Day by Day Chicago Recap from Xiomara Brown

Xiomara Brown shares journal entries from her three days in Chicago.

What can you say about your experience at Worker Co-op Conference Jeremy, our Media Manager, asked me. There is so much information in my head that I don’t even know where to start, but I guess we start at the beginning right?

Thursday, September 12th - Day 1

I left my house at 4:45 am to meet the crew at 5:00 am and headed out to the Reagan Airport for our 9:45 am flight. We arrived in Chicago at 10:55 am or so and took an Uber to go straight to the Chicago Teachers Union headquarters, making it right on time for the first meet up block which started at 12:00 pm. There are people everywhere. Of course, it is a national conference. Duh!

We walk inside trying to make sense of where to go or what to do. I see a guy with a green lanyard and clipboard. I say, “Hi! I just arrived. Where do I go?” He kindly points to the table that has the name tags. I found my name and they gave me a black lanyard to put on. It's official; I’m in this now.

As we walk through the crowd trying to find the meet up spots I get separated from the group, I walk back and forth, and I can’t see any familiar faces. I see a group of people making a circle in the auditorium, and they speak Spanish! So I sat close to the circle - just wanting to listen to what they would talk about. I’d hoped they wouldn’t make me talk but guess what? Turns out they made me introduce myself and talk about our coop. Everybody had to do it. There were so many Hispanics that somebody suggested there should be a conference for just Hispanic coops lol.WaterBottle piqued the interest of a lot of people; how do I know that, you may ask? There were at least 10 people asking me about what we do after this meetup, and this was just the beginning.After this, it is time for lunch, and this is a story for another time.

It’s time for meet up number two! I chose the Human Resources and Operations group. I wanted to hear from people that knew what they were doing and were more experienced in the coop environment. I wanted to take some helpful notes on how to make my department better. There were a lot of people in this group as well. In order to keep it short and effective, the lead person asks for 3 things in order to introduce ourselves: our name, where are we visiting from and one thing we wish we had more time for. I immediately start to feel a little nervous because there are so many things I don’t have time for and now they want me to choose just one? How do I choose? Do I go by the most silly one or the one I feel is most important? The one that concerns only my department? Or a personal aspect? I sit there with my mind spiraling a little and listen to what other people have to say. Turns out everybody is struggling with the same stuff I do! And not only that, I also learned that I don’t suck at my job (like I often feel). We don’t suck. I’m liking this already.

Day 2 - Friday, September 13th

It’s time to choose the session I’m going to attend at 9:30am. I choose Managing Conflict in worker cooperatives. In the business of people, conflict is always on the menu. I personally avoid conflict at all costs. I walk away, always. But when you work in HR that is not much of an option; conflict often arises and might as well be prepared for it. So, let’s find where this session is.

Sassy, the speaker for this session, is barefoot, wearing loose overalls, and she has a fidget library! The room is overflowing with people, and they keep coming. There are people sitting in chairs, sitting on the floor, sitting in the hallway. Yep, we all want to learn how to manage conflict. Sassy was amazing, so much energy! In 45 minutes, she squeezed in as much information as she humanly could. Even better, she uploaded resources onto the session page for us to download, so that was great! 

It’s time for the plenary or a meeting attended by all participants at a conference. They talked about advocacy successes fueled by worker owners and allies on the ground, challenges that we can address through public policy, and the potential to leverage legislative and policy support to grow the worker co-op movement. This was very eye opening as I personally had no idea how deep this movement goes and what it really is about.

And just like that is time for lunch. More talking to people, more questions to answer, more pictures of my badge and more unfinished conversations, because it is time for another session, so let’s find our next room!

Next, I chose a session called leaders growing leaders. This was an educational discussion of what positive cooperative leadership could be and what debilitating or ineffective leadership looks like. Again, very interesting and it gave me some ideas that I’m hoping I’ll be able to apply in our coop.  

There is a vendor fair and the coop awards. PODER Emma won the affordable housing award. Next time, it will be us, I think to myself. Red Emmas won an award as well! Yay Baltimore!

Day 3 -  Saturday, September 14th

It's time to pack my bags, we’re checking out from the hotel as we plan to go straight to the airport after the last session. My backpack is heavier than yesterday for some reason, I’m carrying the same stuff. Maybe I’m just tired? Yes, that's it. When was the last time I carried a backpack for 3 whole days attending different classes? Let’s not do that math we can just agree it’s been a while.

I chose the coop finances 101 for my morning session, and it was in Spanish. Now, everything I have learned in English while working for the coop (balance sheet, assets, P+L, etc) I know how to properly explain in Spanish, so I’m happy I chose that one. 

As interesting as this has been, I’m ready to go home. I miss my family. This is the first time I have been away from my son, and it’s getting to me. Also, I have socialized so much, way too much, and it is starting to feel unnatural. I do not socialize very often; I don’t like it. I don’t need it. I’m an introvert. I know, I am in HR. Life is full of ironies I guess. Talking and socializing is a survival skill that I learned. So this conference really put this skill to the test.

For my afternoon session, I choose onboarding for partnership. This session is provided by Rainbow Grocery, a cooperative founded 50 years ago! Yep, this is the one coop I found that has it figured out. They took us through their process from hiring an employee, to become a member, and the duties they have as members. I loved how open and accessible they are.hey offered to share whatever documentation we might need, their policies, their bylaws, so we can use them as a base to build our own.

I feel different now. I feel I understand better what a cooperative is, what it means, and how important they are. I understand now that we’re not perfect, and this is a learning journey. There is a world full of information,  resources to support this process, and I have a lot of information I need to go through. It’ll probably take me a few weeks to sort everything out. Remember that question about the things I wish I have time for? Yeah, I’ll get there.