Membership

Membership is open to worker co-operatives or co-ops with significant worker control, as well as to individuals looking to become supporters by joining a working group.

Membership currently sits at around 100 members, the vast majority of whom are worker co-ops, spread across England, Wales, Northern Ireland and Scotland. Many varied sectors and industries are represented by our members – you can see a few examples of current members in our case studies.

Types of membership

The federation has two types of membership, or membership classes: enterprise member and individual worker member.

• If you are a worker-led cooperative, you will be joining as an enterprise member.
• If you are a supporter or individual interested in committing to a working group, after a period of time you can apply for individual worker membership.

For anyone else, such as individuals outside of worker co-ops, you can become registered supporters of the federation by joining our sister organisation, Solidfund. To join, visit their page.

Membership fee

The annual membership fee is based on your labour costs, with a minimum fee of £150+VAT.

This formula is fair, because worker compensation is the truest proxy for the financial strength of a worker co-op. Whether you have highly paid workers, or mainly low paid, part time and even volunteer workers, it’s appropriate for every kind of worker co-op. We need to make workers.coop valuable for all our members.

The membership fee is calculated as one thousandth (or 0.1%) of your labour costs in your last financial year. You will be asked for this information when you fill out the application form. Your co-op’s contribution will be determined on the basis of:

• Total wages bill (for employees) / 1,000
• Total paid to members (for self-employed workers) / 1,000
• These added together (for mixed employee/self-employed worker co-ops) / 1000

For example:

• If last year your total wage bill came to £500,000, your subscription would be £500
• If you distribute £200,000 a year to your self-employed members, your subscription would be £200+VAT
• If your total labour costs are less than £150,000 we would still need you to contribute £150+VAT. We think this is the lowest cost for which workers.coop can sustain a member resource.

Minimum charge

The minimum fee is set at £150+VAT. This is the minimum level at which we can sustain a co-op’s membership over the year. This fee is subject to go up in line with inflation.

Rolling membership

Your membership will continue on a rolling basis unless you let us know that you’d like to make a change. You will be charged your membership fee on a rolling annual basis in line with the tax year. Each renewal period we will get in touch to find out if your annual labour costs have changed as this will effect your membership rate.

Decision-making rights

As a member of workers.coop you have the ability to participate in the federation’s governance and democratic decision-making processes. All members are encouraged to attend and vote in the Annual General Meeting, usually held in September.

In addition, members are all able to join and participate in the strategic working groups that sit alongside the Board forming the strategic backbone and decision-making vehicles of the federation. Then there are the other working groups and events that make up the federation activity, along with quarterly all-member meetings.

The federation welcomes applications for new Directors for the board from worker co-operative members.

CoTech

CoTech is a network of tech worker co-operatives. They are our sister organisation, and represent the industry circle within workers.coop for tech-based co-operatives. To become a member of CoTech, organisations must be dual members of workers.coop. Prospective members can apply for workers.coop membership along the usual route. For more information on how to join CoTech once you are members of workers.coop, contact CoTech members on their website or Loomio.