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The teams of SUPERMARKT Berlin and Platform Cooperatives Germany eG are excited to take part in the Platform Cooperatives Now! online programme.

The Institute for the Cooperative Digital Economy (ICDE) at The New School in New York City (USA) and MONDRAGON Co-op. & MTA-MONDRAGON UNIVERSITY Mondragon, Gizpuzkoa (Spain) jointly offer an emergency online course to introduce, incubate, and accelerate platform cooperatives.

The course consists of two parts. Part 1 is an introduction to the gig economy, blueprints for political imaginaries, an introduction to cooperatives and case studies of platform co-ops. Part 2, aimed at the incubation of platform co-ops, is offered in collaboration with international partners in many countries in a local language. We are happy to announce that we are the German partners for this course. Alongside part 1 and part 2, we offer weekly community calls to discuss the content of the course with participants. From August on, we also provide a platform coop incubation program within the framework of the Platform Cooperatives Now!-course.

In this upcoming call, we are glad to explain more about the course and give people an idea what they can expect. In the meantime, please check the site of Platform Coops Germany and the International Platform Cooperativism Consortium for more info about the course.

Course Description:

Worldwide, millions of young people will be unemployed in the course of COVID-19. From India, Italy, Spain, and Brazil to the United States, the virus does not discriminate, yet its economic and social impact is unevenly distributed. Workers in tourism, the arts, retail, education, and all informal workers are the hardest hit. Low-income, marginalized, working-class people and immigrants are more adversely affected. Income inequality is growing, confidence in governments is eroding, and more and more people are embracing nationalism and populism. Workers lost power and a sense of agency over their lives. In the face of all this, how can working people organize, regain control, and participate in the building of economic alternatives?

What comes next? Amazon, Wholefoods, and Instacart workers walking out may just be the beginning. A general strike of gig workers? A student loan holders strike? We see it all over the world. In moments of crisis like this, things that had been considered impossible can become common sense: The Great Depression gave rise to the original New Deal. We need to show possibilities for how the world could be better.

Platform co-ops can provide better jobs at scale now! At a moment where the concentration of big tech companies is skyrocketing, this course does not stop at an analysis of surveillance capitalism; it equips people to succeed as cooperative platform entrepreneurs in the fast growing gig economy. It gives learners the opportunity to analyze and get involved with a generation of young leaders that is experimenting with innovative power-building strategies that are rooted in cooperative ownership of digital platforms. Imagine an Uber owned by the drivers or Twitter owned by its users. A shift from a “shared economy” to a genuinely participatory, democratically-owned economy is possible.

For People Who Are: 

• determined to launch dignified digital platforms that offer decent work,
• members of cooperatives or startups who want to transition their enterprise to a platform cooperative.

What You’ll Learn from this Course:

• Advance your understanding of platform capitalism and the gig economy
• Learn about worker cooperatives
• Develop an action plan for your platform co-op

Organized by Ela Kagel, Andreas Arnold & Claudia Henke

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