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The Allium is an elevated plant-based, worker cooperative restaurant focused on ethical, local, and creative food and libations in the heart of Calgary’s central Beltline community. Not only is The Allium serving up delicious drinks and dinners, but it is having a positive impact on the economy, changing the way we think about the structure of restaurants, and breaking down social stereotypes we’ve come to know.
Through collective ownership, worker cooperatives help provide individuals with self-empowering work and offer an alternative to our society’s dominant paradigm about what it means to be a business owner and an employee in today’s economy.
In this episode, we chatted with two dynamic individuals, Laura and Jared Blustein, co-owners and workers at The Allium. We talked about:
What worker cooperatives are
How The Allium differs from a ‘traditional’ restaurant
What’s worked and has proved to be more challenging throughout their journey
What they are most hopeful about as they look ahead
Learn More
About The Allium here: https://www.theallium.ca/
For more information on cooperatives or becoming a member of The Allium, please contact info@theallium.ca.
Useful article by recently deceased Sociologist, Erik Olin Wright, that helped to inform The Allium’s engagements; https://www.ssc.wisc.edu/~wright/How%20to%20be%20an%20anticapitalist%20for%20the%2021st%20century%20--%20full%20draft,%20July%2025%202018.pdf
Recording and production by Elise Martinoski of ABSI Connect. Music by the Fort McMurray youth of the SoundForce Collective.