KnowraWorker cooperativeWorker cooperativeA business owned and democratically governed by its workers, who share its profits and responsibilities.BriefConnectWorker ownership: An arrangement in which employees hold ownership stakes in the business where they work. Worker ownership is the broader principle that gives members a stake in the cooperative.Conventional corporation: A company owned by shareholders and governed through corporate structures. Its control generally follows share ownership rather than equal worker membership.Rochdale Principles: A set of cooperative principles associated with the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, founded in 1844. These principles helped shape modern cooperative governance and member participation.Worker cooperative federation: An association of worker cooperatives that coordinates support, representation, or shared services. Federations help independent worker-owned firms access expertise and collective infrastructure.Economic democracy: The extension of democratic participation into economic decisions and institutions. Worker cooperatives enact economic democracy through member control of the workplace.One member, one vote: A governance rule granting each member an equal vote regardless of capital invested. It prevents larger financial contributions from buying greater control in many worker cooperatives.Employee stock ownership plan: A benefit plan that holds company shares on behalf of employees. Employee shareholding does not necessarily give workers direct democratic control.Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers: An English consumer cooperative founded in Rochdale in 1844 by local weavers and other workers. Its organizing practices became a foundational model for later cooperative movements.Mondragon: A Spanish cooperative group based in the Basque Country, known for its worker-owned enterprises and institutions. Its linked firms apply cooperative ownership across manufacturing, finance, education, and retail.Workplace democracy: Worker participation in decisions about the organization and conditions of work. Cooperative governance gives workers formal authority over workplace decisions.Show all 26Linked from 19 pagesMarket socialismBroader topic: Worker cooperatives are one way market-socialist firms can be socially owned.Democratic socialismRelated: It demonstrates social ownership through workplace participation rather than state ownership.Workers' self-managementNarrower topic: Worker cooperatives are the principal organizational form associated with self-managed workplaces.Wage laborCompared with: Worker ownership contrasts with wage labor’s usual separation between employees and owners.CooperativeBroader topic: Workers combine employment with ownership and workplace decision-making.Pierre-Joseph ProudhonRelated: Worker associations could let producers control their work without a separate class of owners.Means of productionCompared with: Workers collectively own or govern the productive assets in this organizational form.Common ownershipBroader topic: Workers collectively own productive assets and participate in decisions about their use.Show all 19