Introduction

• A key Report on self-organization by independent workers: Not Alone. Trade Union and Cooperative Solutions To Self-Employment. By Pat Conaty, Alex Bird and Philip Ross. Co-operatives UK, 2016 [1]

• Manifesto for a Common Ground for Independent Workers calls for a new labor statute that combines autonomy and security

[2]

Worthy of attention and support

• The P2P Foundation supports the convergence of self-organized labor and multi-stakeholder cooperatives and solidarity economy entities on the one hand, with open models that sustain livelihoods and co-create commons. This is convergence of models is called Open Cooperativism and can take special forms like Platform Cooperativism or Data Cooperatives. This calls for mutual support and relations between productive communities based on open contributions (i.e. Commons-Based Peer Production, and post-corporate ethical entrepreneurial coalitions (see http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:Post-Corporate).

• The P2P Foundation supports the emergence of Commonfare practices of social solidarity for networked workers who co-created commons and shared resources (see our special section http://p2pfoundation.net/Category:P2P_Solidarity), as well as their integration with a strengthened welfare system. In particular we support the creation of 'labor mutuals', i.e. freelance coops which already exist in the French-speaking world (Coopaname in France ; SMart in Belgium, Bigre, etc ..; see the project of AltGen in the UK). Read up here at Business and Employment Cooperatives, they are a "legal form (in Belgium, France ?) that allows self-employed to be salaried by their own joint cooperative, thereby obtaining the social protections of the salaried workers".

• The P2P Foundations supports the call for a New Mutualism by Sara Horowitz

Key Resources

Key Articles

• Using the Concept of the Social Commons to Rethink the Welfare State. Francine Mestrum.

• P2P Alternatives to Emergency Medical Services (on Street Medics and related initiatives)

Key Books

• Digital Solidarity. Felix Stalder. Mute Books and Post-Media Lab, 2013

• Mutual Aid Beyond Communism. Jeff Shantz.

• With Liberty and Dividends for All: How to Save Our Middle Class When Jobs Don’t Pay Enough. By Peter Barnes. Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 2014

• Guy Standing. Precariat Charter: From Denizens to Citizens. Bloomsbury, 2014 [3]: discusses how rights - political, civil, social and economic - have been denied to the Precariat, and argues for the importance of redefining our social contract around notions of associational freedom, agency and the commons."

Background:

• Hauke Brunkhorst, Solidarity: From Civic Friendship to a Global Legal Community, trans. Jeffrey Flynn (Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press, 2005): " a comprehensive intellectual history of solidarity from Aristotle to the present, with a chapter devoted the related concept of fraternité in post-revolutionary French thought"

• Redesigning Distribution: Basic Income and Stakeholder Grants as Cornerstones for an Egalitarian Capitalism. By Bruce Ackerman, Anne Alstott, and Philippe Van Parijs. Verso, 2006. [4]

• Esping-Andersen, G. 1990. The Three Worlds of Welfare Capitalism. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

In French:

• Marie-Claude Blais, La solidarité: Histoire d’une idée (Paris: Gallimard, 2007).

Key Practices

(Neo)Traditional Gifting/Sharing/Cooperative Practices:

Via Co-Creative Recipes:

1. Ayni: a term with a meaning that’s closely related to minga. It describes a system of work and family reciprocity among members
2. Bayanihan: in the Philippines,'communal unity'
3. Córima: The Rarámuri people of Mexico’s Chihuahua mountains use the word “córima” to describe an act of solidarity with someone who’s having trouble.
4. Gadugi: a term used in the Cherokee language which means “working together” or “cooperative labor” within a community
5. Gotong-Royong: in parts of Indonesia and Malaysia, Gotong-royong is a cooperation among many people to attain a shared goal with ideas of reciprocity or mutual aid.
6. Guelaguetza: a cross between a potlatch and a tequio. The term describes “a reciprocal exchange of goods and services”.
7. Harambee: a Kenyan tradition of community self-help events, e.g. playdraising or development activities. Harambee literally means “all pull together” in Swahili
8. Imece: a name given for a traditional Turkish village-scale collaboration.
9. Maloka: (or maloka in Portuguese) is an indigenous communal house found in the indigenous Amazon region of Colombia and Brazil.
10. Meitheal: the Irish word for a work team, gang, or party and denotes the co-operative labour system in Ireland where groups of neighbours help each other in turn with farming work
11. Mutirão: This is originally a Tupi term used in Brazil to describe collective mobilizations based on non-remunerated mutual help.
12. Naffīr: an Arabic word used in parts of Sudan (including Kordofan, Darfur, parts of the Nuba mountains and Kassala) to describe particular types of communal work undertakings.
13. Tequio: a very popular type of work for collective benefit in the Zapotec culture. Community members contribute materials or labor to carry out construction work for the community.