Solidarity Economy Breakout Room – 2021 Annual Convention
California Progressive 3rd Annual Alliance Convention
March 6th 12:30- 2:00 pacific
Building the Solidarity Economy: Putting People and Planet before Profit
Moderator: David Cobb
Three Presenters: 15 minutes each. Followed by discussion. Slides are welcome to screen share during each segment.
Panelists in this order:
1. Emily Kawano, US Solidarity Economy Network
2. Yassi Eskandari, Sustainable Economies Law Center
3. Trinity Tran, California Public Banking Alliance
Description of our session (100-200 words)
The Solidarity Economy is an explicitly post-capitalist framework that describes how we can organize our economy and society in an ecologically sustainable and social just manner. This framework is grounded in the following principles:
— Solidarity, mutualism, and cooperation
— Equity in all dimensions: race/ethnicity/nationality, class, gender, LGBTQ
— The primacy of social welfare over profits
— Sustainability
— Social and economic democracy
— Pluralism, allowing for different forms in different contexts, open to continual change driven from the bottom up
Emily will provide an overview of the SE framework.
Yassi will describe the statewide Worker Owned Recovery California (WORC) coalition. Trinity will discuss the status of public banking in CA.
BIOS & Photos
Emily Kawano
Emily Kawano is an economist by training who taught at Smith College and is the former Director of the Center for Popular Economics. She is the founder of the US Solidarity Economy Network, and served for eight years on the Board of RIPESS, (Intercontinental Solidarity Economy Network). She is currently the co-director of the Wellspring Cooperative Corporation which is building a network of worker owned co-ops in under-served communities in Springfield, MA.
Yassi Eskandari
Yassi Eskandari is an Attorney and Policy Director at the Sustainable Economies Law Center. She led the campaign that established groundbreaking worker cooperative development policies in the City of Berkeley, and and coordinates the statewide Worker Owned Recovery California (WORC) coalition. She is co-chair of the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives Policy & Advocacy Council, and sits on the board of the Bay Area Network of Worker Cooperatives (NoBAWC).
Trinity Tran
Trinity Tran is the co-founder of Public Bank Los Angeles and Divest LA, the coalition which pushed the City of Los Angeles to divest its finances from Wells Fargo Bank in 2017. She is a founding member and lead organizer of the California Public Banking Alliance (CPBA), a statewide coalition of grassroots groups which passed AB 857 the Public Banking Act in the CA State Legislature in 2019. As the Executive Director of Urban Partners Los Angeles, Trinity initiated the COVID-19 Emergency Food Bank at the start of the pandemic in March 2020 and now oversees one of the largest food banks in Southern California.