Seeding Equity: The Promise of Worker Cooperatives to Build Economic Security for Immigrant Communities
Seeding Equity is a two-part series exploring California’s Social Entrepreneurs for Economic Development (SEED) Initiative.
Immigrant workers, particularly those without work authorization or in mixed-status households, are routinely excluded from good jobs with decent wages, benefits, and working conditions. As outlined in AFN’s primer, Supporting the Economic Security of Undocumented Immigrants, a deep legacy of xenophobia and racism has led to harmful narratives, policies, and practices that deliberately and consistently exclude immigrants and people who are undocumented from realizing economic security. However, worker ownership and cooperatives have long been regarded as a viable economic development strategy, especially for excluded workers.
In response to the disproportionate impact the COVID-19 pandemic had on essential workers and Californians who are undocumented, California launched the Social Entrepreneurs for Economic Development (SEED) initiative to support the entrepreneurship of immigrants and to fund demonstration projects that advance worker ownership to create pathways out of poverty jobs and exploitative working conditions for excluded workers. As part of this effort, California awarded cooperative development experts and non-profit community-based organizations nearly $10 million in SEED funding to provide entrepreneurial training, technical assistance, and microgrants to people facing barriers to high-quality jobs due to their immigration status or limited English proficiency (LEP) and for worker leaders to transform four low-wage industries: homecare, childcare, carwash, and taxicab. The Democracy at Work Institute (DAWI) and the UC Berkeley Center for Law and Work detail SEED’s promise in Seeding Equity: A New Community-Based Model of Public Investment in Worker Cooperatives for Excluded Workers.
In 2022, California committed another $2 million to support worker cooperative demonstration projects and $15 million to support the entrepreneurship of immigrants and LEP individuals who face significant employment barriers. In the face of state budget cuts, a coalition of cooperative development experts, community-based organizations, and worker leaders known as the California Worker Ownership Collaborative, have leveraged $2 million in philanthropic funding to sustain the vibrant ecosystem of worker-owned small businesses developed with SEED funding.
Seeding Equity is a two-part webinar series for grantmakers and policymakers to learn more about the challenges faced by excluded workers, the success of this innovative public-private prototype investing in worker ownership and building immigrant worker power, and explore the path toward a more inclusive financial ecosystem for worker cooperatives in California.
The first webinar, on October 15 at 10am PT, will showcase the successes and lessons learned from the worker centers and cooperative development nonprofits that participated in California’s SEED program, and their continued collaboration to strengthen the coop ecosystem. The second webinar, on November 19 at 10am PT, will be a conversation among worker cooperative practitioners and thought leaders about what’s needed to build an integrated support system and inclusive financial ecosystem for worker cooperatives following California’s SEED initiative. Please register for each event separately.
SPEAKERS
Vanessa Bransburg, Democracy at Work Institute
Kim Coontz, California Cooperative Development Center
Yungsuhn Park, Irvine Foundation
Aquilina Soriano, Pilipino Workers Center
Accessibility Statement
Captioning will be provided. If you have any other accessibility requests or questions, please email Beth Yeap at beth@assetfunders.org. Requests for reasonable accommodations must be received by October 8, 2024, to ensure our ability to meet your request.
