Mayoral Candidate Dr. Amara Enyia knows that creating a strong economy means doing more than just asking for jobs or a relocating headquarters downtown.
“We need to create more owners – especially in the neighborhoods. Ownership builds wealth and cooperative ownership is the alternative to a reliance on low-paying retail and service industry jobs,” she said.
A worker cooperative is a democratically managed business that is owned and controlled by the workers. The cooperative form of organization allows ordinary people to combine their energy, capital, and skills to gain steady employment and income, participate in the management of their business, and share the profits.
Dr. Enyia seeks to make Chicago the top city in the country for worker-owned cooperatives by creating an Institute for Cooperative Development within the current Department of Business Affairs and Consumer Protection (BACP). An initial $2.5 million investment that would go to providing technical assistance to individuals interested in forming a cooperative. She also seeks to establish a revolving loan fund that would offer cooperatives start-up funding at low interest rates.
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