The BC Cooperative Association convened the Alliance for Cooperative Development last year to work with the provincial government and secure more resources for cooperative development across BC. The UCI was one of the 14 founding organizations of the Alliance.
In March 2022, the province of BC announced a new $2 million grant to the BC Cooperative Association. The UCI was a recipient of core support from this fund to allow us to hire a team of union co-op organizers, operations workers, and cooperative developers.
We were invited to the BC legislature in Victoria this Spring where Janet Routledge, Parliamentary Secretary for Labour acknowledged our work supporting and organizing precarious workers through the union cooperative model.
