Why undertake a coopworking enterprise?
Work where we live and live where we work
The coopworking enterprises (worker and social cooperatives) allow to be autonomous but not left alone inside the job market. Cooperative worker-members join their talents to develop a business where they fairly share power, decisions and money.
Save and make our jobs last – become the owners of the enterprise
The worker cooperative model promotes employment safety. For instance, workers who buy out their enterprise in a coopworking way can keep their jobs and their skills that otherwise would be lost.
Economic results as a means and not as goal in itself
In any cooperative enterprise (including worker and social cooperatives), the satisfaction of members’ needs takes precedence over economic results. Surplus is pursued to equitably compensate the work of members and contributes to the capital increase and long-term sustainability of the enterprise.
Another relationship to work
In coopworking enterprises (worker and social cooperatives), relation to work is different from the traditional model of working for a boss: workers have real responsibilities and real opportunities to develop their own ambitions.
Sustainability and local anchoring of employment
In a coopworking enterprise (worker and social cooperative), workers can decide where and in which conditions to work. The decision-making power remains in their hands and strategies are put in place in order to keep the business healthy as long as possible. For these reasons, these cooperatives tend to perform better than other types of cooperatives in terms of sustainability.
Belong to a network
Cooperatives strengthen each other by working together through local, national, regional and international structures.
Find a business model adapted to a sustainable project development
The coopworking way allows you to enter the market while both taking care of economic results of
your business and of community needs. However, to set up this type of business you need to know which legal forms for cooperatives exist in your country.
Green light to imagination!
Cooperative enterprise allows people to imagine, create, plan and design their own work project, together or autonomously.
This section is related to Step 2 of Start to Coop.