Cooperative Business Models

If your are interested in reading the current issue of Yes Magazine .  .  .  THE POWER OF DEBT
You can purchase it at the Honest Weight Food Co-operative in Albany New York.  The honest weight food cooperative is a member owned natural food grocery store.

They use a cooperative business model to create a responsible business that puts local first. Interested in learning more about the cooperative business model here is an excerpt from the article Understanding the Cooperative Business Model .

"Still, when people hear the word “cooperative,” most have difficulty envisioning anything beyond a crunchy granola health food store. That's perhaps not surprising, considering the closest thing to employee-ownership most corporate workers experience is an Employee Stock Ownership Plan, where they can purchase (or are granted) stock in their company. These programs are designed to incentivize workers to be more productive, as they now benefit directly from the business's success. They are built around the assumption that monetary reward is the best motivation for workers.

Cooperative businesses take this idea of employee ownership and engagement one step further: employees actually own and operate the business. Besides the profit motive, cooperative models assume that workers value a more humanized workplace, where the input of ground-level employees can improve the business. Most cooperative businesses are founded on the democratic principle of “one worker, one vote,” and no two are alike.  . .  "