The Co-op Movement - Accessible? : An Interview with Jessica Gordon Nembhard

Story by: Corey Reidy / Transcription by: Isabel Antreasian

The Eastern Conference on Workplace Democracy flooded Baltimore, the weekend of July 8^th - 10^th, 2011, with hordes of cooperative movement-makers.

Billed specifically as a space for: Connecting Our Workplaces: Building Cooperative Economies - the three days saw numerous folks, from around the region, participate in various workshops, ranging from: Building a Co-op Economy through Grassroots Partnerships to Southern Grassroots Organizing to The Role of Policy in Building Resources for Urban Cooperative Development to Expressive Arts for Social Change- Envisioning the Elements in a Cooperative Economy to Interfaith Movement Building to Putting Humanity Back in Human Resources to Broadening Ownership: The Joys and Challenges of Growth in a Worker Co-op to so much more.

Immediately noticeable, was ECWD's strong stance on Accessibility. In the front of each itenary, there stood an Accessibility Statement proclaiming:

"We actively strive to create an event that is totally accessible for all who wish to participate. We aim to avoid replicating the barriers in society that exclude and marginalize people.

Much of the power to foster a safe and respectful atmosphere lies with you, the participants. For this reason, racist, sexist, classist, homophobic, transphobic, or other oppressive language or behaviors are unacceptable.

.....

All of our attempts to equalize access are made within the limits of current resources and therefore are not perfect. However, we welcome suggestions for improvement and will do our best to implement them.

We appreciate your help in making ECWD an event that is welcoming and accessible to all who attend."¹

With their: upfront Accessibility Statement, the conference's affordable childcare (Baltimore's very own: Kidz City!), a strong showing of English-to-Spanish interpreters, a variety of food options, evening activities that were substance-free, the immediately visible Gender Neutral Bathrooms, and in a myriad of other named and unnamed ways - it was enitrely noticeable that the conference was devoted to making the space safe and accessible to as many potential attendees.

Corey Reidy, from The Baltimore Indypendent Reader, caught-up with ECWD Treasurer: Jessica Gordon Nembhard.

Reidy asked the Professor of Economics and African American Studies and member of Grassroots Economic Organizing, for a general overview of the conference, her [Gordon Nembhard] own personal reasons for organizing, and accessibility- across-communities within  the co-op movement.

Gordon Nembhard had just finished speaking on the conference's sole Plenary Session: Building Cooperative Economies: Trends in Worker Co-Op Development.

Below is audio from/and a transcription of that interview.

Listen

Jessica: I'm Jessica Gordon Nembhard, I'm actually the ECWD Treasurer and one of the co-founders.

Indyreader: So we're here today at the Eastern Conference on Workplace Democracy, could you explain a bit, since you're one of the founders, on what this conference is?

Jessica: Sure, Eastern Conference on Workplace Democracy, we started in 2002. Our plan was to be an Eastern regional place for worker co-ops and other collective work places - democratic work places to come and talk about their shared practices, their best practices, as well as talking about movement building, how we grow the movement. The western worker conference had already been going on and we sort of wanted to do what they do, which was basically get everybody together. So we did that quite successfully I think. I forgot how many people we had at the first meeting, and everyone agreed we wanted to do more of it, so we did it again the next year.  And then, we were also part of the founding [of] US Federation of Co-ops. And we decided they would have... we would alternate. The national group would have their meeting one year and then all the regionals would have their meetings the off years, so that's what we've been doing for the last nine years. And we've grown every time. We also wanted to have a presence in every community. We go to different cities - we wanted to make sure we had a presence in each city that we go to. So we always tried to have a host committee, to provide us with either local goods and services - as well as connect [us] to local economic activity that was either worker co-op or democratic work places. And actually, this year we did our best job with the Baltimore community, we got more people engaged in the Baltimore community, more local Baltimore media coverage, and more local Baltimore democratic business involved than ever before.

Indyreader: Personally, why is this important for you to be engaged in this process?

Jessica: It's really important I guess, two major reasons: one, I believe in economic justice and so workplace democracy is one of the important points for economic justice. And so I'm trying to figure out ways to shore-up the existing democratic workplaces and to create more, and so this kind of a conference and bringing these kind of regional and national groups together is the best way to develop this movement. And then, as an African American woman, I'm also really concerned that People of Color have not been as much involved in the co-op movement in the late 20th early 21st century. So, I wanted to also be sure to bring energy, to make sure this movement was connected to Peoples of Color and low-income communities.

Indyreader: To tie into that:  you also just spoke on the plenary, do you have any thoughts on how that went or what that sort of encapsulated?

Jessica: I think the plenary went really well. The nice thing about a plenary is you have a huge audience, bigger than the workshops. So, that's nice. We were able to get the issues particularly about low-income and People of Color involvement in worker co-ops on the table. We were able to get groups, who are actually working specifically in that area, to talk about the challenges as well as their successes, and I think we were able to make sure that people at this conference had that in their minds, as they are thinking about what to do next -  how to grow the movement - what the movement needs. And even to take strategies that may have been meant for lower income or People of Color and use it in their own mainstream co-ops, too. So, I think there could be a lot of cross-fertilization, andI hope we motivated people to actually do even more than they're already doing.

Indyreader: I think you did. What do you think the movement needs in order to make it more accessible to People of Color and low-income communities?

Jessica: We need to connect more with community groups of color.
We need more money.
More resources.
Some of it’s money , but some of it’s’ also even just time to bring information to people and to do again, more cross-fertilization. And I think it was said on the panel, to pay attention to [the] issues of People of Color even when we're not in groups of People of Color. And get involved in their issues. And that way get them to know about what we're doing  - and them be interested in it. But a lot of groups, particularly low-income groups, time is a huge issue and with the co-op movement you actually need time. People need to be educated, people need to be organized. That takes time. So again, we need somehow to figure out resources to give people the time to be involved, especially when they have so much else going on in their lives, that takes-up their time.

Figure out how to help them have enough time to do the movement building, that would bring them more involved in this kind of thing.

And that takes resources. Sometimes I think we actually have to pay people for their time, or figure out what other kind of exchange -- what else they need. If they need babysitting, then can we give them the babysitting so they can come to our meeting?  Or do they need a job? Can we pay them to do some of the organizing? What is it that they need, that we could help them with,  so that they could then participate more?

Indyreader: I feel like all cooperatives are sort of struggling with these issues of like...

Jessica: Yeah, they probably are.

Indyreader: I mean in completely different ways, and that's my question: How do you think... I mean the cooperative movement as it is right now, like sort of... the questions of paying people and childcare, and stuff - is different from giving access to communities that don't have the same accessibility to the movement. How are they different? The questions.

Jessica: I think giving access, I don't really think there is that much difference to tell you the honest truth. I think there’s lots of groups, that we have to give access to. Some of them, it's just they don't [have] access because of ideology. And so there we need to do better communication; we need to do better publicity about what we're doing. We need to break-through the ideologies.

So, I don't really think it's different. I think the only thing I would say is... because I'm so interested in racial justice, as well as economic and social justice, there does need to be a focus on the race, class, ethnicity issues. It doesn't mean that we don't have to try to figure out access for everybody. It's just particularly from what I do and I want to make sure people are sensitive to that one area, but it doesn't mean that we don't have to pay attention to other issues. And you're right, it’s not really that the issues are the same, sometimes it's a matter of where you enter. Right? Where's the focus of where you're gonna start to enter? But the great thing about it is, if you solve the access issue for one group  - you can sort of solve it for another group, because the answer is pretty much similar. ‘Cause the answer's all about human rights, right? And voice. So, technically, even if you're starting at one entry point and focusing on one group, you're really not exclusively just addressing it for that group. You're really opening it up in other ways too.

Indyreader: What are you most excited about for this year's conference?

Jessica: Oh well the size. This is the biggest one we've ever had. And as I said at the beginning, the connection with the Baltimore community has been just fabulous.

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^{1 ECWD's Accessibility Statement}