being self-employed in a workers co-op - co-operative consortia

Very timely, given that United Diversity LLP is basically a freelancers co-op (currently, of two, who both do tech stuff) and we're about to start asking loads more freelancers to get involved...

Hello @outlandish tell me more about your dilemma! :)

oh, see that outlandish are an LLP too!

@outlandish nice that you use sociocracy :) would love to meet and chat at some point :)

BTW, here is my current list of other UK web/ tech co-ops (know of any others I've missed?)... we should probably all get together and save the world or something (or at least start something similar to http://techworker.coop/ ):

Netuxo - drupal
http://www.netuxo.co.uk/

Gofreerange - ruby (sinatra)
http://gofreerange.com/

WebArch -
http://www.webarchitects.co.uk/

Software.coop
http://www.software.coop/

Co-operative Web
http://web.coop/

Wave
http://www.wave.coop/

The Creative Co-op
http://creative.coop/

Alpha Communication
http://alpha.coop/

Atomised
http://www.atomised.coop/

graphics.coop
http://www.graphics.coop/

London Developer Co-op
http://londondevelopercoop.com/

Nomad
http://nomad.coop/

Agile Collective - drupal
http://agilecollective.com/

3 Mules
http://3mules.coop/

Grow Collective - do they still exist?
http://gr0w.com/ re-directs to http://2008.gr0w.com/ and latest post seems to be from 2008 :-/

Cooportunity
http://coopportunity.org.uk/

KABA PC
http://www.kaba-pc.org.uk/

Outlandish (employee owned)
http://outlandish.com/

TSO Host (employee owned)
https://www.tsohost.com/

Hi Josef - it's off-topic but you could include us in your list: MC3 (http://mc3.coop) specialising in CiviCRM implementation and support, predominantly alongside Drupal, but we're able to work with Wordpress or Joomla also.

The US techworker.coop had a minor existential crisis recently when their domain registration fell due for renewal, but it seems to have galvanised them somewhat, though I'm still not clear what that network exists for.

If any of the groups you mention Josef need a co-operative partnership agreement for a LLP, CMS has a model. It's open source (we will share the model for free) but if people want us to help customise and/or register it with Companies House, we charge for that service.

The state or worker co-ops and self-employed co-ops was discussed at the last worker co-op council meeting and the view from the meeting is we should do more to embrace these new forms of worker co-operation (Do you still call yourselves workers or does that have tax implications?)

I'd love to find out and put on our database all the self-employed co-ops we know about so we can talk to them. Unfortunately when they are registered unless its specific stated in the rules (and someone has to read the rules!) there is no way to know who they are.

@davehollings brilliant! had a long chat with @iansnaith yesterday about updating 'How to Set Up a Workers Co-op' and co-operative partnership agreements which enable common ownership. Can I have a look at it?

@davehollings could I have one too?

Yes. I think I have both your e-mails - for anyone else my e-mail is dave@cms.coop.

Alston Wholefoods is a worker co-operative which uses this set of Rules (with a couple of customisations)

Just a quick point in response to Cath M. The LLP agreement I have sent you is not common ownership but co-ownership. This is for two reasons which ian may have a view on.
1. I don't think it is legally enforcable to have common ownership in a LLP. But a second legal opinion on this would be useful
2. It could produce inequities in the event of a dissolution. Members of a LLP pay tax on their share of the profits, not on their drawings. If some of those profits are left in the LLP on dissolution to be distributed to other bodies, I can't see how members would get back the tax they had paid on their share of those profits.