Regular Worker Co-op Membership

The goal guiding the structuring of the CWCF is to develop a national bilingual organization that is responsive to needs of the individual worker co-ops and provides a unified voice for the worker co-op sector on national issues of common concern. The regular membership is open to any worker co-op (this may include other corporate forms provided that the organization is democratically controlled by the workers) which supports the objects of the Federation.

Regional Federations

The CWCF currently has three regional federation members, the Quebec Forestry Co-op Federation, le Réseau de la coopération du travail du Québec and the Ontario Worker Co-op Federation.

Other Classes of Members

Besides Worker Co-ops and Regional Federations, the CWCF also has two other classes of membership: Associate Members and Worker Co-op Developer Members. Associate membership is open to any organization that supports the objectives of the Federation. Worker Co-op Developer membership is open to individuals that are working in or supporting cooperative development initiatives. The members, from all classes, must be approved by the CWCF's Board of Directors.

Voting

The CWCF has a delegate voting process at its general meetings. There are a maximum of 50 delegates for the Worker Co-op Member class. They are allocated equally between the five regions of the country; thus each region has a maximum of ten delegates. If at a general meeting, a region has more than ten worker co-ops represented, then the representatives from that region (one from each worker co-op) elect ten delegates from among the representatives to vote at the general meeting.

The Associate Member, Worker Co-op Developer Member and Regional Federation member classes each have up to five delegates. As noted above, if there are a greater number of representatives than the allowable delegates, the representatives from the particular class will elect from among themselves their five delegates.