Worker Cooperatives in the Americas

Worker Cooperatives in Venezuela

The Venezuela worker cooperative sector has been boom and bust since 2000, catalyzed by the 2001 Special Law of Cooperatives, and fading as the government shifted its support to a more communal form, empresas de producción social.

Oscar Bastidas offered an early warning that the surge of registered cooperatives lacked values, principles, and economic foundations, and more recently remarked that the country set world records with both the most cooperatives registered (from fewer than 1,000 in 1998 to over 400,000 by 2014) and the largest graveyard of cooperatives with only 20,000 surviving in 2022. Other early reviews accepted a certain level of fraud and failure alongside the ideals of the larger revolutionary effort in economic development.

Dario Azzelini and Oliver Ressler looked at the shop floor level to understand worker’s experience in a documentary profiling five worker controlled factories:

By Hugo Chavez’ second presidential term more writers were starting to question the effectiveness of the cooperative strategy, including Camila Piñeiro Harnecker who found the companies were struggling to operate profitably and were not well connected to each other.

Over time individual cooperative experience was often overshadowed by larger questions of state strategy and the role of unions.

In more recent years with state support largely gone, some cooperative success stories have been profiled, including some that started before 2000 and have weathered dramatic economic changes.

Barrios – Industria petrolera y cooperativas (2021)

Froilán Barrios’ 2021 book Industria petrolera y cooperativas en el socialismo del siglo XXI en Venezuela is a methodical analysis of the state-led rise of worker cooperatives in the Venezuelan petroleum industry. Barrios mentions larger problems: that 70% of the 300,000 Chavez-era worker cooperatives were phantom entities that never operated, and that many that did launch were fraudulent pseudo-cooperatives. But his real focus is on evaluating whether the experiences of actual worker co-ops in the petroleum sector – including divers, taxi drivers, and others that contracted with the state oil company PDVSA – were positive.

While outcomes varied, generally he shows that the “twentieth century socialism” label obscured familiar neoliberal trends. The preferential contracts offered to cooperatives functioned as a form of outsourcing that evaded labor laws, reduced union protections, reduced pay, reduced safety training, and blocked access to social security. “…los resultados significaron una oportunidad perdida para el cooperativismo en nuestro país, ya que derivó en flexibilización y precarización laboral en lugar de trabajo digno.”

Find the book on Amazon
Read a version as Barrios’ doctoral thesis on Academia

Schujman – Las Cooperativas de Trabajo en América Latina (2015)

Mario Schujman’s 900-page compendium from 2015, Las Cooperativas de Trabajo en América Latina, focuses its first 300 pages on Argentina, and then offers a survey of readings from Brazil, Costa Rica, Colombia, Cuba, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay, Uruguay, and Venezuela.

In the introduction José Orbaicetta of CICOPA and FECOTRA celebrates Argentinian worker co-ops and social co-ops, condemns fraudulent pseudo-cooperatives, urges partnership with government and universities to resist economic imperialism, and emphasizes political organizing within solidarity federations.

Bolivian Mining Cooperatives

Worker-owned mining cooperatives were first organized in Bolivia in the depression of the 1930s. The number grew in the 1950s and 1960s after the populist MNR party nationalized the mines but struggled to maintain employment levels. With encouragement from USAID, the government gave rural cooperative groups concessions to work marginal or depleted shafts. In 1968 there were around 100. An economic crisis in the mid-1980s led to the re-privatization of the mines in the 1990s and more cooperatives formed as a response to layoffs. By 2008 there were 700 to 800 mining co-ops. As one author put it, “encouraged by successive neoliberal governments to buffer the consequences of massive mining dislocations, the cooperative mining sector flourished.”

The largest growth took place after 2009 when the socialist MAS party passed a new plurinational constitution that recognized mining cooperatives as a pillar of the national economy, leading to the current count of around 2,500. In 2016 cooperative miners made up 90% of the mining workforce.

They are generally grouped into two federations. In the arid Andean Altiplano “traditional” mining cooperatives dig for a variety of metals and have been organized since 1968 within the Federación Nacional de Cooperativas Mineras de Bolivia (FENCOMIN). In 2015 a group of alluvial gold mining cooperatives in Amazonian areas formed the Federación de Cooperativas Mineras Auríferas de Bolivia (FECMABOL). Traditional mining is more manual, while alluvial gold mining is more industrial and capital intensive.

Bolivian mine workers are known for their militancy, blocking major transportation routes with dynamite and fighting off police. Violence came to a peak in 2016 as the government tried to stop the cooperatives from making lucrative agreements with foreign companies, which could operate tax free under the nonprofit legal status of the co-ops. Striking miners protesting the policy kidnapped and killed a government minister, and the formerly supportive MAS government jailed a dozen cooperative leaders with charges related to the murder.

In recent years organized violence, subcontracting to informal workers, and evasion of environmental laws have clouded the cooperative ideals that have long been at the heart of labor organizing in the dangerous and marginal sector. Critics point out that many membership practices fall short of cooperative principles – one study saw a ratio of 1 member to 4 informal day laborers in a co-op. Meanwhile the rising price of gold has led to increased smuggling across the border to Peru and Brazil. The mining federations continue to have political strength, but have an adversarial relationship to the center-right government elected in 2025.

A conversation between Journalist Liliana Carrillo and researcher Elizabeth López Canelas in 2025 offers a good introduction to the topic.

Andrea Marston’s 2024 book Subterranean Matters: Cooperative Mining and Resource Nationalism in Plurinational Bolivia offers a broad look at the history and politics of the mining cooperatives.

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Worker Cooperatives in Chile

The worker cooperative movement in Chile has been influenced both by the 1973-1990 military dictatorship, and the neoliberal period that followed it.

Labarca – Cooperativas y estado subsidiario en el Chile posdictadura 1990-2015 (2016)

La Federación de Cooperativas de Trabajo (TRASOL) was organized in Santiago in 2015, with around 10 member cooperatives.

One of the larger worker cooperatives in the country is Cooperativa de Trabajo Jatún Newén, which organizes around 100 members to do street cleaning and landscaping with municipal contracts.

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Worker Cooperatives in Brazil

Andrés Ruggeri

2020 to the present

2010 – 2019

2000 – 2009

Worker Cooperatives in Uruguay

2020s

2010s

2000s

Worker Cooperatives in Cuba

2020 to the present

2016 – 2019: growth and revision

2013 – 2015: early development

2012: the new law

Before 2012

Cooperativa de Trabajo Textiles Pigüé

The Cooperativa de Trabajo Textiles Pigüé is one of the largest of the empresas recuperadas organized in Argentina in the early 2000s. The former company rose as a national economic anchor in the 1980s, producing for brands like Adidas, and providing jobs to small towns like Pigüé, six hours outside of Buenos Aires. But as trade rules loosened in the 1990s the company became inconsistent in paying wages. They filed for creditor protections in 2001 and then ceased production in 2003.

93 workers occupied the factory and kept the machines running for almost a year as they organized their legal challenge. In 2004 they were evicted by 300 police officers, but a few months later the government reversed course and allowed them back in. For years the founders worked with little pay to build back operations, but by 2024 they had doubled in size to 180 workers. The story of their first 10 years is detailed in the 2014 book Cooperativa Textiles Pigüé: historia de la recuperación de una fábrica de Gatic.

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Quebec’s Paramedic Cooperatives

Quebec’s ambulance sector in the 1980s was a tangle of government contracted private companies, with low job quality and service, causing hospital congestion. Workers organized, regulation increased, and many company owners decided to sell rather than face the new reality. The Confédération des Syndicats Nationaux saw an opportunity and between 1988 and 1990 organized six unionized worker cooperatives to buy the companies, with support from the government. The largest has more than 500 workers. Several more were organized in the 2000s. Most are members of the Fédération des Coopératives des Paramédics du Québec.

Cooperativa Uruven

Cooperativa Uruven was a worker-owned tannery in Montevideo, Uruguay. The legacy company was founded in the the 1970s and operated until a series of operational and market challenges caused it to close in 1997. Threatened with job loss, the tannery was “productively occupied” by its workers, and run as a self-managed enterprise, with support from the tannery workers union. At peak the the factory had 800 workers. 230 participated in the occupation.

Though the occupation succeeded, the equipment was old, and business was significantly disrupted in 2001 when foot-and-mouth disease caused a supply chain crisis. The cooperative mostly subcontracted per-façon piecework for other tanneries when there was extra demand. By 2008 there were only 60 workers, and by 2013 just 30.

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Cooperativa Américo Caorsi de Tacuarembó

Cooperativa Américo Caorsi de Tacuarembó is a worker-owned noodle factory with around 25 members in Tacuarembó, Uruguay, about 5 hours from Montevideo. The cooperative was formed in 1964, after a fire shut down a large bakery. 100 bakery workers were unemployed for several years before 80 of them founded the cooperative.

The organizing effort helped to launch the Federación de Cooperativas de Producción del Uruguay in 1962, and is reported as the oldest empresa recuperada in Uruguay.

In the 2000s the cooperative ran into financial troubles and came close to liquidating, but they were rescued by local government, which bought their building at auction.

The cooperative has had issues getting money to modernize, and paying it back. A loan from the state-owned bank BROU required board members to give personal guarantees – trapping some workers in perpetual board seats since no one wanted to replace them with their own guarantee. At on point the cooperative negotiated to pay off some of the debt by supplying state-owned prisons with their dry pasta products.

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Coopérative de solidarité de Pikogan

The Coopérative de solidarité de Pikogan, founded in 2009, is worker-owned cooperative in Abitibi-Témiscamingue, in the northwest of Quebec. The cooperative has around 90 workers and is affiliated with the Abitibiwinni First Nation, which has a population of around 1,000.

The cooperative’s origin is intertwined with other community ownership efforts. In the 1970s a union-led effort to save a shuttered paper mill launched Tembec, a partnership of workers, government, and entrepreneurs. In 2003 Tembec asked two forestry cooperatives – the Coopérative forestière du Nord-Ouest (CFNO) and the Coopérative de travailleurs sylvicoles Abifor – to form a partnership to provide them with timber. Two years later the Abitibiwinni First Nation joined as a thirds partnership, and when CFNO exited in 2009 the tribe formed Coopérative de solidarité de Pikogan to replace them.

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Coopérative forestière de la Gaspésie

The Coopérative forestière de la Gaspésie was formed in 2013, as the merger of three smaller forestry cooperatives. The merger came in response to a new regulatory regime and allowed the local companies to reach a scale to compete for contracts with outside firms. In 2020 there were around 140 workers, more than 100 of them members.

The smaller cooperatives that merged included

Coopérative forestière New Richmond Saint-Alphonse, which itself had been created in the 1960s as the merger of three 1940s-era cooperatives: New Richmond, Saint-Alphonse, and Saint-Edgar
Coopérative d’aménagement de la Baie-des-Chaleurs, which was formed in 1984 and had 154 workers in 2010.
Coopérative de travail en aménagement forestier des MRC Côte-de-Gaspé et Rocher-Percé

The cooperative is also a member of the Association coopérative forestière régionale de la Gaspésie, an affiliated group of eight worker- and solidarity- cooperatives

From the cooperative

Facebook – Coopérative forestière de la Gaspésie

Articles

Video

Coopératives d’ici : Notre empreinte sur le monde | Coopérative forestière de la Gaspésie (2017)

Also

Coopérative forestière Ferland-Boilleau

The Coopérative forestière de Ferland-Boilleau in the Saguenay-Lac-Saint-Jean region of Quebec was founded in 1963 as the Syndicat Forestier Ferland-Boilleau, after 30 families lost their logging concession to a large company. The group changed their name from syndicat to chantier in the 1970s, and then to cooperative in the 1980s. The cooperative has around 120 workers, 90 of which are members.

Starting in the 80s the group diversified their activities. They produced saplings for reforestation – and even experimented with growing tomatoes for a few years. They have made investments in several regional partners and subsidiaries, investing in the Lignarex mill in La Baie in 2012 and then acquiring 75% of the Lignarex Group in 2018. In 2013 they launched a distillery to make essential oils from wood products, as well as supplying dried plants for a KM12 gin. In 2015 they formed a partnership with another company to produce wood pellets, and in 2024 the cooperative bought a sawmill in Lac-Saint-Jean.

From the cooperative

Studies

Filion – La Coopérative forestière de Ferland-Boilleau à l’aube du troisième millénaire (2004)

Articles

Video

Boisaco

Boisaco is a partnership owned by two worker cooperatives – the forestry co-op COFOR, and a sawmill co-op UNIASCO – and a solidarity cooperative made of community shareholders. The partnership formed in 1985 in the small town of Sacré-Cœur in the Upper North Coast of the St. Lawrence, after the local mill went through several cycles of investment and bankruptcy, working against Canada / U.S. trade disputes and forest fires. The mortgage-holding bank, wanting to exit, sold the mill to the partnership for pennies on the dollar.

The timing was fortunate as the market rebounded shortly after the sale, and the group has since started several subsidiary businesses selling value added wood products, often as joint ventures with a large company that can bring the product to market. Among them were Sacopan in 1999 in partnership with Masonite to produce door panels; Ripco in 2001 with Royal Wood Shavings to make equestrial bedding,and Granulco in 2009 with the Innue Essipit First Nation converting sawdust to energy. Workers at two other subsidiaries formed their own worker co-op, Valiasco. In 2024 the group included 600 employees, 300 of which were worker-owners, and 800 community investors.

From the company

Studies

Video

La résilience des entreprises d’économie sociale – Boisaco: Témoignage d’une entreprise qui traverse le temps (2020)

Articles

In English

Coopérative forestière St-Dominique

The Coopérative forestière St-Dominique in the Abitibi-Témiscamingue region of Quebec was founded in 1945, originally as a labor union, the Syndicat de travail de St-Dominique du Rosaire, which shared machinery for the clearing of land, and began to focus on logging. In 2004 it acquired a subsidiary in silviculture, Verendrye, as it diversified to offer forest management services. It employs around 70 people of which around 50 are members.

Forestry Worker Cooperatives in Quebec

Quebec has a concentration of cooperatives in the forestry sector: over 30 worker cooperatives, as well as several multi-stakeholder and producer cooperatives. The companies range from 50 to 800 workers, employing more than 3,000 people in total. They have their roots in the parish economic organizing of the 1930s and 40s, when northern communities sought better conditions than the foreign-owned pulp and paper mills were offering. The first forestry co-op was formed in 1938. Within a decade there were more than 20, and by the late 1960s there were more than 160, spread throughout the large province.

When the Parti Québécois was elected in the 1970s they saw the forestry cooperatives as an ally in rural economic development and resource management goals. The province passed supportive legislation: 50% of all logging contracts on state lands would be earmarked for cooperatives. They also incentivized the co-ops to merge and scale up. Mechanization transformed the sector in the 1980s, boosting productivity, but requiring more capital, which further drove consolidation and mergers.

With the new government partnership the cooperatives formalized a network in 1979, which in 2005 became a trade association, the Fédération Québécoise des Coopératives Forestières (FQCF). 90% of the forestry co-ops are members. Many of the cooperatives have diversified to include forest management and replanting services alongside logging. Some have also expanded vertically in the supply chain, buying out saw mills and distribution companies.

2010s

2000s

Earlier

Video

L’histoire des coopératives forestières du Québec (2012) partie 1, partie 2

In English

Sugar Worker Cooperatives in Jamaica

Ten years after Jamaica’s 1962 independence from British colonial rule, the democratic socialist People’s National Party was voted in and launched extensive reforms. They addressed housing, education, transportation, and land access, established a minimum wage, and nationalized some sectors that were controlled by transnational companies. Three large private sugar plantations were sold to the state, which organized them into 23 worker cooperatives, with around 5,000 workers – roughly 200 workers each – to operate them. Empowerment of the new workers clashed against the government’s production goals, and against legacy managers who were ambivalent or hostile to the cooperative. The cooperatives operated from 1975 to 1981 when, in debt and losing money, they were forced by an incoming conservative government administration to privatize.

Books

Articles

Three Large Worker Cooperatives In Mexico

In Mexico there are three worker cooperatives that employ more than 1,000 workers, launched during periods of economic shock in 1931, 1985, and 2005. All three converted from private ownership as the result of hard-fought labor organizing, when public support for strikes and factory occupations was strong.

Cooperativa Cruz Azul is a cement manufacturer in Hidalgo that was bought by 200 workers as a cooperative in 1931. It now has around 5,000 workers. The company started in 1881. Investors rescued it from bankruptcy in 1906 but then wanted their capital out during the Mexican revolution, and after the 1929 stock market crash the plant was only operating intermittently. In 1931 a competing company made a hostile effort to buy the company and shut it down. Workers successfully pressured the state to expropriate the company as a public utility and restructure it under workers ownership. In 1931 around 200 workers agreed to pay investors back $1.3m over 10 years. In the 1950s a new director modernized the company and grew it 600%. In the process they build a cooperative company town, investing in schools, paved streets, business corridors, and sponsoring a major soccer team. They also supported five similar cooperatives to open in nearby states. In 2019 a long term leader fled after accusations of mishandling funds.

Cooperativa Pascual is a worker cooperative headquartered in Mexico City with around 5,000 workers who took over operations in 1985. The company is a major soft drink producer, with about 15% of the Mexican market and bottling plants in several states. The peso devalued in 1982 when global interest rates rose on the debt-rich country, and demand for oil exports softened. When the government mandated wage increases in response to inflation, the owner of the company refused, igniting a three year strike by around 1,200 workers. 2 workers were killed when the owner sent armed thugs in an attempt to break the strike. In 1985 the courts ruled in favor of the workers, and an arrangement avoided bankruptcy by allowing the workers to take over the facilities and brand as a cooperative. Since then the company has grown significantly, and is one of the few 100% Mexican owned soft drink manufacturers.

Cooperativa Trabajadores Democráticos de Occidente (TRADOC) is a tire manufacturing cooperative outside of Guadalajara. The cooperative launched in 2005 the company now has more than 1,000 workers, and around 600 members. When the factory was built in 1970 it was the most advanced in Latin America. During the 2001 global economic slowdown, the German multinational owner demanded concessions in pay and working conditions, and when the unionized workers refused the owners retaliated by shutting down. Striking workers occupied the factory, led caravan marches, made legal appeals, and pressured international shareholders. In 2005 federal courts found in favor of the workers and ordered the owners to pay $40m in back wages. Instead of paying, the owners gave up the factory, but in an unusual way. A cooperative of workers received 50% and would oversee operations, while a distributor was sold the other 50% and would guarantee access to the international market. By 2008 a new distributor had made investments and taken a majority share of the company. Workers have 3 of 7 seats on the board. In 2018 a long-term director was expelled in a corruption scandal.

Cooperativa TRADOC

Research

Video

Origins and growth

Corruption scandal

In English

Cooperativa Pascual

Overview

Torres Cisneros – Sociedad Cooperativa Trabajadores de Pascual, S.C.L. (2014)

Research

Video

Operations

In English

Vargas-Hernández – Development Strategies Of A National Company In Transnational Oligopolistic Market: The Case Of Cooperative Pascual (2015)

Cooperativa La Cruz Azul

Cooperativa Cruz Azul is a cement manufacturer in Hidalgo that was bought by 200 workers as a cooperative in 1931. It now has around 1,400 workers. The company started in 1881. Investors rescued it from bankruptcy in 1906 but then wanted their capital out during the Mexican revolution, and after the 1929 crash the plant was only operating intermittently. In 1931 a competing company made a hostile effort to buy the company and shut it down. Workers successfully pressured the state to expropriate the company as a public utility and restructure it under workers ownership. In 1931 around 200 workers agreed to pay investors back $1.3m over 10 years. In the 1950s a new director modernized the company and grew it 600%. In the process they build a cooperative company town, investing in schools, paved streets, business corridors, and sponsoring a major soccer team. They also supported five similar cooperatives to open in nearby states. In 2019 a long term leader fled after accusations of mishandling funds.

Overview

Video

Operations

Also