VOLUNTARY MEMBERSHIP: UP TO WHICH POINT DOCOOPERATIVES SUPPORT LIBERALISM?
In 1950, the most significant French legal thinker in cooperative law of the 20th century(Coutant 1950, p. 199) wrote about voluntary membership (LIBRE ADHÊSION)
In 1950, the most significant French legal thinker in cooperative law of the 20th century(Coutant 1950, p. 199) wrote about voluntary membership (LIBRE ADHÊSION)
This article aims to present, through comparative, historical and statistical method the importance of the judicial precedent for the research and study of Cooperative Law from the approach between the common law andthe Brazilian legal system, traditionally tied to the civil law system. Although the Codes arethe main sourcesof Brazilian Law,judicial precedent conquered relevant space in the Brazilian legal system due to the culture of valuing standardization of jurisprudential understandingtied to the technological modernization of the Brazilian legal structure. Based on that, the OCB System, as an entity that represents Brazilian cooperatives, has refined the research work and study of Cooperative Law through monitoring and disclosure of judicial decisions to strengthen the cooperative movement in Brazil.
The concept of the cooperative as an organizational model has gained renewed attention from practioners,policymakers, legislators and academia over the last decades,culminatingintheUnited Nations’ proclamationof 2012 as The Year of the Cooperative.After years of relative silence on cooperative law, questionswereraised about the adequacy of the legal infrastructure of cooperatives. Did the existing legal frameworks facilitate and foster the creation of cooperatives or are theyhampering the establishment and growth of cooperatives? Legalaspects of cooperatives have beenpaid more and more attention, notablyin the field of business organizationallaw, tax law and competition law. Also new challenges and innovations in the use of the concept of the cooperative lead to a necessity to adjust legal rules on cooperatives,for example with regard to renewable energy cooperatives, credit unions and the use of cooperatives inthe platform economy. These events were accompanied by the reemergence of the cooperative movement and the creation of social economy initiatives, which have been actively promoted by the European Union and haveled in several member states to concrete policy instruments, legal measures and inducements to promote businesses inthe social economy
The Principles of European Co-operative Law (‘PECOL’)considers the Portuguese social solidarity cooperative as anexampleof a co-operative model that approaches the general interest cooperative. The general interest cooperative and the Portuguese social solidarity cooperativeare both structured to pursue economic activity mainly in the general interest of the community. Theyalso base their entire activity on the notion of solidarity. For these reasons,the legal frameworksfor both types of cooperative have certain peculiaritiesregardingtheir categories of members, financial structure, governance and audit regimes. This paper analyses the main similarities and differences between the general interest cooperative and the Portuguese social solidarity cooperative.
Workers’ cooperatives are created to provide jobsfortheir worker-owners. It is a formula enablinga group of people to obtain employment undera cooperative systemthrough the creation of a jointly-owned company withdemocratic management,acompany thatcan specialise inrendering any service or producingany good, as long as theprinciples of the cooperative are not violated.However, some legal systems allow for the presence of salariedemployees who are workersincooperativeswithout beingmembers. Inthis case, the working relationship between the cooperative and those employees is governed by ordinarylabour law, known tobea field of law that developedin the sphere of the capital-labour conflict.In such acase, the cooperative is considered an ordinary employer;i.e., a common capitalist enterprise. This situatesus before the paradox that,in the nineteenth century,workers'cooperatives were designed to surmountthe exploitation suffered by wage-earners, whilein the 21st century,we find-at least in form -the capital-labour relationship within these same cooperatives.In this regard, the question of employees’ working conditions is also of interest,bearing in mind that a distinction must be drawn between the working conditions of the two groups mentioned above: member employees and salaried employees.
The article considers the role of administrative law and the impact of state authorities on the shape of cooperative law in Poland. The establishment of legal normsintroduceselements of public law into cooperative law. Thisarticle assesses these legal norms, including the regulation ofcredit unionsand housing cooperatives. In addition, it considers anewly shaped model of membership in housing cooperativesin Polish law. This model assumes thatmembershipcan be created,ex lege, in isolation from the will of the member, if theyacquire the right to occupy premises in a housing cooperative. This type of membership is an example of the Polish legislator usinghousing cooperatives to implement the public obligation to meet the housing needs of society.
The recent interest in Social Solidarity Economy has led to a proliferation of relevant laws in Europe. Greece has followed this trend with Law 4430/2016 on Social and Solidarity Economy and the development of its actors. This paper analyses the main provisions of this Law with regard to the scope,working definitions and legal entities eligible for registration as Social Solidarity Economy actors. The main intention is to open up the theoretical discussion on the legal entities whichare entitled to be included in SSE and to explore the relevant debates on convergences and divergences between social solidarity economy and the cooperative sector.It also illustrates the difficulty of translating principles into legal provisions in the specific legal contextof Greece with a highly fragmented cooperative legislation.
It is rightly said that energy is the driving force that keeps the world goingand that the main sources of energy we use (oiland coal) are unsustainable due to their finite and contaminating characteristics. Apparently, 87% of the energy we consume is not renewable2.This framework fosters the need to develop other sources of energy that are renewable and in general sustainable, such as sun and wind.
In Latin America, the existence of cooperative law has been recognized as a special branch of law2, a topic that is still a subject of discussion among jurists and is alsostrange for public authorities, both judicial and administrative, who prefer to apply civil law, commercial law or labor law, rather than cooperative law, more than anything else, due to ignorance on the matter.
In the Mytilinaios and Kostakis v Greececase, the European Court of Human Rights(hereafter “ECtHR”)examined whether the forced membership in a particular cooperative, which wasexclusively responsible to process and market its members’ production, constituted an infringementwiththe negative freedom of association of ar. 11 of the European Convention of Human Rights (hereafter “ECHR”). The Court’s case law on the negative freedom of association has beenlargelyassociated with trade-unions. In the case under study, however, the allegations of the violation of the negativefreedom of association wereexamined with regard to cooperatives. Thelatter posedthe question asto whether such factor wascrucial for the Court’s decision and what kind of impact the decision hadon the cooperative lawand the cooperative sector in Greece.