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.
The cooperative received some government support. In 2005 they received a large investment from the Venezuelan government alongside two other Uruguayan co-ops, Cristalería del Uruguay and Funsa. The investment helped Uruven them buy their factory, resolve a standing conflict with their landlord. In return they were asked to help train the Venezuelan tannery sector.
Uruven also also received money from Uruguayan national cooperative development fund Fondes after it was created in 2011. The funds helped them update their effluent plant, permitted them to increase production.
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.
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 cooperatives and 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 the partnership, and when CFNO pulled out in 2009 the Coopérative de solidarité de Pikogan was formed by the tribe to replace them.
Changes in the industry continued. CNFO closed in 2014. In 2017 The Tembec mill was acquired by a U.S. company and then shut down. The Coopérative de solidarité de Pikogan has since diversified from timber and began to provide labor to a drilling company and lithium mining complex.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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 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 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 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.
