Worker Coops Build the Solidarity You're Looking For

November, 17, 2025

Paul Richards-Kuan

Rolling up to the Carcere Bollate, the prison that has become the epicenter of Italian prison reform, you can't help but to feel a deep sense of underwhelm. Yep. This is a prison. I’m here to study how cooperatives are used for prisoner rehabilitation. If you are an American who has ever interacted with the carceral system, there is little interest in creating a space for awe, wonder, curiosity, home, or reflection. It is about creating the cheapest warehouse for humans. The Italian prison system is unfortunately modeled on the US carceral system.

The cinder block exterior belies transformative actions going on inside. When I meet L, she is energetically doing work that I would scarcely describe as stimulating. Sorting and packaging toothbrushes made elsewhere isn’t exactly a dream job. And it’s not like L is a lightweight. She has a university education and has thoughtful reflections on her time of incarceration. But what slowly unfolds is a workplace animated by joy. 

The four people working with their hands around a table are L, 2 immigrants, and a trans man. They begin to tell their stories. Some described the frustrations of incarceration, others the racism that a Black immigrant experiences. The trans man has no interest in an interview, but he relents when his colleagues ask if they can share some of his stories. As a transgender man, he isn’t allowed to stay in the men’s or women’s dormitory, instead being segregated in a small housing unit. Instead of being with a men's work crew, he is required to work with women. His first day on the job looked like this would be another exercise in exclusion and bigotry that he has faced all around society. The women around him loved to make small, biting jokes that remind him that people are threatened by somebody living outside the gender binary. These jokes create small reminders that you are not wanted, cared about, or desired in that space. Until, L, the informal manager in the work place, shuts down the teasing. “It was simple,” L explains, “you just tell them to cut it out and people quickly realize what they are doing is unacceptable.” 

This is a business, not just a prison job. This is a pathway to the outside, not a time to while away while serving time. This has a purpose, and it’s not just about making money for the boss. While here, these workers have a shared purpose that requires them to work together. These different people from disparate backgrounds are practicing what Joerg Rieger describes as deep solidarity.They have built strong relationships around shared struggle to build a workplace that builds power together. Across difference they have a common purpose. And while that purpose may be related to the packaging and distribution of a dental hygiene product, they are saving for reentry, supporting family on the outside, and eating well from commissary. 

This business is a social cooperative, a kind of cooperative written into Italian law that incorporates elements of a worker cooperative and a non-profit. Each worker is paid a wage close to the salary of an outside job and because they have special tax breaks, they are able to compete in the marketplace. Social cooperatives must employ at least 30% of socially disadvantaged groups, including prisoners, the recently released, refugees, and people with intellectual disabilities to receive this benefit. This is not the 12 cents an hour horror story of a US prison job, the legal form of slavery still allowed under the 13th amendment to the US constitution. These are well paying democratic workplaces. Because each worker is given a say in how the business is operated they are also given agency.

Agency feels small and unimportant until it is taken away from you. Many years ago when Amazon was starting to spread distribution centers to nearly every corner of the country, my neighborhood heard the news that the empty factory at the freeway exit was being converted to an Amazon warehouse. For an immigrant and working-class neighborhood, the $18 an hour wages were guffaw-worthy. Surely, wages like this would create the kind of freedom that only money can buy. But it didn’t take long for stories from the warehouse to start reaching neighbors; tough working conditions characterized by infrequent breaks, breakneck speeds in addition to a harsh anti-union stance made for less-than-ideal conditions. Despite decent wages, many neighbors still felt like this was a trap. When an underresourced agency like OSHA starts complaining, you know that it has gotten bad. Wages are not the only thing workers need to feel free. For workers, they need to have a sense of control over their work. Back to our prisoners, agency is nearly akin to freedom. For the 4 employees described above, when they cross the threshold of the cooperative they briefly get to experience freedom, even though they are still behind the walls of prison. 

This business is possible because of significant legal frameworks and government incentivizing of the Italian cooperative sector. Led by the organizing of both Catholic and leftist groups, Italy makes new cooperative businesses far easier to start than in the US. Pandora Social Cooperative, the cooperative in this prison, is the work of a deeply faithful Catholic entrepreneur. Committed to his faith, he imagined an economy that worked for the liberation of all people. This commitment is felt throughout the cooperative. When Davide Domiano is asked about his motivation, he is clear that the late Pope Francis had a big role to play. He learned from Francis that a life that was not in service to others is nonsensical, even a betrayal of Christ. To be a faithful Christian, something he takes seriously in all aspects of his life, creating workplaces of human dignity are central to the Christian calling. 

Joy, fair wages, agency. This isn’t just a model for the transformation of the prison system, this is a model for the transformation of all employment and indeed society. For so many workers at the bottom of the income ladder, their jobs already feel like a prison. In many parts of the United States, you need to work 80 or 90 hours on minimum wage to be able to afford a 1 bedroom apartment. If you are struggling for shelter, groceries, and healthcare, how much agency do you experience in your life? If we create jobs with good pay and agency, we begin to transform how our society works for all people. Work becomes less like something to survive, and more like a vocation. Cooperativism creates new spaces for liberation that bind people together, forging a deep solidarity that makes family out of strangers from disparate backgrounds. Let’s create agency at work through democratic workplaces so that freedom is something we can all find.  And let’s create jobs that pay people wages that allow abundance for everyone.