The United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives (USFWC) is a federation

Cooperative federation

A co-operative federation or secondary co-operative is a co-operative in which all members are, in turn, co-operatives.Historically, co-operative federations have predominantly come in the form of co-operative wholesale societies and co-operative unions...

 of worker cooperative

Worker cooperative

A worker cooperative is a cooperative owned and democratically managed by its worker-owners. This control may be exercised in a number of ways. A cooperative enterprise may mean a firm where every worker-owner participates in decision making in a democratic fashion, or it may refer to one in which...

s in the United States. USFWC was founded at the U.S. Conference of Democratic Workplaces in Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis, Minnesota

Minneapolis , nicknamed "City of Lakes" and the "Mill City," is the county seat of Hennepin County, the largest city in the U.S. state of Minnesota, and the 48th largest in the United States...

 in May 2004..

The Federation was sponsored by The Cooperative Foundation in addition to other cooperative support organizations. It was created partly in response to growing regional organizing among United States worker cooperatives and to foster the sharing of information and resources between national gatherings.

Meetings

The membership meets annually. The Federation also holds a bi-annual conference called The Democracy at Work Conference in conjunction with the annual meeting. The schedule for the meetings/conference is as follows:

• 2006 New York City (and Conference)
• 2008 New Orleans (and Conference)
• 2009 Madison
• 2010 San Francisco (and conference)
• 2011 Austin, TX
• 2012 Boston (and conference)

Membership Classification

The USFWC has several membership classes:

• Worker Cooperatives include organizations that meet the standard for a democratic workplace according to the CICOPA
  CICOPA
  CICOPA is the branch of the International Co-operative Alliance that promotes worker cooperatives. Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland, CICOPA has a membership of 57 national and regional cooperative federations in 39 countries...
  
   World Declaration on Worker Co-operatives.
• Democratic Workplaces include organizations that may fall short of the World Declaration, but still exist as a democratic workplace such a democratic ESOPs owned by 100% of its workers.
• Federation Partners include any local and regional association of three or more workplaces.
• Cooperative Developers receive one vote per developer (or organization of developers).
• Start-up Workplace include organizations that are either in a start-up mode or transitioning to a worker co-operative from another type of business.
• Associates are organizations that support worker co-operatives and worker rights but do not exist as a worker co-operative, collective or democratic workplace. Consumer co-operatives, labor unions, and ESOPs with less than 100% worker control are examples. This class does not have any voting rights.
• Individual Allies may join the organization but do not have any voting rights.

Board of Directors

The Federation is governed by a nine-member board of directors. The Board oversees the Federation and the Executive Director.

The current Board of Directors of the Federation includes:

• Eastern Representative - Aaron Dawson
• Northern Representative - Rebecca Kemble
• Western Representative - Yilda Campos
• Southern Representative - Anna Boyer
• At Large Directors
  • Ben Mauer
  • David Smathers Moore
  • Scott Crow

External links

• United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives web site