The 2 DVD set, “This Way Out: A Guide To Starting A Worker Cooperative” is now available.
Conversations with coop members on topics such as funding, bookkeeping, choosing a legal entity, democratic process and more. Includes a group discussion topic section and bonus tracks. 246 minutes total, in chapter segments for easy use in workshops.
Linda Hogan and Terry Daniels of hOur World talk about Time Banks in a presentation for PODER in San Francisco October 11, 2011. Time Banks are a way to get and receive services without total dependence on cash. Their roots reach deep into our history and saved many during the Depression of the 1930′s. Time Banks are making a giant comeback- and this time may be here for good!
The Permaculture Credit Union pools the financial resources of people who believe in the ethics of Permaculture – care of the earth, care of people, and reinvestment of surplus for the betterment of both. We apply those resources to earth-friendly and socially responsible loans and investments.
The history of financial institutions is one of focus on the bottom line which results in overexploitation of the earth’s resources. Now, an innovative new financial institution – Permaculture Credit Union – has been established to allow its members to share their excess with other members of like mind who would use it for green and sustainable projects. The Permaculture Credit Union is perhaps the leading green credit union in the United States. We welcome new members seeking to deposit their money with a green bank or green credit union, or seeking green loans.
http://www.vimeo.com/12838782Rory Ridley-Duff, Course Leader of MSc MSc/PgDip/PgCert Co-operative and Social Enterprise Management on Advancing Social Enterprise Education. Source: Scribd | Slideshare
As well as revealing the slogan for the year, “Co-operative enterprises build a better world”, he discusses the three key messages which will be embedded in the year-long campaign spearheaded by the ICA.
With the approach of the United Nations 2012 International Year of Co-operatives Charles Gould, Director-General of the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA), talks about the plans to exploit the opportunities which the international year brings to co-operatives.
Follow up to the May 2011 lecture sponsored by NoBAWC (Network of Bay Area Worker Cooperatives) and held at The Women’s Building in San Francisco’s Mission District. Attorney Jenny Kassan of Cutting Edge Capital, The Sustainable Economies Law Center and Katovich Law Group, follows up on audience questions from her discussion of the in and out’s of securities regulation, state and federal law, exemptions, as well as various strategies that small businesses and cooperatives have used to raise needed capital. The information presented in the video IS NOT legal advice. The content of the video is intended for general information purposes only. Legal advice depends on the specific facts and circumstances of each individual’s situation. Those seeking specific legal advice or assistance should contact an attorney.
Welcome to AbolishHumanRentals.org home of the modern abolitionist movement. This site examines the standard employment relationship, the human rental, and shows that it is invalid on inalienable rights grounds. The human rental today manifests itself as the voluntary exchange of personal labor for a salary or wage. A legitimate arrangement requires workplace democracy and worker ownership whenever human labor is involved.
This site is an educational resource that seeks to promote public awareness and understanding of the problems associated with human rentals. Inquiry into the legitimacy of human rentals has long been buried by a barrage of propaganda with the complicity of the economic establishment. Such a fundamental question is notably absent from our education system and ignored by the mass media. These ideas must be revived in public discourse. The theory of inalienable rights is only useful to the extent it is widely known and consistently applied in practice.
Mike Leung of Abolish Human Rentals and the pre-startup (not yet chartered) Worker Cooperative Credit Union talks to Arizmendi Association study group on worker cooperative capital structure
Inalienable rights are based on the already broadly held principle of the non-transferability of responsibility for one’s actions. That principle, taken to its logical conclusion, means the rental of humans have no more legitimacy than their sale.
The issue is not one of coercion, willfully choosing to be rented, or the treatment and compensation of workers. Humans cannot choose to be rented for the same reason people cannot choose to sell themselves into slavery or sell their vote, regardless of their consent or how much they are paid.
The abolition of human rentals will be no small task given their widespread prevalence and firm entrenchment in the economic system. The modern abolitionist movement must begin by destroying the false perception of legitimacy that human rentals currently maintain.
Inalienable rights arguments pose a lethal threat to the practice of renting humans. At stake is nothing less than the employment system, the labor market, and the stock market through which ownership of human rental contracts are exchanged. As with slavery, inalienable rights issues cannot be addressed directly by proponents of human rentals without inviting destruction of the system. There are only two possible responses: Silence in the hope that inalienable rights are never widely understood, or vilification and harassment of the advocates in the event they gain traction. The strategy has thus far been successful in diverting attention from a profound idea and its revolutionary implications.
The alternative to human rentals is universal self employment in democratically managed worker owned businesses, or worker cooperatives. Workplace democracy eliminates the alienation of decision making power, and worker ownership means workers appropriate any resulting profits or losses, thus bearing financial responsibility for their actions.
Tony Andersen, Klimaforum09 organiser talks about the 10 000 Trees Strategy as a practical response to Climate Justice
Nicholas Roberts, Permaculture.TV founder is travelling to Copenhagen (Dec 5th to Dec 21st) primarily for Klimaforum09, with a special interest in covering the “Planetary Permaculture” or “Gaia Permaculture” currents running through the program.
As you can see from the Klimaforum09 online program, the International Permaculture Council and listen (mp3) and kind of read in “Planetary Permaculture: A Global Strategy for Climate Change – Tony Andersen of Klimaforum09” one of the key organisers of Klimaforum, Tony Andersen, is a Danish architect (in cooperative design, the Scandanavian participative or user-centered design tradition) and permaculturalist since the 1980s.
Klimaforum is part of a global permaculture design process that seeks to get activists and grassroots talking and working together, the research, develop and implement a radical, democratic, planetary permaculture program which is called 10 000 Trees: A Practical Strategy for Climate Change.
Klimaforum09 as Gaian User Centered Design
From the 10 000 Trees document, we get the outline of the project;
- THE 1 TON CO2 10.000 TREES PROJECT – overview of the problem and the solution
- Permaculture – the idea, practice and global and local success
- Climate Change – the massive catastrophic problem
- Carbon sink – a new category for locking, permanently ecology as carbon sinks in forest and soil
- More than 10,000 TREES per. person per. lifetime – a requirement for local-global perennial polycultural replanting
- Less than 1 TON CO2 pr. person pr. year – global energy descent and emissions reductions targets
- The U.N. Climate Conference 2009 / COP 15- the failure of the official process, danger of carbon finance
- Parallel activist and grassroots Conference – Klimaforum as user-centered permaculture design
- The Permaculture network – massively expanding a global, democratic, locally-controlled permaculture network
Its a radical scaling-up of the what the Transition Towns Movement describe as to “take responsibility for action and then unleash the creative genius that resides within us personally and collectively in our communities”.
Transition Towns focus on the level of small-towns. While the Klimaforum is operating globally, with grassroots and activists working together to unleash their own creativity within a commonly understood framework for radical global permaculture.
TECHNICAL NOTE: Ben Brangwyn of Transition Movement points out Technical point – Transition Initiatives exist in rural areas, villages, towns and cities. Am interested to know how the ideas of re-localisation can work on larger scales such as cities, such as Los Angeles.
Klimaforum09 “Gaia Permaculture” Events
Klimaforum09 Features
Interview with Raul del Aguila of COCLA-Peru of the Pachamama Cooperative
WE ARE COFFEE FARMERS!
Pachamama is a unique company owned by more than 100,000 coffee farmers around the world. Our farmers ship their best organic coffee to the USA from Ethiopia, Guatemala, Peru, Nicaragua and Mexico. We hand-roast in small batches in the U.S.A. and ship direct to customers in North America. Our mission is to provide customers with premium coffee in the most direct manner possible and, in doing so, improve the lives of small-scale farmers and their families.
A GLOBAL FARMERS’ COOPERATIVE.
PCC is democratically-controlled and owned by its members, the following farmer cooperatives:
PERU – COCLA – Quillabamba – 8,500+ family farmers
NICARAGUA – PRODECOOP – Estelí – 2,300+ family farmers
GUATEMALA – MANOS CAMPESINAS – Quetzaltenango – 1,100+ family farmers
MEXICO – LA UNIÓN REGIONAL – Huatusco – 1,950+ family farmers
ETHIOPIA – OROMIA – Addis Ababa – 135,000+ family farmers
FARMER-DRIVEN: BOARD OF DIRECTORS
We’re unique. Meet the farmers in with the power:
Raúl del Aguila: President. GM of COCLA – Peru. Raul@pachamama.coop
Merling Preza: Vice President. GM of PRODECOOP – Nicaragua. Merling@pachamama.coop
Carlos Reynoso: Secretary. GM of Manos – Guatemala. Carlos@pachamama.coop
Tadesse Meskela: Director. GM of OCFCU – Ethiopia. Tadesse@pachamama.coop
Ruben Zuñiga: Director. VP of La Unión Regional – Mexico. Ruben@pachamama.coop
PACHAMAMA U.S.A. STAFF:
Thaleon Tremain, CEO: thaleon@pachamama.coop
Nicolas Brown, Treasurer: nicolas@pachamama.coop
Byron Auker, Sales Representative: byron@pachamama.coop
Catherine Dilley, Sales Representative: catherine@pachamama.coop
Mollie Moisan, Customer Outreach Manager: mollie@pachamama.coop
PACHAMAMA U.S.A. HEADQUARTERS:
P.O. Box 73885
Davis, CA 95617
T: (530) 204-7554
F: (866) 516-120
http://pachamama.coop/
Bill Mollison on Mondragon Coop
10 000 Trees
activist to grassroots
strategy of 10 000 Trees
Cuba permaculture
India permaculture
Palestine Permaculture
Africa permaculture
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