In Pittsburgh, work could be owned differently

In the U.S., we're taught the only ways things get done are through private business or the government. For many, these options are deeply disappointing. But there is an underexamined alternative: worker-owned and community-owned cooperatives. When I ask fellow Pittsburghers what they know about co-ops, most think of the consumer grocery model, which had a resurgence in the 1960s and 70s, like the East End Food Co-op. But the cooperative movement, particularly here in Pittsburgh, has a far longer and more diverse history than most of us were taught.

Some of the earliest U.S. cooperatives date to the 1700s. The Underground Railroad is considered to be an early example, as it was governed by the member-conductors who ferried people, many through Pittsburgh, to freedom. 

In 1819, workers formed a producer cooperative, the Pittsburgh Manufacturing Association, collectively buying and running a warehouse where artisan and cottage industry workers could produce and consign their products for sale or barter. Goods produced and sold by cooperative members included farm produce, butter, cheese, wool, whiskey, soap, cloth, nails, plows, furniture, and roughly 60 other items.

In 1847, the first mass-production worker-cooperative factory in Pittsburgh was opened by a group of iron molders. In the following years, their success led to cooperatives of glassblowers, silver-platers, puddlers, and boilers. These workers even started a cooperative newspaper called The Pittsburgh Unionist.

Union and cooperative development accelerates in waves tied to economic, social, and political upheavals such as during the Civil War era into the Gilded Age.  In 1867, the International Molders Union organized a chain of more than 14 cooperative foundries in major cities, including Pittsburgh. These workers hoped cooperatives would replace the need for strikes, which was how workers won union recognition and bargaining prior to 1935. Workers hoped this was a permanent solution to fighting private employers over low wages and bad working conditions.

The International Molders model went under due to economic and other challenges of the Gilded Age. But in 1877, a general strike of workers took charge of Pittsburgh and organized their own survival programs for five days until the federal government sent troops in to regain control. The Pittsburgh Commune, as it was called, occurred four years after the historically more well-known Paris Commune of 1871, giving new meaning to the phrase "Pittsburgh, the Paris of Appalachia."

This grew into the efforts of the Knights of Labor (KOL), who organized at least sixteen worker cooperatives in the Pittsburgh region, part of a larger network of roughly 200 worker-owned cooperatives KOL organized by 1886. Unfortunately, the KOL and its cooperatives fell victim to a nationwide red scare after a bomb went off at a union rally in Chicago, commonly known as the Haymarket Affair. 

Another significant era of cooperative growth in the U.S. was the Great Depression. When privately owned electric companies refused to run power lines to rural areas because it wasn't profitable, people organized to build cooperatives to share costs and increase access. Electric co-ops still cover roughly 56–75% of the total U.S. landmass today, primarily in rural and suburban areas.

Researchers and practitioners like Jessica Gordon Nembhard, whose book Collective Courage is essential reading, believe we’re entering a fourth wave of cooperative development, particularly since the pandemic. The number of people seeking to form worker cooperatives has risen significantly, alongside a surge in union activity. The cost of living is climbing. Political and environmental instability is accelerating. Neither government nor private enterprise are equipped for these crises. Bringing true democratic principles into decision-making and economic distribution, cooperatives can empower people to solve their own problems and build their future collectively.

Consolidation of ownership into ever fewer private hands is making life worse for the rest of us. Notable examples include media mergers, such as Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros Discovery, which now control nearly half of the top 50 most-subscribed-to paid-TV channels. This consolidation means fewer, worse choices in media, reflecting narrower interests, lower wages, and job loss for workers, while companies continue to inflate prices.

We aren't taught the ways that work and control of resources could be done differently. This omission is not accidental; it reflects the owning class whose interests our economic education has served. But the cooperative tradition is long, global, and very much alive.

Cooperatives are on every continent, in over 100 countries. Nearly 3 billion people are made economically secure by cooperatives, with more than 12% of humanity participating in the 3 million cooperatives operating worldwide. Like unions, cooperatives are people-centered enterprises which emerge in response to economic discrimination and market failure. Cooperatives are collectively owned by the people who use them, not by whoever buys the most shares. Research consistently demonstrates worker cooperatives deliver economic and social advantages: enhanced workplace stability, increased productivity, greater resilience during downturns, higher wages, profit-sharing, and better benefits than comparable private businesses. Crucially, cooperatives extend their impact beyond membership to broader community development, providing essential services while anchoring jobs locally.

I've been a labor and community organizer for 14 years and seen workers fight for and win remarkable victories by building collective power in their workplaces and communities, particularly here in Pittsburgh. For example, Pitt Faculty Union workers, through organizing, won big raises, particularly for the lowest-paid faculty.  Many salaries nearly doubled when the salary floor was raised to $60,000 in their first contract, not to mention the job security measures that were secured. This contract win is inspiring, but the current labor paradigm of contract bargaining back and forth isn't currently enough to provide for the majority of people or the planet.

Pittsburgh is already part of the resurgent worker cooperative movement. Third Space Bakery in Bloomfield, Greenhouse Co-op in Greenfield, and Pin-Up Posters Courier Collective are worker-owned enterprises taking root here. Keystone Development Center helps develop new cooperatives in Pittsburgh and the Mid-Atlantic region.  The Pittsburgh Chamber of Cooperatives provides resources for worker-owned and member-owned businesses in southwestern Pennsylvania.

Pittsburgh Alliance for People-Empowered Reporting (PAPER), a group of Newspaper Guild of Pittsburgh journalists and supporters, gathered after the Post-Gazette announced its May 3 closure, which was later avoided by a sale to a new owner, the Venetoulis Institute for Local Journalism. PAPER, in light of massive layoffs under the Gazette’s new ownership, is continuing to host a series of town halls to find community support for a worker-community-run newspaper model. I’m planning to support them and encourage others in the community to join in exploring these models.