BRINGING FAIR TRADE HOME
ERBIN CROWELL, EQUAL EXCHANGE, IN COOPERATIVE GROCER - Today, just 10
corporations account for over 50 percent of the revenue generated
globally by food retailing. Not surprisingly, as agribusiness profits
have gone up, the share of the consumer dollar received by farming
families has declined dramatically. By 2003, there were just 1.9 million
working farmers in the U.S. - less than the prison population.
For African American farmers, the challenge is even more severe. For
example, in 1920, one in seven farmers were African American; by 1998,
just one in 100, a loss rate more than three times that of white
farmers. Like many of the small farmers that Equal Exchange works with
across Latin America, Africa and Asia, black farmers in the U.S. have
been shut out of markets, denied access to capital, and given racist
treatment at an institutional level. . .
Recently Equal Exchange and the Federation began exploring a new idea:
Domestic Fair Trade. The goal of the partnership is to bring the
Federations nearly 40 years of organizing for civil rights and community
development together with Equal Exchanges 20 years of international Fair
Trade experience and commitment to cooperation. The result will be
healthy snacks grown, processed, marketed, and sold by cooperatives.
Our first project is with Southern Alternatives, a pecan processing
cooperative in southern Georgia. Through collective action and
persistence, this group has managed to accomplish something inspiring: a
black-owned, cooperatively organized pecan processing facility that
includes farmers and workers. With the support of the Federation,
workers in the facility kept the business alive as a strategy for
preserving jobs in a rural area devastated by the modern agricultural
economy and abandoned by the textile mills that have moved overseas. .
http://cooperativegrocer.coop/articles/index.php?id=697
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NON-PROFIT TESTS BANK CARD FOR WORKERS
NORTH JERSEY - A New Jersey nonprofit is at the forefront of a
nationwide effort to grant special bank cards to low-wage workers,
including immigrants, regardless of their legal status. The New Labor
Center in New Brunswick, a workers center with a largely immigrant
clientele, is piloting a device called the Sigo card, developed by the
Newark-based company I.T.D.
Sigo acts as a kind of pre-paid debit card that workers can use to
deposit money directly into an account and cash checks, or send
duplicate cards to family members so they can withdraw remittances
directly from an ATM in their country, at a better rate than money
transfer agencies.
"The idea was, could we save workers money, provide a secure place to
put their money and get them on an asset-building path," said Janice
Fine, a Rutgers labor relations professor who helped developed the
program with The Center for Community Change in Washington, D.C.
Sigo cards cost $4.95, and have a $2.50 monthly maintenance fee, a
portion of which is paid in dues to the nonprofit agency that issues the
cards, in order to fund the programs that assist the workers.
http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dn
FlZUVFeXkzJmZnYmVsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk3MDg0MTU1JnlyaXJ5
N2Y3MTdmN3ZxZWVFRXl5Mg=
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NEW BUSINESS TREND: CO-WORKING
KERRY MILLER, BUSINESS WEEK - Over the past few years, co-working
facilities - both grassroots, co-op-like versions and for-profit models
- have started popping up across the country and the world, from Seattle
to Copenhagen. A co-working wiki hosts pages for dozens of other cities
with co-working initiatives in progress. And while the concept of shared
office space is nothing new to entrepreneurs, an increasing number of
them are signing on and finding that the community-building and
networking benefits outweigh even the virtues of a shared fax machine.
In a recent report on the future of small business, the Silicon-Valley
based Institute for the Future pegged co-working as a trend to watch
over the next decade. After co-working first took off with clusters of
free-agent programmers and writers, its flexibility and low cost have
also proven a good match for startups unwilling to sign a long-term
lease. Because many of these facilities operate on a gym-membership
model that doesn't assign workers to specific desks, co-working is
cheaper than most subleasing arrangements. And unlike traditional
business incubators, co-working isn't just for startups with high-growth
potential. . .
One of the newest co-working facilities, for-profit Indoor Playground,
opened in Toronto on Feb. 1 with a mission statement focused solely on
supporting local entrepreneurial activity. The space's hanging dividers
and movable desks allow for reconfigurable work areas that can
accommodate growing businesses as well as community events. Those events
are planned by members themselves, both in person and through wikis.
Indoor Playground co-founder Mark Dowds calls it a hands-off approach to
business incubation: "We created an environment-an open space where
people can find each other, collaborate, and create great ideas. Then
we'll see what happens."
http://www.businessweek.com/print/smallbiz/content/
feb2007/sb20070226_761145.htm
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
ERBIN CROWELL, EQUAL EXCHANGE, IN COOPERATIVE GROCER - Today, just 10
corporations account for over 50 percent of the revenue generated
globally by food retailing. Not surprisingly, as agribusiness profits
have gone up, the share of the consumer dollar received by farming
families has declined dramatically. By 2003, there were just 1.9 million
working farmers in the U.S. - less than the prison population.
For African American farmers, the challenge is even more severe. For
example, in 1920, one in seven farmers were African American; by 1998,
just one in 100, a loss rate more than three times that of white
farmers. Like many of the small farmers that Equal Exchange works with
across Latin America, Africa and Asia, black farmers in the U.S. have
been shut out of markets, denied access to capital, and given racist
treatment at an institutional level. . .
Recently Equal Exchange and the Federation began exploring a new idea:
Domestic Fair Trade. The goal of the partnership is to bring the
Federations nearly 40 years of organizing for civil rights and community
development together with Equal Exchanges 20 years of international Fair
Trade experience and commitment to cooperation. The result will be
healthy snacks grown, processed, marketed, and sold by cooperatives.
Our first project is with Southern Alternatives, a pecan processing
cooperative in southern Georgia. Through collective action and
persistence, this group has managed to accomplish something inspiring: a
black-owned, cooperatively organized pecan processing facility that
includes farmers and workers. With the support of the Federation,
workers in the facility kept the business alive as a strategy for
preserving jobs in a rural area devastated by the modern agricultural
economy and abandoned by the textile mills that have moved overseas. .
http://cooperativegrocer.coop/articles/index.php?id=697
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NON-PROFIT TESTS BANK CARD FOR WORKERS
NORTH JERSEY - A New Jersey nonprofit is at the forefront of a
nationwide effort to grant special bank cards to low-wage workers,
including immigrants, regardless of their legal status. The New Labor
Center in New Brunswick, a workers center with a largely immigrant
clientele, is piloting a device called the Sigo card, developed by the
Newark-based company I.T.D.
Sigo acts as a kind of pre-paid debit card that workers can use to
deposit money directly into an account and cash checks, or send
duplicate cards to family members so they can withdraw remittances
directly from an ATM in their country, at a better rate than money
transfer agencies.
"The idea was, could we save workers money, provide a secure place to
put their money and get them on an asset-building path," said Janice
Fine, a Rutgers labor relations professor who helped developed the
program with The Center for Community Change in Washington, D.C.
Sigo cards cost $4.95, and have a $2.50 monthly maintenance fee, a
portion of which is paid in dues to the nonprofit agency that issues the
cards, in order to fund the programs that assist the workers.
http://www.northjersey.com/page.php?qstr=eXJpcnk3ZjczN2Y3dn
FlZUVFeXkzJmZnYmVsN2Y3dnFlZUVFeXk3MDg0MTU1JnlyaXJ5
N2Y3MTdmN3ZxZWVFRXl5Mg=
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
NEW BUSINESS TREND: CO-WORKING
KERRY MILLER, BUSINESS WEEK - Over the past few years, co-working
facilities - both grassroots, co-op-like versions and for-profit models
- have started popping up across the country and the world, from Seattle
to Copenhagen. A co-working wiki hosts pages for dozens of other cities
with co-working initiatives in progress. And while the concept of shared
office space is nothing new to entrepreneurs, an increasing number of
them are signing on and finding that the community-building and
networking benefits outweigh even the virtues of a shared fax machine.
In a recent report on the future of small business, the Silicon-Valley
based Institute for the Future pegged co-working as a trend to watch
over the next decade. After co-working first took off with clusters of
free-agent programmers and writers, its flexibility and low cost have
also proven a good match for startups unwilling to sign a long-term
lease. Because many of these facilities operate on a gym-membership
model that doesn't assign workers to specific desks, co-working is
cheaper than most subleasing arrangements. And unlike traditional
business incubators, co-working isn't just for startups with high-growth
potential. . .
One of the newest co-working facilities, for-profit Indoor Playground,
opened in Toronto on Feb. 1 with a mission statement focused solely on
supporting local entrepreneurial activity. The space's hanging dividers
and movable desks allow for reconfigurable work areas that can
accommodate growing businesses as well as community events. Those events
are planned by members themselves, both in person and through wikis.
Indoor Playground co-founder Mark Dowds calls it a hands-off approach to
business incubation: "We created an environment-an open space where
people can find each other, collaborate, and create great ideas. Then
we'll see what happens."
http://www.businessweek.com/print/smallbiz/content/
feb2007/sb20070226_761145.htm
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