BUILDING A PEOPLE’S ECONOMY

Expanding democracy in the workplace is key to worker justice and building a solidarity economy. Worker cooperatives are businesses that are owned by workers, rather than shareholders and executives, and provide higher wages and better workplace conditions for their staff. Investing in co-ops means investing in immigrants, women, and people of color: 60 percent of co-op workers are people of color and more than 66 percent are women. 

Worker co-ops already exist across our district, and play a vital role in building a more equitable future for Brooklyn, like the childcare educators at Carroll Gardens Association. Shahana believes in a feminist, people-powered economy, and signed onto the NYC Network for Worker Cooperatives’s policy platform to build a cooperative future for New York City: she will continue to co-govern with them, the New Economy Project, and worker-cooperatives throughout the city. As Council Member, Shahana will invest in worker-run cooperatives, mandating the city to contract with cooperatives for essential services like childcare, and providing cooperatives with infrastructural and technical support. She will also work to educate New Yorkers on what just workplaces can look like, and will fight for labor education from K-12 to CUNY. 

As Councilmember, Shahana will work to: 

+ Expand worker cooperatives in NYC

  • Expand funding for the City’s Worker Cooperative Business Development Initiative (WCBDI) to expand technical assistance and funding support for worker-owned NYC businesses.
  • Prioritize worker-owned childcare cooperatives for contracts as we expand childcare in NYC.
  • Expand the M/WBE definition to include worker-owned businesses, and prioritize contracting with worker cooperatives.
  • Provide funding to community based organizations that provide training, professional development, and educational opportunities to food cooperatives.
  • Co-govern and meet directly with worker cooperatives throughout the City, including the NYC Network of Worker Cooperatives, Co-op Power, and Green Worker Coops

+ Educate young New Yorkers about workplace democracy

  • Incorporate workplace democracy into NYC DOE civic education curriculum, and increase summer youth employment placements in worker cooperatives across NYC
  • Invest in CUNY School of Labor and Urban Studies and promote its worker cooperative certificate programs through public campaigns in multiple languages
  • Integrate worker cooperative education in adult education programs and youth job training programs like DYCD’s Advance & Earn program

+ Support a cooperative solution to climate change

  • Support efforts to build cooperatively owned solar infrastructure within communities, following the model of UPROSE’s Sunset Park community solar project, through sustaining multi-year City support for energy cooperatives.
  • Partner with community organizations, like Solar 1, to provide training for community members to run, maintain, and provide technical assistance to community solar projects and create green jobs.
  • Research other opportunities to convert public rooftops into solar cooperatives, including Borough Hall and courthouses. Prioritizing the use of public land for community land trusts, community solar, and cooperative businesses.

+ Build public banks

  • Support the creation of a municipal bank to hold the City’s public dollars to fully divest from all privately owned banks.
  • Create an accountability mechanism, like a board of directors, to hold the public bank accountable to all New Yorkers, and report transparency of how funds are used.
  • Ensure public funds go towards community resources and infrastructure, including community land trusts, climate resiliency, worker cooperatives, and municipal reparations to Black and Indigenous communities.
  • Support the New York Public Banking Act by signing onto the City Council resolution calling on Albany to create a state public bank. Champion the passage of City Council Bills 2099 and 2100, which will also help create a public bank.