Few studies have critically examined underlying assumptions of the civic spillover hypothesis that participation at work begets participation in civic life. We complicate extant theory by employing mixed methods and the most systematic dataset collected to date on firms fully owned and democratically governed by workers in the United States. Our findings about motivation to join participatory workplaces, substitution of workplace for civic engagement, and permeability of the boundary between professional and civic spheres lay the groundwork for a new conceptual model of civic spillover that illuminates the black box of this social process and sheds light on debates about the implications of workplace structure for democracy in America.

In 2009, United Steelworkers (USW) and Mondragon signed an agreement to promote union co- ops: firms that combine democratic worker ownership and union membership. Eleven U.S. initiatives now seek to implement the USW-Mondragon union co-op model, prompting a debate about whether unions and worker cooperatives are stronger together. This article draws on a case study of the first such initiative in Cincinnati, Ohio to put claims about the model in dialogue with aspirations and experiences of people on the ground. I synthesize six possibilities and dilemmas of union involvement in worker cooperative formation and argue that these considerations should structure the future debate.

In 2009, United Steelworkers (USW) and Mondragon signed an agreement to promote union coops: firms that combine democratic worker ownership and union membership. Eleven U.S. initiatives now seek to implement the USW-Mondragon union coop model, prompting a debate about whether unions and worker cooperatives are stronger together. This article draws on a case study of the first such initiative in Cincinnati, Ohio to put claims about the model in dialogue with aspirations and experiences of people on the ground. I synthesize six possibilities and dilemmas of union involvement in worker cooperative formation and argue that these considerations should structure the future debate.

This paper addresses the relationship between resistance and building in collective political struggle. Although protests, strikes, and other repertoires of contention are well-studied in the contentious politics literature, relatively few scholars examine the interplay of contentious strategies and tactics with constructive action that builds social-relational infrastructure to meet collective needs. I draw on a case study of the campaign to divest from fossil fuels and reinvest in climate solutions to illustrate how contentious and constructive dimensions are intertwined in the climate movement. I generalize from this example to argue that constellations of ideologically-saturated constructive strategies and tactics – what I call repertoires of construction – have unique dynamics and implications for social movement theory that warrant analytical attention in their own right. Working paper presented at the 2022 Mobilization Conference in San Diego, California. Please check with the author for updates or corrections before citing.

PurposeWorker cooperative practitioners and developers often claim that democratic worker ownership advances egalitarianism within and beyond the workplace, but most of the empirical evidence in the USA is based on ethnographic case studies or small-scale surveys. This study aims to leverage the first national survey about individuals' experiences in these unique firms to test for the presence of inequalities by gender, race and immigration status in the broader sector.Design/methodology/approachThe study uses a 2017 survey comprising a sample of 1,147 workers from 82 firms. This study focuses on measures of workplace benefits that capture material and psychological ownership, wealth accumulation, wages, workplace autonomy and participation in governance. This study uses ordinary least squares regression models with fixed effects alongside pooled models to determine the effects of gender, race, immigration status and the intersection of gender and race on these outcomes, both within and between firms.FindingsThis study finds no evidence of wage gaps by gender, race or immigration status within worker cooperatives, with job type, tenure and worker ownership status instead explaining within-firm variation in pay. Still, this study documents sector-wide disparities in material and non-material outcomes by gender, race and immigration status, reflecting differences in individual-level human capital and job characteristics as well as widespread occupational segregation and homophily.Originality/valueThe paper offers a novel contribution to the literature on workplace empowerment and inequality in participatory firms by analyzing race, gender and immigration status in the most robust dataset that has been collected on worker cooperatives in the USA.