I wonder about how labor unions have increasingly come out in favor of mutualization of larger megacorporations, particularly in their favoring of worker cooperatives as a model for such mutualization.

I wonder about it because I’m a bit lost on whether worker co-ops are in philosophical conflict with consumer co-ops: both are mutualized institutions meant to at least provide a more transparent product and more democratic governance, but worker-owned co-ops are more limited in their demographic and democratic spread than consumer co-ops, and they are more bound by necessity to ensure job security for all worker-owners.

Job security, of course, is good: it not only fits within the labor unions’ ultimate goal of protection of jobs and worker welfare (by mutual assurance, if need be), but it also guarantees that any owning member will have a means of generating income for both oneself and for the other members of the co-op, giving worker co-ops a philosophical and financial advantage over consumer co-ops, which are larger in membership but provide seemingly basic, threadbare benefits in comparison.

Of course, even if the worker co-ops assimilate into each other to create a megacooperative conglomerate, it may only make a fraction of consumers into worker-owners. Its not like the labor unions will be able to announce "Hey, everyone aged 18+ in the country is hired, so come clock in on Monday! We’ll send everyone – including you – to a day job, get you educated, and get you settled into an apartment at the same time!" It would be nice to dole out job positions like nation-states dole out citizenship, but I doubt that worker cooperative federations or conglomerates will be able to ensure jobs and income for all adults in that way….at least, not with the way that worker cooperative federations are structured.