A worker-owned cooperative is a business that is owned and run by the employees. There are no executives making 400 times what the average worker makes. There are no share-holders taking the profits out of the community. Every employee is an equal owner of the company. All major decisions are made by the membership. One person - One vote.

Reasons to Shop Co-op:

Built with Values
Where the bottom line for a traditional business is making money for the owner, worker co-ops are communities of people who have come together for a common goal. Sustaining their business financially is one goal, but almost never the only one.

Green by Nature
Worker co-op members have to care about the environmental effects of their operation, because they are the ones working and living in that environment every day.

Strong Local Economies
Because the workers who operate the business own it, there is no outside entity to take the profits and spend it elsewhere. Most money spent at a worker-owned business will stay in your local community.

Invest in the Community
Co-op workers tend to live in the community they work in, so they are more likely to understand and invest in the needs of the community.

Democracy All Day
Many of us spend the majority of our waking hours in a workplace. No matter how democratic our political system becomes, if our workplaces to be private dictatorships we will never be free. If your vision of a better society is one of expanded democratic space, then you will want to support democratic workplaces.

Doing it Better, Together
At other businesses, most of the people you deal with are just there to get their paycheck and go home. At a worker co-op, you will be talking to someone who is invested in the quality of their service, the quality of their product and ultimately the quality of the business as a whole.

Efficient from the ground up
Businesses run by single owners or absentee boards tend to come up with systems that make sense only on paper. Businesses run by people who work there, adopt practices that make sense.

Affordable without Exploitation
Cut out bloated CEO salaries, shareholder profit demands and the owner's mansion, and you get appropriately compensated workers AND better prices .

Cooperative Organizations:

Network of Bay Area Worker Cooperatives

US Federation of worker cooperatives

Look for the .coop domain extension, which identifies businesses as having this legal structure and values.