In this episode of Punchcard, we speak with Taylor Le Melle, a founding member of not/nowhere, a BPOC worker cooperative that supports artists to navigate the structures and institutions of the UK art world, unpacking harmful myths and helping artists to recognise and use their power in the industry.
As a BPOC cooperative which is also queer-led, not/nowhere challenges other co-ops to move beyond inclusion efforts and instead adopt a more radical approach to redistribution. Inclusion, even in its most well-intentioned forms, often demands assimilation, whereas redistribution supports alternative ideas and ways of being that come from the bottom up. In this reclamation of solidarity, self-sacrifice becomes central: if you are unwilling to give something up, is it truly redistributing power, or simply another form of charity?
Taylor sees the arts as a perverse industry which also has unique opportunities for redistribution, as it is one of the only industries “where you could charge £20,000 for something that you worked on for five minutes”. By accessing capital through art, resources can be redirected toward education and movement-building. not/nowhere itself does this through its access to antique analogue film equipment and funding from the Arts Council.
Alice McLarnon grew up in Belfast during the Troubles, surrounded by violence, segregation, and 60-foot peace walls. In 2006, she joined the worker cooperative Trademark and was immediately struck by how different it was from anywhere she’d worked before.
Coming from low paid work in a chip shop and other hierarchical workplaces, she was shocked that even as an administrator she was considered an equal. From being paid the same as the founders, to being invited to take part in key organisational decisions, Trademark’s radical commitment to equality reshaped her expectations of what a workplace could be.
In Northern Ireland, the workplace has long been one of the few places where Catholic and Protestant communities regularly intersect. That’s why Trademark, as the anti-racist and anti-sectarian unit of the Irish Labour Movement, focuses its work there — working with unions and supporting groups to set up worker cooperatives.
One of the most notable examples of this is the multi-award-winning Belfast Cleaning Cooperative. Formed by a cross-community group of women that the Trademark team were working with. The co-op has become a standout example of what cooperative development in working-class communities can look like.
Trademark’s work offers a powerful example of what’s possible when anti-racism, class politics, and cooperative economics come together. It’s a prime example of how to confront the rise of racism and fascism we’re seeing across the country.
Listen to Punchcard for the full conversation with Alice McLarnon.
Ai Van Kok (Leeds Bread Co-op) → demystifying finances with the £1 model and overcoming financial difficulties.
Alice McLarnon (Trademark, Belfast) → on using co-ops to break down racist & sectarian division in Northern Ireland.
Taylor Le Melle (not/nowhere, London) → why inclusion isn’t enough, and how redistribution should guide co-ops.
Rebecca Kemble (US Federation of Worker Co-ops, Madison) → lessons from a movement drifting away from its grassroots.
Nacho Gómez (Black Cat Café, London) → reflections on why co-operatives close and ideas on how to save them
The podcast gives time and space to get into the complexities and nuances of the worker co-op movement – I’ve learnt so much about what folks are doing (and why!)
🎙 Better production & regular episodes I’m now working with Vilte from Media Co-op, who’s improving editing, audio quality, and creating clips & reels to reach wider audiences.
🎤 More live shows – 2 live recordings at London’s Anti-University Festival with Cooperation Town & kin.coop – 1 live recording at workers.coop’s Autumn Assembly – guest TBC
🌍 More global voices We’ve had interest & engagement from the international co-op movement and I 2 more international guests lined up, bringing perspectives from across the world. – Rupay Dahm – cofounder of a migrant led cleaning co-op in Berlin – Àlex Badia – Barret.coop, a video production studio and part of the local co-op federation in Valencia, Spain
Excellent work! Exactly the sort of thing we should be doing!
Worker cooperatives are still a relatively unknown and confusing concept to most people. The dominant narrative tells workers to either accept exploitation or climb the ladder by exploiting others, and nothing about worker cooperatives.
Punchcard is the only podcast dedicated to spotlighting and showcasing that worker cooperatives are innovating and creating the worker owned and control future we need.
But Vilte & I can’t make Punchcard alone.
If just 50 listeners contribute £5/month, we’ll be able to release episodes more regularly, improve production quality, and expand our reach with short clips and reels that will reach more people.
A massive thank you to everyone who is already supporting Punchcard – on Open Collective, and to workers.coop, and the co-ops who helped us get this far.
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.
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!
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.
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.
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.
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 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.
Find out more about Elle’s work by following to A Revolting Class here & here
❤️ 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.
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.
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.
