“As worker cooperatives create living wage employment opportunities for low and moderate- income and marginalized workers, IWCA believes that fostering the growth of the worker cooperative ecosystem is the single most important thing that the City of Chicago, Cook County, and the State of Illinois can do to address worker exploitation and inequality, while promoting economic stability and community wealth building.”
In “Cooperation Chicago”, the Illinois Worker Cooperative Alliance (IWCA) and Business Enterprise Law Clinic – BELAW at The John Marshall Law School have sought to provide a comprehensive set of recommendations to city and county government which would create greater momentum and open up a broader set of resources to fuel the growth of cooperative enterprises in Chicago by supporting the efforts which have already developed absent resources.
While this paper does not extend to the broader social and solidarity economy that is necessary to ensure that we don’t lose this influx of capital from worker ownership to a rising housing, healthcare, or regressive taxation, it does provide the groundwork for developing a set of narratives which might knit together the various efforts at cooperation present in the city.