
Social services did better than manufacture & construction
Worker coops used flexibility and innovation to better overcome the crisis. better than conventional enterprises.
Worker coops had better reserves and less dependent on external finance than conventional enterprises.
Led to better sustainability of employment in worker coops.
The worker coops that failed were already in trouble. Few healthy worker coops failed.

More evidence that worker cooperative is a better model of organisation for SMEs. Over to you David Cameron, Nick Clegg and Vince Cable. Will you promote worker cooperative as the number one SME model?

Why Coops and not Capitalism?

In my last posting, I wondered why all the Parties, even and especially the Tories, are suddenly promoting coops. Maybe its because BigCapital has gone somewhere else, into international speculation, and left us to play with the remains of the machines (private businesses) it formerly used to generate wealth for itself.

Here's an extract from http://www.cooperativeconsult.com/blog/ The Workers Paradise Feb 23 2010
The Cleveland Model is a worker cooperative development project to set up worker owned businesses providing local needs in Rust Belt cities in the USA.

"The Cleveland Model is a significant development given the devastation wrought by capital abandonment, not just in Cleveland, but all throughout the Rust Belt. Capital abandoned the inner city in favor of the suburbs. Capital abandoned the north in favor of the Right To Work south and west. And when the imposition of neo liberalism in developing nations allowed capital to sidestep local labor and environmental laws and regulations, capital abandoned the United States."