We Started a Co-op to Empower Workers

My first years as an American worker after immigrating here in 2003 were a crash course on labor exploitation.

Because I was an undocumented immigrant I lived in fear every day while working brutal 12 hour construction shifts for a wage that barely kept me afloat. Not everything was bad though — that experience shaped my sense of solidarity and introduced me to the labor movement and community organizing.

After many years of grueling work, I got married and was able to go to college to follow my dream of studying business.

Once I got to school though, the way my classes focused on profits above everything else made me worried about recreating the same working experiences I had gone through.

A trip to Spain in 2010 presented me with an alternative path.

While studying abroad, two of my friends from Cincinnati and I had the opportunity to visit the Mondragon Corporation, a federation of worker cooperatives that employs over 80,000 people in the Basque country.

As the rest of Spain was suffering through the 2008 global recession, with over a quarter of the country out of work, unemployment remained in the single digits among the work-owned businesses and many communities they were based in.

Inspired by what we saw at Mondragon, my friends and I decided we wanted to replicate the model back home. That is when Michael Peck, former Mondragon North American delegate, and Co-op Cincy, a non-profit that creates union worker co-op businesses in partnership with organized labor came up with the idea for a green construction business, which I developed during a class on entrepreneurship. That is when Sustainergy Cooperative was born.

After raising roughly $40,000 from community loans, credit loans, and in-kind contributions, in 2013 ourdream became a reality.

Since then, we’ve performed free energy assessments for over 5,000 Cincinnati homeowners, working with them to upgrade building insulation, weatherization and install solar panels at prices affordable to working-class families.

But what I’m more proud of is the truly family sustaining jobs we’ve been able to provide for our community.

It took a while to get our system off the ground — I wasn’t able to pay myself for the first two years — but we now can really support our worker-owners and pay out between $7 and $10K a year in dividends on top of wages and other benefits.

When Yovany, a worker-owner at Sustainergy and another first generation immigrant, recently had his car stolen, our co-op’s revolving loan fund helped him avoid extractive payday lenders.  Additionally thanks to his yearly paid dividends as a worker-owner, he was able to afford to buy a home.

All of our workers have a vested interest in the success of Sustainergy, and our open book management means everyone knows exactly where our profits are going.

Sustainergy is not alone in Cincinnati — there are now 15 worker cooperatives in the city under the Co-op Cincy umbrella. We’re providing an alternative to extractive business models and employing more than 150 people along the way.

This alternative is especially important for immigrants and other vulnerable communities. We’re always told that the only way to succeed in this country is to work really, really hard. But the reality is that that isn’t always enough. By sharing profits — and risks — we can help guarantee one another a good life.

Our model is popular outside of urban areas too. Cincinnati is a progressive island in a deeply conservative sea.

When I introduce Sustainergy to my clients outside of the city, I often feel unwelcome at first, for being an immigrant. But when I tell them that Sustainergy is worker owned, that we share the profit among the workers, that we reinvest in the local economy, they love it.

You can unite conservatives and progressives behind improving conditions for working-class people, and cooperatives are a great way to do it.