It seems Europe has no worker owned co-ops :(
Show HN: Searchable directory of 22k+ products from worker-owned co-ops
81–88 of 88 posts
Re: Show HN: Searchable directory of 22k+ products from worker-owned co-ops
#82I took a brief look at some of the products like coffee and im not sure they are competitive. What exactly is the premium coming from ?
Coffee is much cheaper with slavery or ultra heavy exploitation. Once the workers have a say in it, the prices normalize.
Farmers typically retain only around 1% to 10% of the final retail price wether its labeled "ethical" or "co-op" or whatever is teh new "organic".
Even if you double the wages paid to pickers, the final cost to the consumer only needs to increase by a few cents, the rest are margins captured by simply labelling the coffee beans
I know because I used to work for a trader that specialized in coffee futures
Re: Show HN: Searchable directory of 22k+ products from worker-owned co-ops
#83Earlier quoted context omitted.
+100... I'd love to find a spot at a tech co-op but they seem as common as a hen's tooth.
I founded a software engineering co-op. We're always interested in finding new members. https://508.dev Right now our main revenue is through subcontracting, and admittedly we haven't pulled a fresh gig in a couple months, mostly because most of us are working a gig which limits our ability to BD - a limitation we've been kicking around how to resolve for ages. We want to come up with some alternative revenue streams…
Thanks! I'll check it out.
Re: Show HN: Searchable directory of 22k+ products from worker-owned co-ops
#84Earlier quoted context omitted.
Probably from actually paying human beings for their work
Are you saying that products outside this directory are from people who you don't consider human beings ?
Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize.[1]
Re: Show HN: Searchable directory of 22k+ products from worker-owned co-ops
#85How this works? I would like to know more about the development and infrastructure.
Re: Show HN: Searchable directory of 22k+ products from worker-owned co-ops
#86I wanted to buy from worker-owned cooperatives but there was no single place to see what they actually sell. So I scraped the product catalogs from ~60 worker-owned co-op stores and made them searchable. 22,000+ products: coffee, chocolate, clothing, books, home goods, etc. You search, find something, and click through to buy directly from the co-op's store. Nothing goes through me. There's also a section for finding…
Hey, this is pretty cool and very fast. So there is no database? How do you handle the scraping etc? Do the businesses know you are doing this? One thought, it might be good to list all of the products together,rather than only being able to view them by each business. Nice job :)
great idea, i changed the browsing to be categories of products, not of stores. the stores still there but this is way better. thanks!
Re: Show HN: Searchable directory of 22k+ products from worker-owned co-ops
#87I wonder of there is a version of this but for jobs?
heh i made something that you might the call the opposite of that: https://yourfairshare.info/
Enter your US employer's name or stock ticker symbol (e.g. Amazon, Apple, JP Morgan Chase) and your compensation to see how your pay compares to company-wide financials. Basically, you can see how much more they could have paid you. Also shows stock buybacks and dividends, so u can see how much more they could have paid you instead of the stock market.
Re: Show HN: Searchable directory of 22k+ products from worker-owned co-ops
#88Earlier quoted context omitted.
REI changed about 25 years ago and it took a while for people to notice/the changes to filter through enough. Was talking recently about similar changes with MEC in Canada with a family friend who joined MEC as member 200-250. He had a chance to be in the first ~25 members but wasn't sure they'd still exist in a year. I think there still is value in a retail coop model but I think REI strayed from the area where it c…
> REI changed about 25 years ago Changed how? It was always a consumer co-op, never a worker owned co-op. I joined in 1981.
Ah, I did a poor job conveying what I meant. You are correct of course.
I was referring more to a change in the culture of the board and methods members could use to nominate board members.
Also to clarify we were talking about MEC (Mountain Equipment Coop) which was inspired by REI and is no longer a coop.