When workers own companies, the economy is more resilient | Niki Okuk

Another economic reality is possible -- one that values community, sustainability and resiliency instead of profit by any means necessary. Niki Okuk shares her case for cooperative economics and a vision for how working-class people can organize and own the businesses they work for, making decisions for themselves and enjoying the fruits of their labor.

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[Applause]

Are you tired of your boss?

(Laughter)

Are you tired of going to work
and making money for other people?

And who are those people anyways?

Those people that make money
from your work.

Well, they're capitalists.
They have capital,

and they use your labor
to make more capital.

So if you're tired of going to work
and making money for other people,

then you're probably like me

-- just tired of capitalism.

Which is ironic, because I'm a capitalist.

(Laughter)

I own a small business --
Rco Tires in Compton.

A few years ago, when I read Van Jones,
and he wrote,

"Let's make green collar jobs in the hood,"

I took him really seriously.

So I confounded, own and operate
a tire recycling company,

and I'm really proud of
what we've done.

So far, we've recycled
a hundred million pounds of rubber.

That's 21 million gallons of oil diverted
from landfills into new products.

(Cheers)

We also employ about 15 guys --

mostly people of color, most of whom are felons,
and we pay above the minimum wage,

and we are now proud members
of the United Steelworkers Union.

(Applause)

Now, Rco is not a cooperative now.

It's a privately held company
with community-minded ownership,

but I would like it to become one.

I would like for them to fire the boss --

that's me.

(Laughter)

And I'm going to tell you why,

but first, let me tell you how we got started.

So a lot of people ask, "How did Rco come to be?"

And I have to be really honest.
I leveraged my white privilege.

So, here's how white privilege worked
for me and Rco.

My white grandmother was born
on her family's plantation

in Arkansas in 1918.

She traveled with her white father west,

following the oil boom.

And he held various union oil jobs --

jobs which would have never been given to
my black great-grandfather,

had he lived here at the time.

Granny became a hairdresser

and then got a loan with her husband
who built their home in West Los Angeles

a loan which would never have been given to
a black family at the time.

And after my grandfather passed away,

my granny was able to keep that house

because she had his pension and
his health care from a state job which he held,

which again, would have never been given
to a black man

before the anti-discrimination act of the 1960s.

So, you fast-forward 30 years,

and I graduate, and I want to
start my own business

with a pile of debt and a credit card,

and no experience in the tire industry.

But I had what most people didn't have.

I had a clean, safe, free place to live.

I moved in with my grandmother,

and I was able to rent
our first warehouse,

buy our first truck,
pay our first employees,

because I didn't have to worry
about paying myself,

because I didn't need to feed myself,

because I am the direct beneficiary of
generations of white privilege.

Now, telling the story of
white privilege is important

because very often people say,

"Oh, we want more companies like yours.

We want more Rco's,

we want more black-owned businesses,
female-led, triple bottom line,

Ban the Box, green manufacturing companies,
" right?

But the question we have to ask is,

where is the wealth? Where is the money?

Where's the capital in our communities

to build the types of businesses
that we want?

And in telling a story of
the white side of my family,

I needed a dozen ways where blacks
were excluded from the economy,

whereas the white side of
my family was able to gain access

and traction,
and build wealth

Primarily because racism and capitalism
are best homies,

but --

(Laughter)

but what that means is that
when we ask ourselves,

"Why are our communities broke?" --

Like, we're not just broke
because we're broke;

we're broke for a reason.
Historical context really does matter.

But our history tells
another story as well.

There's this incredible book
called "Collective Courage,"

which is the story of how
thousands of African Americans

have been able to build
businesses and schools, hospitals,

farming cooperatives, banks,
financial institutions

entire communities and
sovereign economies,

without a lot of capital.

And they did it by working together

and leveraging their community assets

and trusting each other

and putting solidarity first --

not just profits by any means necessary.

And they didn't have to wait around
for celebrities and athletes

to bring their money back to the hood.

However, if you are a celebrity
or an athlete,

and you're listening to this,

please feel free to bring your money.

(Laughter)

But they did it through
cooperative economics,

because they knew that capitalism
was never going to finance black liberation.

So, there are so many great examples
in this book,

and I suggest that everybody just read it

because it answers the question
I asked earlier,

which was where are we going to
get the wealth

to build the types of business
that we want.

And the answer is going to have to
be cooperative economics.

There's a lot of different versions
of cooperativism.

What I'm talking about today
is worker ownership.

You may not have heard of
worker ownership,

but it's been an incredible tool
for black economic liberation for a century,

and it's also working
all over the world right now.

You may have heard of Black Wall Street
or maybe the Zapatistas,

but I'll give you an example
that's a little bit closer to home.

Right now, today, in South Bronx,

is the country's largest
worker-owned company.

It's called
Cooperative Home Care Associates,

and it was founded by black
and Latinx home care workers

who are now able to
pay themselves living wages,

they have full-time hours,
they have benefits and a pension,

through their membership
as a unit of SEIU.

And these women owners now receive
a dividend back on their ownership every year

that the company has been profitable,
which has been most years.

So they're able to really enjoy
the fruits of their labor

because they fired the boss.

They don't have any big investors.

They don't have fat-cat CEOs or
absentee owners taking the profit out of the company.

They each pay in about
1,000 dollars over time

in order to gain ownership,
and now they own their job.

Now, there's hundreds of more
examples of companies like this

springing up all across
the country.

And I'm so inspired by what they're doing,

because it really represents
an alternative

to the type of economy we have now,
which exploits all of us.

It also represents an alternative to waiting
around for big investors to bring chain stores,

or big-box stores to
our communities,

because honestly, those types of developments,

they steal resources from our communities.

They put our mom-and-pop shops
out of business,

they make our entrepreneurs
into wage workers,

and they take money out of our pocket
and send it to their shareholders.

So, I was so inspired by all these stories of resistance and resilience

that I got together with
a few people here in Los Angeles

and we created LUCI.

LUCI stands for the
Los Angeles Union Cooperative Initiative,

and our objective is to create
more worker-owned businesses

here in Los Angeles.

So far, in the last year,
we've created two:

Pacific Electric, an electrical company,
and Vermont Gage Carwash,

which is right here in South-Central,
some of you guys might be familiar with it.

This long-time carwash is now owned

and operated by its 20 workers,

all of whom are union members as well.

[applause]

So you might be wondering
why the focus on union-worker ownership,

but there's a lot of good reasons

why the labor movement is a natural
ally to the worker-ownership movement.

in order to build these companies
that we want in our community,

we need a few things.
We're going to need money,

people and training.

Unions have all of those things.

America's working class has been paying
union dues for decades,

and with it, our unions
have been building

dignified, decent, and
democratic workplaces for us.

However, union jobs are
on the steep decline,

and it's time for us to start
calling on our unions

to really bring all of their financial
and political capital

to bear in the creation of new, union,
living-wage jobs in our communities.

Also, union halls are
full of union members

who understand
the importance of solidarity

and the power of collective action.

These are the types of folks that want
more union businesses to exist,

so let's build them with them.

Learning from our unions,
learning from our past,

learning from our peers,

are all going to be very important
to our success,

which is why I'd like to leave you
with one last example

and a vision for the future ...

and that vision is Mondragon, Spain.

Mondragon, Spain is a community
built entirely around worker cooperatives.

There's 260-plus businesses here,

manufacturing everything
from bicycles to washing machines

to transformers.

And this group of businesses now
employs 80,000 people

and earns more than 12 billion euros
in revenue every year.

And all of the companies there are owned
by the people that work in them.

They've also built universities and hospitals
and financial institutions.

I mean, imagine if we could build something
like this in South-Central.

The late mayor of Jackson
had a similar idea.

He wanted to turn his entire city

into a Mondragon-like cooperative economy,

calling his ambitious plan
"Jackson Rising."

And when I look at Mondragon,
I see really what working-class people can do for ourselves

when we work together

and make decisions for
ourselves and each other

and our communities.

And what's really incredible
about Mondragon

is that while we are dreaming about them,

they are dreaming about us.

This community in Spain has decided to
launch an international initiative to

create more communities
like it all over the world,

by linking up with unions,

by supporting organizations like LUCI,

and by educating folks about
the worker-ownership model.

Now, here's what you can do
to be a part of it.

If you're a union member,
go to your union meetings,

and make sure that your union has
a worker-ownership initiative,

and become a part of it.

If you're an entrepreneur,

if you have a small business, or
you're interested in starting one,

then link up with LUCI or
another organization like us

to help you get started
on the cooperative model.

If you're a politician, or you work for one,
or you just like talking to them,

please get the city, state, federal and
county legislation passed that we need

in order to fund and support
worker-owned businesses.

And for everybody else,
learn about our history,

learn about our models,

and seek us out so can support us,
you can buy from us,

invest in us, lend to us and join us,

because it's really going to
take all of us

in order to build the more
just and sustainable and resilient economy

that we want for ourselves
and our children.

And with that, I would like to leave you
with a quote from Arundhati Roy,

and she writes ...

"Our strategy should not be only
to confront Empire,

but to lay siege to it.

To deprive it of oxygen.

To mock it.

To shame it.

With our art, our literature,
our music, our brilliance,

our joy, our sheer relentlessness --

and our ability to tell our own stories.

Not the stories that we're being
brainwashed to believe.

The corporate revolution will collapse

if we refuse to
buy what they're selling --

their ideas,

their version of history,

their wars, their weapons,

their sense of inevitability.

Because know this:

They be few and we be many.

They need us more than we need them.

Another world is not only possible,

she's on her way.

And on a quiet day,
I can hear her breathing."

Thank you.

(Applause)