Worker Ownership in the Green Economy

A talk by Omar Freilla, founder of Green Worker Cooperatives in NYC

When: Tuesday, October 6 @ 7 p.m.
Where: Hyde Park Christian Church, 610 E. 45th St. Austin, TX 78751

Omar Freilla grew up in the South Bronx and returned home after earning a master’s degree in environmental science from Miami University in Ohio. He worked as transportation coordinator for the New York City Environmental Justice Alliance and program director for Sustainable South Bronx before founding Green Worker Cooperatives in 2003. Freilla, who also is a board member of the United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives, was awarded the 2007 Jane Jacobs
Medal for New Ideas and Activism, sponsored by the Rockefeller Foundation.

Green Worker Cooperatives is a South Bronx-based organization dedicated to incubating worker-owned and environmentally friendly cooperatives. In response to high unemployment and decades of environmental racism, the group creates new ways people can earn a living without polluting the earth or exploiting human labor. One goal of the organization is to turn the estimated 10,000 tons of construction waste that ends up in waste transfer stations in the Bronx each year into green-collar jobs for local residents. The group’s first cooperative project is ReBuilders Source, a retail warehouse for surplus and salvaged building materials recovered from construction and demolition jobs.

For video of an interview with Freilla, go to

http://futureofny.org/multimedia/interviews/omar-freilla

This event, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by Third Coast Workers for Cooperation, a new cooperative development center in Austin, TX, creating democratic jobs for the planet, for the people.

For more information, contact: carlos@thirdcoastworkers.coop