66 | The Solidarity Economy

Brooklyn, USA

The idea of a cooperative, or co-op, where everyone who works at a company is also a part-owner, is nothing new. New York state is home to more co-ops than anywhere else in the country. To wrap up our series on work and labor, we’re checking in with Brooklynites who are organizing and maintaining worker co-ops, and in the process creating a less exploitative, more equitable workplace, way of life, and world. • Brooklyn, USA is produced by Emily Boghossian, Shirin Barghi, Charlie Hoxie, Khyriel Palmer, and Mayumi Sato. If you have something to say and want us to share it on the show, here’s how you can send us a message: https://bit.ly/2Z3pfaW

• Thank you to this week from Yvonne Marquez.

• LINKS
Center for Family Life is a neighborhood-based family and social services organization with deep roots in Sunset Park, Brooklyn. Since 1978, CFL has grown with the Sunset Park neighborhood, responding to emerging needs with effective programs in counseling, employment, education, the arts and recreation. Today, our services engage more than 13,500 people each year at 10 community locations.

Brooklyn Packers is a worker-owned, Black-led food sourcing, packing, and distribution cooperative. We form a conduit between farms and the city, building Brooklyn food sovereignty. As anti-capitalists under capitalism, we organize to make, and be a part of, a solidarity economy. To this end, we guarantee worker-owners the same salary and equal company voting rights; we buy from small, sustainable food businesses in our local economy, with a preference for cooperatives and women / LGBTQIA+ / POC-owned farms; and we facilitate community access to our products by only charging for our labor (i.e. we never mark up food). In addition to Brooklyn Supported Agriculture, Brooklyn Packers handles bulk food acquisition, packaging, and transport for like-minded clients.

Yvonne S. Marquez is an independent reporter and audio producer based in Brooklyn, New York. For nearly a decade, Yvonne has dedicated her journalism career to ​telling stories important to LGBTQ people. Her work has appeared in Texas Monthly, Texas Observer, The Dallas Morning News, In These Times, Spectrum South, The Alcalde, and OutSmart Magazine. Yvonne graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a journalism degree. She currently attends the Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at CUNY, where she specializes in health/science reporting and audio journalism.

• MUSIC and CLIPS
This episode features a clip from “The Rural Co-op (1945 to 1955)”. This episode features music by Sarana. Hear more at sanaracreations.fi.

• TRANSCRIPT: https://bit.ly/3k81smR

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