We're delighted to be partners with this years Open Coop conference - our co-initiator Indra is chairing some session - and in the spirit of that, we've picked up on this amazing story of platform-coop activism from Barcelona. 

["Remind me what a platform coop is again?" "Just like traditional co-ops, platform co-ops are organisations that are owned and managed by their members. While traditional co-ops are normally based around a physical community of members, platform co-ops live online and are normally populated by online communities of members". More here. And enjoy this interview with platform coop's theory-head, Trebor Scholz]

Here's the story, from LabourNet TV:

In May 2017 riders at Deliveroo, Glovo and UberEats began to organise in Spain, holding strikes and protests across the country. In Barcelona they created the RidersXDerechos campaign (Riders4Rights) to demands better conditions and basic protections, such as the right to a minimum hourly wage.

The companies reacted by dismissing many riders for their union activities. Now they are taking matters into their own hands and founding their own cooperative delivery app “Mensakas”.

“The cooperative will be self-managed by its own workers. Everyone will have an employment contract and therefore taxes and social security contributions will be paid."

"This doesn’t mean that we are abandoning the struggle for dignity to become entrepreneurs. Quite the contrary. The Mensakas app project will help strengthen self-organization among riders so that they can continue struggling against precarious work, as well as providing real experience of collectivisation and economic sovereignty. Will you help us? :)” say the Mensaka riders.

Here is their crowdfunding site, and below a short video of their case.