Jessica Gordon-Nembhard, Ph.D - John Jay College, CUNY "Thinking and Learning in the New Normal," Indianapolis May 30 ...
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard, Ph.D.
John Jay College, CUNY jgordonnembhard@gmail.com
“Thinking and Learning in the New Normal,” Indianapolis
May 30, 2020
Thanks to Kheprw for inviting me
Acknowledge:
The original
occupants/stewards of the
land; & our ancestors
The struggles of enslaved
laborers, & all those who labor
without just compensation.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020
Utilized by all populations, in every era,
on every continent.
Notions of the common good, the
commonwealth, The Commons,
Collectivism, mutual aid, revolving loan
funds/rotating savings & credit/susu
“Collective work and responsibility”
Indigenous cooperative efforts - First
Nations, early African civilizations, etc.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 Marginalization forces subaltern groups such as
African Americans to find alternative economic
solutions.
Use racial self-sufficiency and African retentions.
Chance to design & manage needed services in
culturally, racially& geographically sensitive ways.
Free and enslaved African Americans shared
resources; pooled money to buy their own and
their family members’ freedom, land &
equipment; used solidarity for escape
(underground railroad); started independent
schools, intentional communities, mutual aid
societies.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 Survival
Resistance
Prosperity
psupress.org
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 Pool resources
Provide quality goods and services - and access;
and culturally & geographically
sensitive/appropriate goods & services.
Save costs, Increase income, Democratize wealth
Combat racial discrimination
Increase Black economic stability, self sufficiency
& group independence and self-determination
Save or create decent jobs in communities
Develop collective agency and action
Develop leadership
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020Cooperatives Investor Stock
Corporations
• Member/owner • Investor/owner
• 1 member 1 vote • 1 share 1 vote
• Satisfy a need; problem • Profit motive first
solve; accessible and
affordable high-quality goods
and services
• Capital subordinate to labor • Capital supreme; capital rents
and usage labor
• Democratic governance, • Majority and money rule
Democratic participation
• Solidarity with members and • return to investor/owner
community; Returns to
community
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 Co-ops address market failure: provide rural
electricity or other utilities in sparsely
populated areas; affordable healthy and
organic foods; access to credit and banking
services; access to affordable housing; access
to quality affordable child or elder care;
access to markets for culturally sensitive
goods & arts.
Cooperatives overcome the historic barriers
to development
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 contributes an estimated $154
billion to the nation’s total income.
The co-ops have helped to create
over 2.1 million jobs, with an
impact on wages and salaries of
almost $75 billion.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 than traditional corporations/small
businesses: after first year (10% failure versus
60-80%); after 5 years in business (90% still
operating versus 3-5% of traditional
businesses).
Evidence also shows that cooperatives both
successfully address the effects of crises and
survive crises better.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020Co-ops Improve Income and Wealth and Develop Their Communities Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020
The pooling of family, neighborhood and
local organizational resources, especially
finance capital (money) but not just money
Shared skills and activities – for the purposes
of community well being and betterment.
Using surplus, creating surplus and leveraging
pooled resources in order to better allocate
resources for grassroots community
development.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 Includes learning and teaching how to do this
widely.
And the democratic, community and worker
control over community assets such as
cooperatives, community-owned businesses,
credit unions and community-based
institutions which include schools, libraries,
social services and security agencies, non
profits, etc.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 Taking power,
Making economic and political power
align with our values as human beings.
The grassroots determine our needs
and how resources and assets are used.
Since African Americans were first brought on
this soil enslaved as chattle and didn’t even own
our own bodies, wealth and capital have been an
issue and a mission for our struggles for
liberation and prosperity.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 400+ years of asset stripping and resistance
to asset stripping and the stripping of our
humanity in the US and Caribbean are the
conditions that have lead Black people in the
Western Hemisphere to pool resources,
practice serious mutual aid and economic
cooperation, and establish collectives and
cooperatives.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 We needed to pool our resources in order to
survive and in order to resist enslavement
and oppression.
Purpose to provide community care: burial,
death benefits, day nurseries, orphanages,
homes for the aged and infirm, hospitals,
cemeteries, night schools and scholarship
funds, non predatory loans, etc.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 Mutual Aid Societies & Beneficial
Societies provided joint purchasing
and marketing, revolving loan funds,
and sickness, widow & orphan, and
death benefits.
Often operated through Black
religious organizations and schools;
often informal.
Many headed by Black women.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 “Provide people with the basic needs of
everyday life - clothing, shelter, and emotional
and physical sustenance” (Jones 1985).
Efforts at community care
Pooled “meager resources,” sponsored fund
raisers, solicited voluntary contributions .
Free African Society, Philadelphia 1787 (2nd
oldest). Established AME Church
By the 1790s women established their own
mutual aid and beneficial societies around the
country.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 Co-ops are institutions of the
Solidarity Economy, established to
satisfy a need
Anchor capital and production in the
local community.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 In 1901 Odd Fellows Lodge established the
Mercantile Cooperative Company in Ruthville,
VA – cooperative store.
Shares at five dollars each (no one member
more than 20), could be paid in installments.
Also bought trucks; built a school.
Flourished for 20 years.
Achieved a level of economic independence
that later aided in the struggle for political
rights and racial justice” (Craig:134).
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 Co-ops used to provide needed goods
and services
Address unemployment and poverty
Replace investment where others have
disinvested
Address multiple issues
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 Established first co-op grocery store
in1935(Gary, IN)
By 1936 considered the largest grocery
business operated by African Americans
in U.S. -total sales of $160,000, annual
dividends of 2%.
Add credit union, 2nd grocery store, and
gas station.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 Worked with state agricultural dept to
create manuals & workshops to
promote and develop Black credit
unions and co-ops.
Growth: in 1936: 3 Black credit unions -
by 1948: 98 credit unions, and
48 additional co-op enterprises: 9
consumer stores, 32 machinery co-ops,
4 curb markets, 2 health associations
and 1 housing project.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 Sewing cooperative started in 1967 by
sharecropping women to sell their quilts for
extra income.
Built a sewing plant, and provided other
services to the community – child care
center, after school programs.
FQB bought 23 acres of land to build sewing
factory
Helped share croppers (evicted for
registering to vote) to own their own land.
1992 largest employer in town.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 Keep the benefits of and returns
to capital & production
recirculating among those who
produce them, service them, and
need them.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020Co-ops (especially worker) re-circulate
resources in a local economy and
leverage local resources:
Local wages are used in the community and
for goods and services that benefit the
community.
Surplus is returned to members, who live in
the community and invest in the community
or leverage their local dollars out in the world.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 Food co-ops spend more revenues
locally, buy more products locally, buy
more organic produce, recycle more
plastic, and create more jobs than
conventional grocers. For every $1,000
spent at a food co-op, $1,606 goes to
the local economy; for every $1 million
in sales, 9.3 jobs are created.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 Credit Unions use local deposits to
provide access to affordable financial
services and loans, and opportunities for
savings and investment retained in
community.
Community boards, often
democratically governed.
Good employment.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 Co-ops (especially worker) often lead
their industries in providing wages or
salaries that are better than locally
prevailing wages and/or higher than
industry standards;
high quality work with a variety of
benefits;
establish democratic control over
income and work rules;
Results in higher productivity.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020• Since 1987 employs unskilled Latina and
African American women (often were on
public assistance).
• Leads the industry in above average wages,
benefits, career ladder opps, leadership
training, and low turnover.
• Policy advocacy (city and state) to increase
Medicare allocations and average wages.
• Largest worker co-op in US – 1700 owners
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 Began with art therapy
Learned about co-op model and demanded
co-op education
Changed co-op law – meeting with Governor
Rephrased the 7 principles; internal rules
MOU with Corrections Department – 15%
(office space, electricity, etc); have to pay for
extra security
10% retained; 75% to owners
Only 2 recidivists of 50 + who got out over 10
years.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 In addition to generating income,
cooperatives contribute to asset
building and wealth accumulation.
Stable jobs, equity in the business,
patronage refunds and other returns on
their investment do provide member-
owners with wealth, although this is
often difficult to document.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020Joint ownership means
Pooling scarce resources;
Leveraging resources;
Reducing individual risks; and
Profit sharing.
Addresses low income, capital flight
– and lack of experience.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 U.S. coops and employee-owned
businesses provide dividends and
financial returns to members.
U.S. Ag Co-ops – have higher average
payout rate to members than
shareholder dividends from public
agribusiness corporations.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 Co-ops deliberately direct dollars to the
community and support community
development ($ donations, in kind
contributions of meeting space and
supplies, etc., volunteer hours).
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 Wealth creation:
Annual dividends average 25% of
initial equity investment (of $1000)
Bank the unbanked (direct deposit)
Retirement accounts
IDA accounts
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 WAGES reports:
Co-op members median income
increased to over $40,000 from $24,000
after owning the house cleaning co-op.
Ownership in the co-op has put their
income higher than the national
average of $38,000 for Latinos/as.
Some home ownership.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 Presumed equity advantage to home
ownership through a cooperative.
Increases access to home ownership.
AFL-CIO Housing Investment Trust
Leveraged investment creates equity
Housing equity increases over time
Tax benefits to homeownership contribute to
wealth creation
Homeowners have higher net worth than renters
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 1920s, the Cooperative Society of
Bluefield Colored Institute student
cooperative
School supplies and book store
Paid dividends to members of 10%
on purchases made.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 Co-operatives provide economic stability by
providing members with a viable community-
based business; and
environmentally friendly products and
services.
As residents, co-op members care about the
environment and their working conditions.
Triple bottom line – profit, human & social
capital, environmental capital.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 In the Fall of 1992 students from
Crenshaw High School (South Central
Los Angeles) revitalized the school
garden to help rebuild their community
after the 1992 uprising, and in particular
to donate the food to the homeless.
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 Students established a co-op to sell salad
dressing made from the produce grown
in the school garden.
At least 50% of the profits are saved for
scholarships to college.
Awarded over $180,000 in college
scholarships to 77 graduated student
managers (over ten years).
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 South Bronx, NY
Incubate worker-owned green businesses
rooted in democracy & environmental justice.
Provides ecological benefits while doing no
harm to workers, surrounding community, or
environment.
Co-op Academy
Bits & Bites – Tech Center and Café
Cooperativa de Tecnicos Especializados
Hack the cycle
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 High job loss and joblessness
Social isolation
Lack of affordable health care and health
insurance
Disinvestment and business closures
All issues that mutual aid and cooperatives
address.
How do you think co-ops can help?
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020Adequate resources, and financing
Participation - human energy, enthusiasm
Solidarity and trust among members
Conflict transformation
Internal education and training, study
circles; management training
public education, and publicity
Local control & Inter-cooperation
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 Importance of organizations: deliberate
cooperative development
Most number of co-ops when have Black
organizations dedicated to co-op
promotion and education.
Community support – community
involved in starting the co-op; study
groups; donate to the co-op; defend the
co-op
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020 Co-ops/Mutuals change lives; develop
skills, capacities, leadership
Change the nature of work, increase
returns to such work
Humanize work and ownership
More community control
Economic and social benefits
Pool Assets & create Wealth
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020Thank You!
jgordonnembhard@gmail.com
Jessica Gordon-Nembhard 2020You can also read
