Strategy 2: Buy Local

I. INTRODUCTION

As we investigate these strategies and before investing in the tactics, Its important to know if this appeals to you and if you can think of an alternative.   If so, please use the chat room LOCATED IN THE PTP LINK ABOVE THE BLOG, ITS THE FIRST LINK IN THE SERIES, sign up and leave your ideas, opinions on any of these strategies and simply indicate the title to each one that you are commenting or recommending for inclusion, none of these are finalized yet, waiting on additional input.  This one up for consideration was submitted by someone else and is based on this person in this video along with her own words, so please review it and tell me if any part of it is ok with you or all of it.   Enjoy the read and the video.


http://dictionary.bnet.com/definition/industrial+cooperative.html

Business Definition for: Industrial Cooperative

a group of individuals who together produce goods or provide services and share any profits that are made. Industrial cooperatives are an extension of the cooperative movement that developed during the 1800s.

http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid16824455001?bctid=8885527001



I personally, one of my big aspirations is to support and create more worker-owned industrial cooperatives. I feel like, and I've appealed, I got invited to speak at Nike to 50 different garment companies a couple of years ago and I appealed to garment companies at all levels in saying you know, what's wrong with having a cut and sew contractor that has workers that are empowered enough to sew orders on time without any mistakes.

Is there anything wrong with that because nobody owns their facilities at small level or large level in the apparel industry, so I personally think that it's a perfect fix for the apparel industry for what's wrong with the apparel industry now. Now, we're running into growth problems right now with our worker-owned cooperative in Nicaragua that are numerous and very challenging, so it's certainly not a perfect world and we go through complete frustration on a daily basis with this project, but I think that it's the first one, it really has worked, it is empowering the lives of 90 families now in this ghetto in the bowels of Nicaragua, of Managua and it's an idea whose time has come.

I'm from Detroit, I can see it working in the auto parts industry that we are from as well and you know I could see it's implications in a lot of different places. What I'm trying to do right now is get a worker-owned cooperative to make our socks, former worker-owned cooperative in North Carolina to make our socks. We had a start-stop on the whole project due to equipment issues, etc., but I totally think it's an idea whose time has come.

I met with a group of women from Southern Africa last fall that a consumer group out of DC put together a conference to speak to them about alternatives because as the multi-fiber initiatives wind down there, China is taking more and more of their business and ... who's poorer than these Southern African countries? I mean just unbelievable. So that's one of my personal goals. I also am gonna go on record now saying that I would love for my employees to buy me out of my company. I think that Maggie's is just doing fantastically well. I put it out there a little bit to our current group, I think we need more people to get attracted to the project and come onboard before it really takes hold, but now people ask me often if you're selling to worker-owned cooperatives, why do you own 90% of your company and I'm like it's a good question. It's challenging to convince even my core group of people that it's worth it, but I really think it is, so those are my ... that's what's on my horizon.

Also Employee coops.

http://definitions.uslegal.com/c/corporations-employee-cooperative/

Corporations Employee Cooperative Law & Legal Definition
 
a group of individuals who together produce goods or provide services and share any profits that are made. Industrial cooperatives are an extension of the cooperative movement that developed during the 1800s.


http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid16824455001?bctid=8885527001