ICA Asia and Pacific and the ICA-EU Partnership (#coops4dev) in collaboration with CICOPA (International Organisation of Industrial and Service Cooperatives) organised an online roundtable discussion on Worker Cooperative Legislation with the Japanese Worker Cooperative Union (JWCU). The discussion brought together around 30 participants from Australia, Belgium, China, India, Indonesia, Japan, the Philippines, and Singapore to share experiences in worker cooperative development.
Mr. Balasubramanian (Balu) Iyer, Regional Director, ICA-AP welcomed the participants and delivered the opening remarks on the relevance and importance of worker cooperatives in the region. He said that ICA-AP had organised an International Conference on ‘Cooperatives in the Changing World of Work’ and developed a response to highlight the role of cooperatives and collectives in addressing the challenges of Future of Work. Recently, it had also organized a discussion on worker cooperative buyouts on the theme, “Strengthening workers in the COVID-19 crisis”. The discussion gave an opportunity to know demonstrated interest, enabling environment, and the need for adequate funds and a pool of human resources to explore the worker buyout and other initiatives in the Asia-Pacific region.
Ms. Francesca Zaganelli, Membership Coordinator, CICOPA, made a presentation on the industrial and service cooperatives in Asia and the Pacific, highlighting the key recommendations made in the research work undertaken within the #Coops4Dev programme. The research was in close collaboration with local partners from different backgrounds (ICA member organisations, research institutes, individual cooperatives, and individual researchers) and was also fed by the previous collaboration between ICA-AP and CICOPA which allowed to conduct field research in India, Sri Lanka and Malaysia.
Mr. Osamu Nakano, International Relations Director, JWCU, talked about the unanimous adoption of the worker cooperative law by the Diet on 4 December 2020. The law will enable businesses to register as worker cooperatives. Prior to its adoption, Japan had no specific legal form for worker cooperatives, which had to register either as non-profit organisations or small and medium enterprises. This historic development paves the way for revitalisation of worker cooperatives and grants a new kind of autonomy to workers in Japan who are now empowered to invest and manage their own cooperative enterprises. Several industries key for Japan, including ageing, childcare and support industries to agriculture and forestry, will be directly benefited.
The newly passed Act consists of 171 articles and was written with a high level of labour standards in mind. Its main ambition is to provide the necessary legislation to worker cooperatives. By having proper recognition, they can promote employment opportunities through the cooperative principles including democratic member control and member economic participation. This in turn, will enable the newly established cooperatives to meet diverse demands in local communities, which ultimately contribute to their development and growth.
The common need which came across from the discussion was to introduce conducive public policies for cooperatives in industrial and service sectors. ICA-AP under the #Coops4Dev program shall continue to support such endeavours by sharing information through discussions touching upon topics of interest from across different countries. The discussion highlighted the need to undertake a pilot assignment to get the ground experience in one or two countries in the region. The participants also showed interest to make a stronger network of such co-ops in the region, giving fillip to the interest in ‘work’. The roundtable stressed upon the importance of data and research to build upon some of the work which has been accomplished.
