Podcast: Punchcard

How to Radicalise an Accountant w/ Abbas Shapuri

Posted on November 11, 2025 by -

Punchcard
Punchcard
How to Radicalise an Accountant w/ Abbas Shapuri
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Abbas Shapuri’s journey into the worker co-operative movement is not a typical one. Many worker co-operators arrive from the “alternative” or activist scenes. Abbas, however, came from the heart of capitalism: corporate accountancy.

In this episode of Punchcard, Abbas and I talk about what led to him betraying his politics and values to work at big corporate firms, like KPMG & IHG, and how he eventually managed to escape.

Help connect more workers like Abbas with the worker co-op movement & support for Punchcard £5/month on Open Collective

⚖️ From the Corporate World to The Co-op One

Something I was thinking about when talking to Abbas is how many other people there must be in the same position that he was in – stuck in a corporate job that clashes with their values, unable to see an alternative, or too afraid to take the jump. How do we reach those people?

Abbas’s journey has plenty of twists and turns, but the one that seems the most impactful is his best friend Aqeel. Aqeel shared Abbas’s politics, but acted on it – joining a Radical Routes housing co-op, discovering Third Sector Accountancy and introducing Abbas to the illusive world of co-ops.

And this points to a solution, but also an issue. If Abbas hadn’t had Aqeel, a friend inside a housing co-op, he might never have found his way in. The worker co-op sector’s growth is held back by our reach, and if we want it to grow, we need to start punching above our weight.

That’s why I started Punchcard, to introduce people to co-ops at scale. To share the stories that make people stop and think “maybe I don’t have to keep working like this”. If Abbas did it, maybe I can too.

Support Punchcard for £5/month to take us to the next level – better audio, better video, greater reach!

[→ Support Punchcard on Open Collective ▷]

💼 Learning from the Enemy

Abbas is the second Punchcard guest to highlight the benefits of spending some time working outside of worker co-ops. While our self-taught, DIY ethos is powerful, the reality is that KPMG gave Abbas access to skills and experiences that you’d struggle to find in a worker co-op.

The same message came from our episode with Ai Van, who, while at the Leeds Bread Co-op read traditional business management books and brought us the £1 model. She has since left the Leeds Bread Co-op to see what she can learn from working in a traditional business and may return with more insights and tools that could strengthen our co-ops.

Building on the impact of Ai Van’s episode, season 2 of Punchcard is featuring more innovators and practical solutions for worker co-ops. Upcoming guests include Paul from Navigate, sharing tools & frameworks to manage conflict, and Steffi, Novara Media’s fundraiser, discussing fundraising campaigns and the power of newsletters.

💬 What other useful tools & frameworks would you like us to explore on Punchcard?
[→ Share your thoughts in the workers.coop forum ▷]

📈 Growing the Co-op Accountancy Sector

According to Third Sector Accountancy they have no shortage of organisations asking for accountancy support. So why aren’t they growing to meet the need?

A common concern for Abbas, and many other cooperators, is the risk of diluting or losing the values and ethos of their co-op. So how do we build and maintain cooperative culture?

In a previous episode of Punchcard, Beau explained how Suma Wholefoods strengthens its values through a secondary set of principles, a framework that goes deeper than the standard seven international cooperative principles and the members have more ownership over. 

Unicorn Grocery takes this a step further, embedding their values into the rhythm of daily life with fortnightly trainings where members can present everything from sectoral trends to how to better include neurodivergent members.

💬 What about your co-op? How do you maintain your co-op’s values & culture?
 [→ Share your answer on the workers.coop forum▷]

Help connect more workers like Abbas with the worker co-op movement

Worker co-operatives are still a fringe model, known by few and understood by even fewer. Punchcard exists to change that, bringing co-operative ideas and real-world stories into public consciousness.

By building a dedicated worker co-op podcast, we’re reaching new audiences and showing that another way of working is not only possible – it’s already happening.

We’re aiming for 50 listeners donating £5/month to take Punchcard to the next level – better audio, better video, and greater reach.

[→ Support Punchcard on Open Collective ▷]

Thank you to everyone who has supported Punchcard and helped us get to this point,

– Caleb Elliott & Punchcard

🎧 Listen, follow & rate Punchcard on workers.coop/podcast, Overcast, PocketCasts, RSS, Spotify, Apple Podcasts & Youtube or wherever you get your podcasts

Classism in Cooperatives w/ Elle Glenny

Posted on December 11, 2025 by -

Punchcard
Punchcard
Classism in Cooperatives w/ Elle Glenny
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Unfortunately not everybody’s experience of cooperatives is positive. For Elle, their time in co-operatives was both transformative, but also painful, marred by classism that often goes unnamed.

In this episode of Punchcard, Elle and I talk about what classism looks like in co-ops, how we can transform it and why inclusion isn’t enough.

Listen to the full interview on workers.coop/podcast, Overcast, PocketCasts, RSS, Spotify, Apple Podcasts & Youtube or wherever you get your podcasts

🏠 Cultural Domination

Co-ops tend to be far more accessible to middle-class people – those with higher education, spare time, savings, and inheritance. That shapes who can access co-ops and quietly sets middle-class culture as the default.

Middle class norms then define how we communicate, behave, argue, and organise. Anything outside of that framework is subtly flagged as unprofessional, disruptive, or “not the right fit.” That’s how working class ways of being (in all their intersectional forms) get sidelined, suppressed, and erased.

💸 Inclusion Isn’t Enough

We can, and should, keep learning how our cultures marginalise others. But as Elle (and Taylor, in her episode) both emphasise, inclusion is not enough. Often it causes harm by placing the responsibility on marginalised people to adapt.

The deeper issue is power. Working-class people often lack real decision-making power, leaving them dependent on the goodwill of those who have it. Inclusion becomes assimilation.

🔧 Shifting Power

Elle is part of a network of redistribution groups that have been forming across the UK. These groups have been set up to give real power to working class members, including power to choose how to redistribute the groups financial resources.

These groups are cross class collectives, where traditional hierarchies are flipped on their heads – working class cultural norms are centred, decisions are weighted in favour of working class members, and access to resources, especially financial resources, are transferred to the group.

❤️ Support Punchcard

Elle’s work on class pushes the worker co-op movement to confront its blind spots and grow. If you want Punchcard to keep platforming voices like hers, please consider supporting the show.

We are aiming to get 50 listeners to donate £5/month.
Your support helps us improve production quality and reach more people.

→ Support Punchcard on Open Collective

The Growth of Unicorn Grocery Worker Co-op w/ Corrina O’Brien

Posted on January 14, 2026 by -

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Punchcard
The Growth of Unicorn Grocery Worker Co-op w/ Corrina O’Brien
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Starting off as a small shop operating out of a loading bay to a thriving worker co-op that owns its own the entire building, has around 50 dedicated members and is a shining example of what worker cooperatives can accomplish.

In this episode of Punchcard, Corrina and I talk about how Unicorn has become such a success and how they plan to develop further.

👉 Support Punchcard on Open Collective

Standing on the Shoulders of Giants

Unicorn was Corrina’s introduction to worker co-ops, and at first she didn’t fully grasp what being a worker-owner would change. It took leaving Unicorn to understand what made it special.

That understanding has grown, and is accompanied by an appreciation for the decades of work and sacrifice made by earlier members, especially the founders. Because of the foundations they laid, Corrina now benefits from a workplace that offers a level of control and security beyond what she has experienced before.

Growing Without Growth

In 2015, Unicorn seriously explored opening a second store. Ultimately, members decided against it, concerned about the strain it would place on the co-op. Instead, they focused on strengthening the original shop, while continuing to provide support to the wider movement and projects externally.

In our interview Corrina talks through how Unicorn is growing their impact without simply getting bigger. From redeveloping its site, contributing a percentage of its wage bill to a solidarity fund for projects with shared values, developing a comprehensive ‘Grow-A-Grocery’ guide for budding new co-operators based on their experience, and sharing resources with groups like Kindling Farm.

The Cost of Playing It Safe

It’s a shame that Unicorn decided not to open a second store, and it seems to reflect a wider pattern in the co-op sector (particularly visible with housing co-ops), where growing success increases the capacity for risk, but the appetite for it shrinks.

While supporting projects externally is valuable and effective, this risk-aversion is likely limiting how quickly the worker co-op sector grows, and the scale of impact co-ops could have if they were bolder.

❤️ Support Punchcard

Corrina was lucky to find a job at Unicorn Grocery, but there are fewer than 400 worker co-ops in the UK, and far too few places where workers have real control over their work.

Punchcard exists to help change that. By sharing the stories, experiences, and hard-won lessons of worker co-ops across different industries, the show helps make democratic workplaces visible, imaginable, and achievable.

Punchcard is at a crucial stage. We’re looking for just 50 listeners to contribute £5/month to keep documenting, sharing, and growing the collective knowledge of the worker co-op movement.

If you want Punchcard to keep amplifying voices like Corrina’s, and helping more workers find their way into co-ops, please consider supporting the show.

👉 Support Punchcard on Open Collective

Berlin’s Worker Co-op for Migrants & Cleaners w/ Rupay Dahm

Posted on February 17, 2026 by -

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Punchcard
Berlin's Worker Co-op for Migrants & Cleaners w/ Rupay Dahm
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Rupay is an employment lawyer in Germany, fighting for workers’ rights. Frustrated, working in a system rigged against workers, he sought out more empowering alternatives and discovered worker cooperatives. After years of researching and advising them as a lawyer, he went on to write A Practical Guide to Democratising Companies and to co-found a cooperative for cleaners.

In this episode of Punchcard, Rupay shares his experience incubating the cleaning cooperative and the importance that trust and social connections played within that.

👉 Help us spread the word about worker co-ops –> support Punchcard on Open Collective

Can You Found a Co-op for Someone Else?

Rupay observed that co-ops were made up of mostly white, academic and managerial types, so he set out to create a more diverse co-operative, centering cleaners and migrant workers.

This approach raised alarm bells for Rupay and people around him, such approaches inherently introduce power dynamics that can suppress alternative ways of working, and create dependency rather than empowerment. Yet, according to Rupay, they were able to navigate these threats and create a co-op led by cleaners and migrants.

🎧 Listen to the whole episode to find out how

It’s Personal

It’s easy to overlook just how important interpersonal relations and trust are in cooperatives. Rupay initially focused on implementing the policies and structures he had studied, but quickly realised that the relationships between members were far more fundamental.

At first, the co-op was medicated through Rupay, since nobody else knew each other. Cleaning is notoriously an atomising job, as many shifts are worked along, so they paired members together on cleaning shifts and introduced weekly meeting to build relationships. As trust grew it allowed roles and responsibilities to be shared across the group, to the stage where Rupay was able to step away, leaving the co-ops to flourish alone.

🗣️ In next month’s episode I speak to mediator Paul Kahawatte about how to navigate conflict

Is This Why Most Co-ops Stay Small?

Rupay set out to create a cooperative capable of scaling and having a broader impact than many other co-ops. What he discovered however, is that it’s difficult to scale the human connections that sustain the democratic and participatory culture. This is a issue that keeps coming up and was echoed by previous guests, Corrina and Abbas.

In my search of solutions, I interviewed Aiofe Smith from the Great Care Co-op at workers.coop’s Autumn Assembly. They are experimenting with the Buurtzorg model from Holland to build a 1,000+ worker co-op in Ireland, an ambitious attempt to scale without losing the cooperative ethos.

Aiofe’s episode will be published in summer this year.

❤️ Support Punchcard

Punchcard’s first episode reached only 100 people, now our worker cooperative podcast is reaching over 5,000 people !

If you want to help Punchcard keep raising the profile of worker co-ops and championing worker control, consider supporting Punchcard on Open Collective

We’re looking for just 23 more listeners to contribute £5/month to keep the show stable and continuing to grow

👉 Support Punchcard on Open Collective

🎧 Listen to Punchcard on workers.coop/podcast or wherever you get your podcasts