The work that sustains us : worker cooperative development in U.S. cities since 2012

In the United States, city governments have long attempted to influence economic activity within their jurisdictions. Often this has manifested as a competitive effort to attract businesses from other cities. Such tactics are controversial; over time many citizens have fought this tendency, seeking instead to develop institutions and practices that provide direct and tangible benefits to existing residents, especially underprivileged ones. More recently, the threats of climate change and environmental unsustainability have broadened the conversation about the meaning of localized economies and municipal development. In this thesis I examine a new phenomenon - cities developing worker cooperative businesses - within the context of these competing sets of municipal economic development practices. I investigate the hypothesis that municipal support for worker cooperatives indicates a shift in how cities are pursuing and discussing economic development. Specifically, this shift may be in response to the increased prevalence and acceptance of sustainability within urban planning policy in general. The first part of this thesis provides context for understanding the current American municipal economic development landscape. I first relate the history of worker cooperatives in the United States, and government support for their development. Then I locate five “frames” or common ways of understanding how cities focus their economic development efforts. These frames illuminate patterns of discourse - ways people talk - about the scale and purpose of a city’s economic development policy, as well as the mechanisms to do so, and how success is measured. Then, in the second part of this thesis I reconstruct how nine cities have started to support worker cooperatives, and the vocabulary used by all actors involved in these events. Driven by the question, How do public and private actors frame the relationship between economic development and worker cooperatives? I seek to understand what might this framing suggest about the motivations city governments have in supporting worker cooperative development? I answer these questions by analyzing recorded documentation on city’s actions - resolutions, public comment, and staff reports - as well as semi-structured interviews for two select cities. Reflecting on the discourse in each city, and the mosaic of case studies as a whole, I go on to argue in the concluding chapters that worker cooperative development does represent a shift in economic development practice, but a small and still incohesive one. On the one hand, government actors portray worker cooperatives as just another form of (capitalistic) business, with the capacity to create high-quality, well-paying jobs, and increase the city’s tax revenue and economic activity. These are hallmarks of traditional and community economic development ways of thinking that do not incorporate the environmental consequences of economic activity. On the other hand, governments frame their support for worker cooperatives in light of the way cooperatives have the potential to further support sustainable activity in areas such as food, waste, and social relations. Significantly, worker cooperatives are seen as inherently tied to place, both geographically and socially, an important characteristic of many visions of sustainability. While these case studies do not indicate a unified movement amongst cities pursuing this form of economic development, I offer in my conclusion some pragmatic insights for activists and scholars seeking to understand or help implement these tactics in their own city