Our members at Cooperation Town asked for £1,000 to promote and organise a grass-roots ‘Cooperation Day’ festival on the spectacular roof garden at their hub in Camden, bringing together experienced cooperators and the co-op curious from London and further away to celebrate, learn and discuss co-op strategies for working class control and ownership. In the blistering heat of July 13th, a brilliant session on ‘Controlling work’ was put on by Kitty’s Launderette, Principle Six, Cooperation Town and Nanny Solidarity Network.
The session was led by Nanny Solidarity's Mira Hall, who is looking to start new worker co-ops involving low paid and migrant workers in the care sector. Grace Harrison came down from Liverpool to share her experience of setting up and growing a worker-led community laundry, social and cultural centre, which creates decent jobs for people who've experienced exclusion from work for a wide variety of reasons. Interventions from the floor were knowledgeable and passionate, by people from different countries and political organising backgrounds. Matt Wilson from Radical Routes rounded up by arguing for a more clearly anti-capitalist cooperative movement.
The workshop programme for the day wove together organising themes around working class money, housing and community power as well as employment and work. It was widely promoted as part of the 2025 UN International Year of Cooperatives, which ran with the slogan 'Building a Better World Together'. As a solidarity sponsor, we found out again that even a fairly modest financial contribution from our members can act like rocket fuel when it supports a together, creative crew like Cooperation Town.