Roughly 200 worker co-op members gathered from across the eastern half of the country in Baltimore, Maryland this July for the Eastern Conference on Workplace Democracy. The conference, organized by former NASCO staff members Neily Jennings and Esteban Kelly, attracted record attendance. Workshop sessions were wide-ranging ... and so were the co-ops represented-from the Sí Se Puede housecleaning co-op in the Bronx to Equal Exchange (based in Massachusetts) to new co-ops organizing in New Orleans, Louisiana to the long-standing Isthmus Engineering Co-op in Madison, Wisconsin.

NASCO was well represented. Additional NASCO people playing prominent roles included Tom Pierson, who presented on worker co-op development models; former NASCO board member Ajoya Ifateyo, who moderated a plenary session; and former NASCO board member Lydia Pelot-Hobbs, who presented on the NASCO Family governance model.

The worker co-op movement is growing. In Massachusetts, the Valley Association of Worker Co-ops has brought together eight co-ops who are dedicating a percentage of their profits to self-finance new worker co-op development. In Austin, the Third Coast Workers for Cooperation is providing technical assistance to Texas worker co-ops. In Detroit, the Center for Community-Based Enterprises is seeking to develop a new network of co-ops. In Cleveland, the Evergreen Cooperatives (where the Democracy Collaborative plays a support role), are poised to develop a third co-op, a 4-acre hydroponic greenhouse that will produce 5 million head of lettuce and 300,000 pounds of herbs a year.

Growth brings its challenges, however. If a nonprofit incubates development, how do you ensure that the worker-owners become true owners? If development is not jump-started by a nonprofit, how do people of color and others with limited resources gain access to the financial benefits of cooperation? When might multi-stakeholder, rather than pure worker co-op models, be appropriate? Jessica Gordon Nembhard, a professor at John Jay College in New York City and the recipient of the conference's co-op education award, noted that there is a growing "focus to do co-op development in low-income communities, but we still don't do this well."

Discussion, in short, was wide-ranging. While the conference certainly did not resolve every issue facing worker co-ops, participants left energized and with a deeper understanding of these challenges. As Melissa Hoover, Executive Director of the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives noted in her keynote presentation, " The utopian notion that the worker cooperative can be perfected really misses the point. The problem is itself beautiful."