We develop innovative policy recommendations and spearhead legislative campaigns that enable more localized, just, and resilient economies. Ready to be a Policymaker in Your City or State?
We want to empower you to make policy! To create economically resilient communities, we need to change or create countless local, regional, state, and federal laws. These new laws would remove barriers to and create incentives for local food production, renewable energy projects, local industry, worker-owned enterprises, shared housing, and other aspects of thriving communities.
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Jump to: policy reports, recommendations, and information about current and past campaigns in the following areas of law: Land Return and Housing Justice | Worker Cooperatives | Food and Energy Sovereignty | Campaigns We Endorse |
worker cooperatives
Policy Campaigns Supporting Worker Coops
The Law Center develops and spearheads targeted legislative and local campaigns that support the creation of cooperative economies. Check out our past and present campaigns:
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(2022) California Employee Ownership Act (Passed!) The Act equips California's small business owners with options for succession and employee engagement and gives workers across the state a chance to become co-owners of the companies where they work. Thanks to the advocacy and hard work of the Worker-Owned Recovery California (WORC) Coalition, Governor Newsom signed Senate Bill 1407 into law! Check out this NPQ article about our journey to drafting, advocating for, and winning this framework legislation. |
(2019) Berkeley's Small Business Revolving Loan Fund for Worker Coops (Passed!) Berkeley's local business loan fund can now be used to help workers become owners of the companies they helped build, elevating the quality of their jobs and saving the businesses from closure. (2019) Campaign for Municipal Support for Worker Coops (Passed!) Berkeley became the first city to commit to enacting a procurement incentive for worker cooperatives as well as earmarking money for coop conversions. (2017) California State Workers Comp Legislation In 2017, we worked with a group of cooperatives to campaign for a cooperative exemption to AB 2883 workers compensation laws. (2015) California Worker Cooperative Act (Passed!) We worked with Assemblymember Rob Bonta to pass AB 816! The bill created a legal entity for worker coops in California, incorporating exciting provisions regarding membership, capital raising, and default systems for democratically governed, worker-owned businesses! |
Worker Coop Policy Reports
Policy Recommendations for a Worker-Owned California State Economic Recovery
In the midst of a pandemic and transformative moment for civil rights in this country, the Worker-Owned Recovery California (WORC) Coalition raced against the clock to intervene in California's state budget bill. The Law Center is a member of this coalition, and our Policy Director, Yassi Eskandari, is its coordinator. WORC's goal for this campaign was to ensure that worker-owned businesses were included in California's economic recovery efforts and, to that end, WORC advocated for $10M to fund education, technical assistance, and forgivable loans to businesses that transition to worker ownership.
This budget request was submitted for the June 15, 2020 budget with the backing of State Assemblymembers Chu, Kalra, Gonzalez, Limón, Bloom, Bonta, and Chiu, in order preserve the economic backbone of our state, reward both workers and selling business owners, and set California on the path to a more equitable economy.
Local Ordinance for the Promotion of Worker Cooperatives
Worker cooperatives create quality jobs, grow local wealth, and promote economic resilience. Local governments can be instrumental in fostering the development of worker cooperatives by removing several key barriers and providing essential technical, strategic, and financial support.
We've drafted a worker cooperative development policy tailored to the city of Oakland, California, a perfect example of a city that could benefit from a thriving cooperative economy and everything that comes with it.
The ordinance can be easily tailored to fit the needs of any U.S. city, and we welcome inquiries from cities wishing to adopt a similar policy.
Evaluating the Potential of Cooperative Rideesourcing: A Case Study of Arcade City in Austin, TX
Considering all the legal drama that is happening in California with Uber and Lyft around worker classification, here's a reminder of how things could be if those ridesharing giants were cooperatives instead.
"Instead of optimizing the online economy for growth and short-term profits for the few," the emerging Platform Cooperative movement is trying to build a more sustainable and equitable business model for the 21st century.
Learn more in this case study of Arcade City in Austin, Texas, written by our Transportation Researcher Adam Stocker and our Cooperatives Attorney Sara Stephens
Land and Housing
Policy Campaigns Supporting Land Return & Housing Justice
We advocate for policies that promote more just, sustainable, and cooperative land and housing models. Check out our past and present campaigns:
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(Current) Ban Land Grabs Policy Overview: We are proposing bold action in this intense wave of racialized displacement in Richmond—by banning all profit-seeking entities who would like to treat our homes and communities like an asset class. Sign up today to support and read our policy report here. (Current) Housing Choice for All Act: Let's end zoning privilege, NOW! We are proposing a statewide bill to make California’s housing stock more varied and adaptable to changing family forms by removing distinctions between group housing units and dwelling units. Sign up today to support and see our fact sheet here! (2019-2022) Tenant Opportunity to Purchase Acts: (Stalled) The Law Center has been involved in helping with drafting of, review of, and advocacy for tenant opportunity to purchase acts like Berkeley TOPA and Oakland TOPA. (2022) Homes in Community Hands Act: AB 1837 (Passed!) We supported Mia Bonta's bill to close the loopholes in the recently passed SB 1079. (2021) Half a billion dollars for Homes for Communities Not Corporations (Passed!) Thanks in part to the success story of our client Jocelyn Foreman, which highlighted the need for acquisition funding, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a law in July 2021 providing an additional $500 million for SB 1079 foreclosure acquisition funding. That's half a billion dollars! (2020-2021) The Bill Inspired by Moms 4 Housing | Homes for Communities, Not Corporations: SB 1079 (Passed!) In 2019, the direct action of Moms 4 Housing made it impossible to ignore the fact that there are four times as many empty homes in Oakland as there are homeless people. Inspired by this movement, Senator Nancy Skinner introduced SB 1079 to reduce land grabs resulting from foreclosure auctions. Read about our work to make sure the bill prioritized tenants, nonprofits, cooperatives, and potential owner-occupants! Check out our SB 1079 toolkit here. |
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(2021) The Oakland People's Plan (Contract not granted) Every 20 years, Oakland updates its General Plan. The General Plan is what determines land use laws. Oakland has a long history of racist zoning policies and traditionally used a top-down approach to slowly reform those policies. To raise awareness about this process, we hosted a Policy Cafe and presented a short history of racist zoning laws in Oakland, the anatomy of a general plan update, Oakland's current request for proposals (RFP) and an invitation to form a dream team of researchers, lawyers, historians, mapmakers, artists, culture keepers, organizers, and mediators to democratize the general plan process! Click here to watch the recording of our Policy Cafe or click here to read the press release about our RFP submission. Unfortunately, the city did not accept our proposal but the fight is not over! Stay tuned for future policy campaigns. (2016) California Local Economies Securities Act (Stalled) LESA would have created the opportunity for small businesses, farms, and renewable energy projects to raise money from local investors. (2014) Cooperative Housing Bill (Passed!) AB 569 to facilitates the creation of Limited Equity Housing Cooperatives, which provide residents with a unique form of equity stake in their home that restricts the resale value of shares to keep the prices low when regular market forces would otherwise drive them up. (2013) Housing for an Economically Sustainable Future This video describes how we can own houses in a more economically sustainable future. Learn how AB 1024 would remove legal barriers to housing coops. |
Housing Justice Policy Reports
For 15 years, the Sustainable Economies Law Center has heard from housing justice partners in the East Bay that corporate land grabs and real estate speculation are destabilizing neighborhoods and driving racialized displacement. We have learned with our Indigenous partners that neighborhood gentrification is a form of colonialism—building on the original theft of Indigenous land that California and its system of private property was founded upon.
In this report, we equip policymakers and organizers with bold legal tools to fight back against the crisis of corporate land grabs. After surveying corporate housing speculation and related proposals, we outline our proposal for Richmond to ban all profit-seeking entities who would treat its homes and communities like an asset class. We then explain how our policy would address the current crisis and why it’s on solid legal footing.
Policy Recommendations for Equitable Short-Term Rental Regulation 
Short-term residential rentals, like those facilitated by online platforms like Airbnb, Homeaway, and Flipkey, have become a popular alternative to traditional hotels.
Increased short-term rental (STR) activity has exacerbated many municipal issues, including neighborhood quality; access, availability, and cost of housing; and decreased public revenues. Short-term rentals can also provide some benefits, including creating opportunities for income generation; diversifying travel options; and spreading tourism dollars to local residents and businesses. Our recommendations for equitable short-term rental regulation balance the potential benefits of STRs with the need to protect public interests.
Policies for Shareable Cities: A Primer for Urban Leaders
Policies for Shareable Cities is the first policy handbook of its kind.
It includes over 30 recommended policies for how cities should regulate the true sharing economy in the areas of food, work, housing, and transportation.
Food and Energy Sovereignty
Policy Campaigns Supporting Food and Energy Sovereignty
We build coalitions to change laws.
Energy laws and regulations are relics of an era when we depended on dirty coal power plants and don't reflect the fact that electricity can now be produced cleanly and locally. It's urgent that we update laws for the 21st Century, so we are building strategic partnership to eliminate barriers to community energy in our laws and policies.
While interest in shared renewables and community ownership increases, in most states there is no viable financial driver for community energy as compared to utility bill net metering credits and federal tax credits for single-family home rooftop solar. In general, very few public policies, funding, or procurement programs prioritize community energy, so there is a lot of work to be done to change this.
We are building collaborative relationships with a wide range of the stakeholders involved and interested in community energy, including community-based organizations, developers, legal and other technical experts, financial experts, cooperatives, divestment groups, reinvestment groups, and more.
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(2017) Virtual Net Metering: We drafted a proposal for an "Equity Virtual Net Metering" policy for pollution-burdened communities, also called Environmental Justice communities or disadvantaged communities. We co-introduced the proposal with the California Environmental Justice Alliance in a proceeding at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC), following coordination and collaboration with a working group of various parties in the proceeding. Virtual Net Metering is one of the most successful regulatory program designs in other states for enabling community solar projects through credits that offset a consumer's energy bill at a one-for-one rate. We proposed Equity Virtual Net Metering (“Equity VNM”) as one of various alternatives for disadvantaged communities that the CPUC is implementing under state law AB 327. Equity VNM would have enabled development of community-based energy projects that are small, close to customers, and community owned or controlled. Our proposal was not adopted, but helped influence the program that was ultimately created: the Community Solar Green Tariff. (2017) Community Choice Aggregation (CCAs): We are a member of the East Bay Clean Power Alliance, which is organized to promote a Community Choice energy program in Alameda County with a commitment to maximizing community benefits and community input. Our support has included providing input on creating a local development business plan for the Alameda County CCA -- called East Bay Community Energy (EBCE) -- that would include the development of metrics to prioritize local benefits. In California, three new CCA entities are launching in 2017 and over 15 municipalities are exploring their own programs. We are also a former member of, and current advisor to, the East Bay Shared Solar Collaborative, which is promoting the development of community-owned and controlled shared solar energy projects within East Bay Community Energy to further community economic empowerment, advance social equity, and strengthen community resilience. We believe CCAs offer an important opportunity to drive procurement of renewables from community-owned projects. Our program director, Subin DeVar served for a year on the inaugural Community Advisory Committee of EBCE. |
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(2016) California Local Economies Securities Act (Stalled) LESA would have created the opportunity for small businesses, farms, and renewable energy projects to raise money from local investors. (2016) California Seed Exchange Democracy Act (Passed!) AB 1810 guarantees the rights of farmers and gardeners who save seeds and share them within their community. Learn how to protect seed libraries in your state! (2015) Securities (Passed!) In 2015, we successfully wrote and passed a crowd-financing law (AB 816) enabling California cooperatives, including solar cooperatives, to sell shares for up to $1,000 without intermediaries or legal compliance hurdles. (2014) California Neighborhood Food Act (Passed!) AB 2561 guaranteeds the rights of renters and HOA residents to grow their own food, preempting landlords from restricting tenants who live in single-family or duplex residences from growing food for themselves in portable containers in their backyards. (2013) Green Tariff/Shared Renewables Program: We advocated for improved rules at the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC) in the SB 43 Green Tariff/Shared Renewables Program. The Enhanced Community Renewables component of the SB 43 program allows organizations and individuals to participate in offsite electrical generation -- solar panels (or other renewables) located somewhere other than on their own building or land -- within the service territories of California’s three largest investor-owned utilities: Pacific Gas & Electric, San Diego Gas & Electric, and Southern California Edison. (2012) U.S. CROWDFUND Act - Part of the JOBS Act (Passed!) Allowed businesses to raise capital through crowdfunding intermediaries. (2012) California Homemade Food Act (Passed!) AB 1616 legalized certain types of home-based food enterprises. |
Food and Energy Sovereignty Policy Reports and Toolkits
DRAFT Compost Policy Guide 
The Sustainable Economies Law Center has been researching compost law and policy in recent years. Learn more about our work here. In late 2016, we worked with Berkeley Law School's Environmental Law Clinic to produce a draft policy guide for policymakers in California.
Please download and review this policy guide, then provide feedback below: Growing Compost: A Policy Guide to Preserving Critical Community Composting in California
Acknowledgments: The guide was largely authored by the UC Berkeley Environmental Law Clinic Student Clinicians Mae Manupipatpong, Noah Guiney, & Jenny Pierce, under the supervision of Ana Vohryzek-Griest, Environmental Justice Fellow & Claudia Polsky, Director. The guide builds on research by Brian Fink, Janelle Orsi, Travis Close, and Christina Oatfield, and includes input by Sarah Boltwala-Mesina.
The Seed Democracy Advocacy Toolkit
Sustainable Economies Law Center has supported and successfully advocated for changes to 4 state seed laws between 2014 and 2016. Over the course of our
campaign, we’ve developed a handful of essential documents and resources to empower others to engage in similar efforts around the United States.
This toolkit contains several sample documents we’ve created over the course of the Save Seed Sharing campaign that you can use to raise awareness, build support, and effectively advocate for changes to your state’s seed law that promote seed saving and
sharing and protect our seed commons.
Campaigns we endorse
(2021) We endorsed the petition to Oakland City Council by Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment (ACCE), Housing Rights Committee of San Francisco, JDW Tenants’ Union, Lonay Tenants’ Council, Peoples’ Tenants Union, Right to Housing Committee, and SMC Tenants’ Council demanding: (1) Extend the ban on all evictions; (2) Cancel rent debt; (3) Decommodify housing. Join us by signing ACCE's petition here.
(2020) We support a state California State Public Bank bill (AB 310) that would create a State Public Bank that can leverage its capital to build a just and equitable post-COVID economy. Read more about the bill here.
(2019) Our 501c4 arm supported the Community Democracy Project's (CDP) petition to bring a people's budget to Oakland. Click here to read more about our partnership with the Cooperative 4 the Community to help CDP get on the ballot.
(2016) The Law Center supported a California bill to establish the Nutrition Incentives Matching Grants Program (AB 1321) to create incentives for recipients of nutrition assistance programs (eg CalFRESH, food stamps) to purchase fresh fruits, vegetables, and nuts at California farmers' markets and small retailers. Read more about it here.
(2015) Sustainable Economies Law Center opposes bill to ban right of local government to tax short term rentals (AB 1220). Read our opposition letter here.
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