ABSTRACT
Trade union organising ought to be central to the Preston Model of community wealth building, yet certain tensions can be exposed in the relationships between trade union actors and the focus on co-operative development. Using worker co-operative forms, and the particular notion of a union co-operative as a point of departure, we argue for convergence of interests between union and co-operative movements that reflect previous shared heritage and mutual objectives of decent work, renewal and revitalisation. As such, union organising efforts can be imaginatively linked to co-operative ideals of democratisation, worker voice and control. The care sector simultaneously represents a paradigm case of the failures of neoliberalism to deliver public goods, a vexed territory of precarious work indicative of union decline, and an opportunity to harness trade union and co-operative movement alliances to build alternative forms of work and care. In this chapter we stress the importance of union involvement in the Preston Model, identify the development of worker and union co-operatives as a potential means and end of union organising, and trace recent dialogue and challenges regarding co-operative solutions to the care sector crisis. We conclude that unions can play a key role in co-operative development, serving the economic and social justice goals of new municipal programmes such as the Preston Model and renewing union strength and legitimacy in the process.
