Leveling the Playing Field for Worker Cooperatives
By Abby Scher, Truthout | News Analysis
"A quiet revolution is rumbling through New York's municipal offices as they retool to support the creation of worker cooperatives as a way to fight poverty.
Spurred by the powerful example of immigrant-owned cleaning cooperatives and the longstanding example of Cooperative Home Care Associates in the Bronx - the largest worker cooperative in the country - progressive city council members are allying with a new network of worker cooperatives, community based organizations that incubated immigrant-owned coops and the influential Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies to figure out how the city can encourage this still-tiny economic sector. Once fully in place, New York City will be a national leader in providing municipal support for these democratic enterprises."
Read the full article on Truthout
Read moreCompetition from UberX, Lyft has D.C. taxis crying foul
By Lori Aratani
EXCERPT: “These platforms are enabling people to do business in ways they never could before,” said Janelle Orsi, executive director of the Oakland, Calif.-based Sustainable Economies Law Center. “These platforms offer ways to connect with each other really easily, which has a lot of benefits in creating income for people but is really shaking up the market.”
Evelyn Hockstein/For The Washington Post - A taxi drives behind an UberX vehicle in downtown Washington.
DRIVERS ACCUSE CAR APP UBER OF DICTATING TERMS, SKIMMING TIPS
by Marisa Taylor @marisahtaylor
EXCERPT: Janelle Orsi, an attorney in Oakland, California and co-founder of the Sustainable Economies Law Center, specializes in helping clients navigate the laws of the sharing economy. She told Al Jazeera in an email that the Uber case is a tough call, because both the company and the drivers have strong arguments.
“One thing is certain: The more that Uber dictates how drivers work, what they charge, and so on, the more likely it is that a court would find that they are creating employment relationships with drivers,” she wrote.
Read moreGrassroots versus corporatized sharing economy: a conversation on KPFA Radio 4/7/14
A conversation with SELC's program directors Ricardo Nuñez and Yassi Eskandari-Qajar about the where the sharing economy is at and where SELC believes it should be going. One listener replied after the show, "Gettin to call in to the SELC folks. It does not get any better than that. Thank you."
SELC's Spring Newsletter
Read about how SELC is revolutionizing legal services and cultivating a new legal landscape this Spring!
Read moreCo-ops to Combat Poverty
GritTV's Laura Flanders discusses with New York City Council's Community Development Committee Chair, Maria del Carmen Arroyo, on how local government can create an opportunities to support and encourage the development of worker coops and strengthen the ones that already exist.
Policies for Shareable Cities: A Policy Primer for Urban Leaders
32 specific policy recommendations that enable communities to remove barriers to sharing and realize the benefits of the sharing economy in food, jobs, housing, and transportation. View in window below or click here to download PDF.
City Policies Resources & Education
Policies for Shareable Cities: A Primer for Urban Leaders
Policies for Shareable Cities is the first policy handbook of its kind. It includes 32 recommended policies that enable cities to benefit from the sharing economy in the priority areas of food, jobs, housing, and transportation. Click here to read or download the brief.
UrbanAgLaw.org - The Legal Resource for Urban Farming
The Sustainable Economies Law Center's (SELC) free, comprehensive online legal resource library for urban agriculture. Key topics:
Planning & Zoning Soil
Animals and Livestock Employment Law
Food, Ag, and Health Regulations Water
Liability, Risk, and Insurance For-Profit Urban Ag
Land Access Building Codes
Homeowners Associations Non-Profit Urban Ag
Many thanks to the our volunteer researchers and volunteer research attorneys who contributed to this free online resource for urban farmers. View the eResource at UrbanAgLaw.org.
Tiny House Ecovillage Teach-In Series
Click here to view or download the powerpoint presentation by East Bay Cohousing's Betsy Morris.
Community Renewable Energy Webinar
Community renewable energy is clean, small-scale, and owned or sponsored by communities. That's why it creates democratic, resilient energy grids with distributed economic benefits. SELC’s expert panelists discuss the legal barriers, policy opportunities, and steps to creating a new energy future. Click here to watch the webinar.
City Policies News
Press Release - Policies for Shareable Cities: A Policy Primer for Urban Leaders
Posted by Yassi Eskandari-Qajar · September 09, 2013 6:00 AM
SELC Takes Advisory Role in Forming Groundbreaking Sustainable Living Research Ordinance
Posted by Yassi Eskandari-Qajar · July 15, 2013 8:05 AM
RELEASED TODAY – First-Ever Sharing Economy City Policy Brief
Share this with every urban leader, mayor, city planner, or council member you know.
Today, the Sustainable Economies Law Center and Shareable released the first ever policy brief of its kind, called Policies for Shareable Cities: A Sharing Economy Policy Primer for Urban Leaders. It details 32 specific policy steps that local leaders can take to benefit from the growing sharing economy and support innovations such as carsharing, ridesharing, cohousing, cooperatives, and urban agriculture. Click here for the press release. Click here for PDF.