Worker Coops and the Long History of Labour

What does the history of labour - incl. systems of enslavement, exploitation, colonialism & extraction - teach us about worker coops today?

What can the long history of labour teach us about the future of work?

When we talk about worker cooperatives and the platform economy, we often focus on what is new: algorithms, precarious work, digital platforms and new forms of worker ownership.

However, the platform economy is new. The questions of work, ownership, power and agency are not.

For our 3rd Platform Coops Research Call, we want to take a step back and look at the longer histories of labour - including systems of enslavement and exploitation, colonialism, extraction and the many ways people have organised themselves and claimed agency over their work.

These histories have not disappeared. They continue to shape the technological and economic structures we live and work within today.

This is particularly visible in the platform economy: behind seemingly frictionless digital services are global chains of labour and extraction. From content moderation and warehouse work to mining, manufacturing and the infrastructures that make digital platforms possible.

So, what can we learn from the past?

🔹 What can historical experiences of worker self-organisation teach us about worker cooperatives today?

🔹 How has work changed throughout history & why do we work the way we do today?

🔹 What does genuine worker agency require beyond formal ownership?

🔹How cooperative technologies can reimagine platform work?

🔹 How can cooperative governance avoid reproducing hierarchies and exclusions embedded in the economies from which it emerges?

We are excited to bring these questions into conversation with key inputs from Camille Steele, Melike N. Kaplan, Anannya Bhowmik Paul & Ela Kagel.

Camille Steele: How did the labour of previous generations build the economy we inhabit today, and how do those historical relationships continue to shape our roles as workers and consumers? Also: How did industrialisation transform bodies and labour into economic resources?

Melike N. Kaplan: What is the purpose of work? How has it changed throughout history, and why do we work the way we do today? If we understood labor as collective action, a means of meeting our shared needs, what would work need to look like now? And how might cooperatives reshape the broader social and ecological systems that work is embedded in?

Anannya Bhowmik Paul: What can we learn from observing traditional platfrom economies? How do such businesess benefit from precarious labor conditions and reproduce algorithmic inequality: taking examples form gig work in Denmark & India. How cooperative technologies can reimagine platform work?

Ela Kagel: What is the co-relation of labour, ownership and power in the age of AI? The history of labour teaches us, that new technologies do not automatically create new power relations. They can just as easily reproduce old ones in new forms. So my questions for community-owned AI are beyond the obvious ownership aspect: Who built it, whose labour sustains it, who bears its costs and who gets to decide what it is for?

⭐ Expect a short introduction, followed by four impulses (each 10min) and moderated Q&A afterwards. We look forward to hearing your thoughts and questions! ⭐ Language: English ⭐ Sign up here: https://www.eventbrite.de/e/worker-coops-the-long-history-of-labor-tickets-1999202072215

🌱 Supported by Programm Nachhaltig Wirken, Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy, and the European Social Fund Plus (ESF+)