Publications

San Jose Mercury News Op-Ed:
Employee Ownership Can Prevent Loss of Beloved Businesses and Local Jobs
David Smathers Moore, Kirk Vartan, and Hilary Abell; July 9, 2019

Layperson's Guide to TeamWorks' Financial and Legal Structures David Smathers Moore, 2008.

TeamWorks Cleaning pioneered a new legal structure for worker cooperatives in 2006 in partnership with attorney Bart Deamer of Bingham McCutchen. It uses a Limited Liability Company as the principal legal form and adds a corporate member to the LLC as a vehicle for holding the cooperative's shared capital and member profits that have not yet been paid out to them. This paper lays out why we did this and how it works.

Listening to Mondragon: Lessons from the Formative Period
David Smathers Moore, 2010.

The Mondragon cooperatives sustain more than 70,000 worker-owned jobs and generate billions in wealth for the Basque region of Spain. They have inspired cooperative movements around the world. Based on two trips to Mondragon and many years of reading, this short paper looks at lesson from the early years in the 1950s and 60s in an attempt to glean what may be some overlooked lessons.

Taking Root: Management Skill Development and the Immigrant Worker Cooperative Movement
David Smathers Moore, 2012

Many worker-owned cleaning cooperatives have been launched, some of grown, and a few have thrived. Those that survive have proven that they produce much more social and economic benefit for the members, clients, and society. So why aren't more such co-ops popping up everywhere? One of the reasons is that developing the skills needed to successfully manage a cooperative businesses in ways that are effective and at the same time transcend oppressive dynamics is super challenging. This paper shares some thoughts on how to develop more of this distinct kind of management capacity.

Thoughts on Building the Worker Cooperative Movement's Capacity in the U.S.
David Smathers Moore, 2012

The world sorely needs business forms that are much more socially inclusive, environmentally restorative, and economically viable. Worker cooperatives offer a promising approach, and some parts of the world such as Europe and parts of Latin America enjoy much more developed cooperative movements. These thoughts are notes from a presentation David did with Hazel Corcoran, Executive Director of the Canadian Worker Cooperative Federation