Countering marginalisation through ‘cooperative democracy’: The case of worker co-ops in Japan

While worker cooperatives aim to achieve both solidaristic and social goals, there is less understanding of how the democratic structure of worker cooperatives interacts with an inclusive work environment among differently motivated and empowered workers. This study aims to fill this gap by exploring how democratic arrangements in the workplace contribute to the inclusion of marginalised workers through an analysis of Worker Co-ops in Japan—a network of worker cooperatives with roots in a job-creation movement by unemployed workers which has expanded in the realm of care. The study shows how Worker Co-ops have reinterpreted democracy as a cooperative practice of institutionalising the relational conditions for drawing out the perspectives of others and provides insights into how this also enables them collectively to resist dominant societal narratives that contribute to their marginalisation.