Don't Miss the Eastern Conference of the U.S Federation of Worker Cooperatives!

  

For some individuals, Mary Hoyer’s job would be like herding long-tailed cats in a room full of rocking chairs. She is organizing the 4^th Biennial Conference of the Eastern Conference of the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives, a thinly spread group of like-minded individuals up and down the East Coast.

Only Melissa Hoover, who staffs the U.S. Federation and organizes a nationwide conference every two years, may have a greater challenge. 

Hoyer does not seem the least flustered either by the number of people she answers to as the Conference’s lead organizer, or by the number of individuals she must negotiate with at the University of North Carolina/Asheville, where the gathering is to be held, or by people calling to say they want to provide some service. 

There may be two reasons why she remains so calm, even as the event is closing in on her:  First, she retired after teaching in Hartford, Ct  schools 30 years, all the while a union activist, and second, she organized a hugely successful conference at the sprawling  University of Maryland campus four years ago.  She was unflappable during the 2.5 days then, and is expected to be the same in Asheville.

Since leaving the classroom, Hoyer became a staff consultant for the Cooperative Fund of New England. That was 13 years ago. Thus, she knows most persons planning to attend already and a number of persons in  Asheville who are to be part of the event, including artists and musicians. 

And what does she have to say about how this year’s gathering: 

• It seems very exciting. People are stepping forward voluntarily to share experiences, information and their skills. There are over 30 workshops in three strands - creating democratic workplaces, managing and financing democratic work places, and building the workplace democracy movement.
• We have an outstanding keynote speaker and long-time advocate of worker-owned businesses, Lynn Williams, former president of the United Steelworkers of America, and the first international union president to actively promote worker ownership in the United States since the 1800s when the Ironmongers’ Union set up a correspondent school for members wanting to know how to start cooperatives.
• There will be free spaces for workshops that will spring up spontaneously, or which have come to her attention since the formal schedule was printed. One of these spaces will be held by SACCO for persons interested in blogs, to discuss how these now communications means may help build movements for social and economic justice.
• We have arranged a downtown tour of two artist-owned and managed cooperatives on Friday evening. Saturday evening attendees are free to choose where they will dine and walk about in  Asheville's exciting downtown. Buses will take participants back to UNCA. 
• The opening plenary panel will take a realistic look at the challenges and rewards of organizing worker cooperatives in the South. We expect Southerners to provide answers to most of these challenges, and what they see as rewards.
• Topping the conference’s business agenda is a discussion of how the Eastern Conference might assist Southerners trying to organize and to manage worker cooperatives. 

For more details go to: http://east.usworker.coop/default.htm

See you there!