CICOPA, the world organization representing industrial and service cooperatives (of which CECOP – CICOPA Europe is the regional organization for Europe), has been working over the last few years on analyzing and identifying the different forms of cooperative work.

This includes employees, self-employed producers, worker-members, as well as forms that are now emerging like freelancers and independent workers and new working relations like in multi-stakeholder cooperatives.
It emerged that our cooperative sector constitutes the core of this work experimentation and is concretely dealing with such top issues as the reemergence of the informal economy, the management of platforms against “uberization” and refugees’ work. This particular workshop is taking place within the framework of a series of initiatives, in which CECOP - CICOPA Europe and CICOPA have been involved: • In June last year CECOP organized a first workshop on the future of work, where a representative from Eurofound was invited to make a presentation;
• In November last year CECOP made a presentation at an ILO- European Economic and Social Committee (EESC) Conference on the Future of Work, which will be included in an incoming book;
• CICOPA is presently completing a second study on cooperative employment, after the first one published in 2014, with updated figures and a specific focus on the informal economy, platforms, the various forms of work and statistical methodology;
• CICOPA, in partnership with the ILO and the Committee of Cooperative Research of the International Cooperative Alliance, is currently drafting a book on cooperatives and the world of work with particular attention focused on the ILO Centenary Initiative.

A number of key speakers will take part including Simel Esim, Head of the ILO COOP Unit presenting the ILO Centenary Initiative on the Future of Work, Sandrino Graceffa, Managing Director of Smart.be that will share his experience on how to organize freelancers in cooperatives and Sira Madigata, a Malian refugee and worker at the Italian cooperative "San Filippo Neri".

We invite you to join this public event!
Register by filling this form

 Please, notice that if you have already registered for the CECOP General Assembly, you do not need to register to the workshop. Full programme available here