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Catalyzing worker co-ops & the solidarity economy

Co-op Conversion In Australia

Joe Caygill and Dave Kerin are the most unlikely of collaborators: one is a conservative-voting small businessman; the other, a Marx-quoting trade unionist. Caygill has been in the manufacturing industry for 30 years; he's the owner and CEO of Everlast, a hot water tank manufacturer based in Dandenong. But before long, he won't be the boss anymore – just a worker-owner like everybody else.

Caygill has teamed up with Kerin and a group of volunteers, many of whom are environmental activists, to convert his business into "Eureka's Future", a not-for-profit workers' co-operative factory.

"I used to negotiate hard against a lot of union initiatives in the earlier days, but as you get older you get wiser," Caygill says. "And I realised that it doesn't matter whether you're way left, way right or somewhere in between, people can come together for a just cause."

Read the full article at The Sydney Morning Herald

 

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