Learning to Think Outside the Boss
Host your own "Learning to Think Outside the Boss" workshop!
Thank you for your interest in hosting"Learning to Think Outside the Boss: An Introductory Workshop on the Legal Nuts and Bolts of Starting a Worker Cooperative!" Below, find resources we've created to teach about how the law works in, against, and for worker cooperatives. This is a shorter, participatory, discussion-orientated version of our half day "Think Outside the Boss" workshop.
View and download the Facilitator Guide here
View and download the Participant Guide here
View and download the Powerpoint Slides here
NOTE: These materials are updated at irregular intervals and might change from time to time. Updates are based on feedback from participants and those who facilitate the "Learning to Think Outside the Boss" workshop. Please send questions, feedback, or comments about this guide to [email protected].
What is it?
This workshop provides an introduction to the practical steps individuals and groups need to take to establish, build, and successfully manage a cooperative enterprise. This introductory workshop attempts to bring forward basic legal and structural questions such as what is a cooperative, what is a legal entity, what rules govern fundraising and financing for cooperatives, and more. This workshop provides an overview of the content contained in Sustainable Economies Law Center's Think Outside the Boss: How to Create a Worker-Owned Business manual.
Why Do it?
This workshop is meant to provide an introduction for those looking to support cooperative development and for entrepreneurs and activists seeking to build a worker cooperative. By the end of the workshop, participants should be able to
- have a basic understanding of the cooperative form from a functional and principled perspective,
- understand the Cooperative Principles in practice,
- distinguish cooperatives from other business forms,
- distinguish between the different kinds of cooperatives,
- understand basic questions that should be asked when founding a worker cooperative,
- and think about cooperatives as they relate to the needs in their lives.
Method
Facilitators should use a combination of lecture (minimal), experiential learning, and popular education techniques to engage the group actively in the process of learning about worker cooperatives and cooperative business development.
Background
Beginning in 2013, SELC and the East Bay Community Law Center have been hosting half day workshops called "Think Outside the Boss" three times per year in the San Francisco Bay Area. These Think Outside the Boss workshops provide community members an introduction into the nuts and bolts of starting and running a cooperatively owned business. We go over legal issues in an accessible way to help you understand the relationships between cooperatives, employment, and community wealth-building. Attorneys, law students, and experienced cooperative professionals give short presentations on legal issues, governance structures, financing, and more. We also typically host breakout sessions on specialized topics with attorneys, cooperative accountants, business planning specialists, and discussions led by cooperative worker-members. To find the next Think Outside the Boss workshop, please visit theselc.org/events.
This facilitator’s guide was originally prepared for the 2014 JACKSON RISING: NEW ECONOMIES CONFERENCE in Jackson, Mississippi. Their clarion call to build a broad based solidarity economy in the southern US led us to deepen our intention of making legal education accessible to those building economic democracy all around the country. With feedback from the worker cooperative community, allies, and others who use our resources, we have attempted to refine this facilitator’s guide in order to increase its usefulness to the movement. We hope this guide can introduce cooperative entrepreneurs, practitioners, and cooperative developers to the basic legal concepts when starting and operating a worker-owned cooperative.
DISCLAIMER
THIS GUIDE WAS PREPARED FOR A 2016 WORKSHOP ON STARTING A WORKER-OWNED BUSINESS. THE CONTENTS OF THIS GUIDE AND ACCOMPANYING THINK OUTSIDE THE BOSS MANUAL SHOULD NOT BE RELIED ON AS LEGAL ADVICE.
ALSO, SOME OF THIS INFORMATION COULD BECOME OUTDATED, AND LAWS VARY FROM PLACE-TO-PLACE. FURTHERMORE, ALTHOUGH WE TRIED TO COLLECT ACCURATE INFORMATION AND GIVE THE LAWS OUR BEST INTERPRETATION, SOME INFORMATION IN THIS GUIDE AND ACCOMPANYING MANUAL COULD EVEN TURN OUT TO BE INCORRECT OR SUBJECT TO OTHER INTERPRETATIONS BY COURTS OR REGULATORS! WE SURE HOPE THAT’S NOT THE CASE, BUT, WHAT CAN WE SAY? LAW IS COMPLICATED STUFF! THAT'S WHY WE STRONGLY RECOMMEND THAT YOU CONSULT WITH AN ATTORNEY BEFORE USING THIS INFORMATION TO FORM OR OPERATE A COOPERATIVE.
Recording: Worker Co-op Solutions in the Prison Industrial Complex
A Discussion with Jessica Gordon Nembhard
The US has the world's largest prison population at over 2,217,000 inmates. What would happen, though, if we began looking at worker cooperatives not only as an economic development tool but also as a tool for those incarcerated by the prison industrial complex? What transformational effects could this lead to? Are there examples of cooperatives made primarily of incarcerated or formerly incarcerated individuals and what can we learn from them? How can worker coops be an effective tool for those who were formerly incarcerated and how would it support re-entry?
For those seeking new, real solutions for our incarcerated or formerly incarcerated brothers and sisters, SELC hosted a discussion with Jessica Gordon Nembhard, professor at John Jay College, CUNY and author of Collective Courage: A History of African American Cooperative Economic Thought and Practice.
Listen below!
Read moreVideo: Strategies for Democratizing Urban Land Use
Video recording of a teach-in and community conversation hosted at Sustainable Economies Law Center's Resilient Communities Legal Cafe, July 02, 2014 at LOL Makerspace, including 350 years of American land enclosures in 5 minutes!
Housing Program Projects and Resources
Legal Resource Library
We conduct legal research on land and housing issues and publish easy-to-read legal information on our online legal resource library - CommunityHousingLaw.org. This website is still a work in progress, so stay tuned for more information on starting housing cooperatives, community land trusts, and other forms of shared, cooperative, and equitable housing!
Incubation of East Bay Permanent Real Estate Cooperative:
In partnership with the People of Color Sustainable Housing Network, the Law Center is piloting a new model of collective land ownership that mobilizes community capital to preserve affordable and democratically controlled housing and commercial spaces. Read more about this model on our PREC Pilot Project page, or visit EBPREC’s website.
Supporting Permanently Affordable Housing
In this video, the Northern California Land Trust, Oakland Community Land Trust, and the Law Center cover the legal nuts and bolts of permanently affordable/shared equity housing, including different legal models and funding mechanisms to remove housing from the speculative market.
Aging Cooperatively
Elders deserve to live with housing security in a community of their choosing and retain self-determination for as long as possible. The Sustainable Economies Law Center is increasing its legal support for cooperatively-owned, resident-controlled housing options for seniors. That's why we've brought on a Borchard Fellow for Law & Aging, Julie Gilgoff, to help realize this vision. To find out more, please visit our Aging Cooperatively webpage.
Legal Services at the Resilient Communities Legal Cafe
The Resilient Communities Legal Cafe provides direct legal advice, workshops, teach-ins, discussions, and legal services supporting the creation of:
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Find the dates and locations for each Legal Cafe on our Legal Cafe events calendar.
Teach-ins at the Legal Cafe
Our Teach-ins provide practical, participatory, and action oriented discussions around food, housing, livelihoods, transportation, and more! Many of our most popular teach-ins focus on housing co-ownership, innovative ways of financing land and housing, and more. Check our events calendar for upcoming events and teach-ins!
Past Teach-ins have included:
- The Gritty, Moral Solution to the Housing Crisis with David Giesen
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Legalizing Tiny Homes: The Ten-Year Plan
Legal Guides
Chapter 9 of the Law Center’s book, Practicing Law in the Sharing Economy, focuses on legal tools for the creation of more economically sustainable housing models.
Legal Case Studies
The Law Center is creating detailed legal case studies of communities and housing solutions that emphasize sharing, affordability, and sustainability. This work looks particularly at models of shared housing, including cohousing communities, ecovillages, and housing cooperatives. The legal case studies are designed to allow other groups to replicate existing housing models. Click here for one legal case study by the Sustainable Economies Law Center.
Legal Cafe Dates and Locations |
Please find all the dates and locations of the Law Center's Resilient Communities Legal Cafes and Teach-ins below. You can also view all of our events, including workshops, trainings, Happy Hours, and more on SELC's events page by clicking here. We look forward to seeing you at a future Law Center event where we provide not only resources but create the community relationships that will build the new economy!
See all events
Bite-Sized Legal Guides |
Have a legal question but not quite ready to read a full legal guide? These Bite-Sized Legal Guides are a great place to start!
¿Tiene una pregunta legal pero no está listo para leer una guía legal completa? ¡Estas Guías Legales Cortas son lugares excelentes para empezar! Desplácese hasta la parte inferior de la página para obtener recursos en español.
JUMP TO Bite-Sized Legal Guides for: Worker Cooperatives | Nonprofits | Food and Farming | Employment Law | Misc | Radical Real Estate Law
LEGAL DISCLAIMER: These Bite-Sized Legal Guides have been prepared by Sustainable Economies Law Center staff and volunteers as handouts for the Resilient Communities Legal Cafe. The contents of the Guides should NOT be relied on as legal advice. Furthermore, some of this information could become outdated, laws may vary from place to place, and although we've tried to collect accurate information and give the laws our best interpretation, some information in these Bite-Sized Legal Guides could be incorrect or subject to different interpretations by courts and regulators. We hope that's not the case, but, what can we say? Law is complicated stuff! That's why we STRONGLY recommend that you consult with an attorney before using this information.
Worker Cooperatives
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Nonprofits
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Food and Farming
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Employment Law
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Miscellaneous
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Radical Real Estate Law
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See other radical real estate resources here.
En Español:
AVISO LEGAL: Estas Guías Legales Cortas han sido preparadas por personal y voluntarios del Sustainable Economies Law Center como documentos para el Café Legal de Comunidades Resilientes. El contenido de las Guías NO se debe confiar como asesoramiento legal. Además, parte de esta información podría quedar obsoleta, las leyes pueden variar de un lugar a otro, y aunque hemos intentado recopilar información precisa y dar a las leyes nuestra mejor interpretación, parte de la información en estas Guías legales de tamaño reducido podría ser incorrecta o estar sujeta a diferentes interpretaciones de los tribunales y los reguladores. Esperamos que ese no sea el caso, pero, ¿qué podemos decir? ¡La ley es algo complicado! Es por eso que recomendamos encarecidamente que consulte a un abogado antes de utilizar esta información.
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