Inequality is at its highest since records began: 50% of the United Kingdom (UK) population owns just 1% of the wealth. The richest 10% of the UK has 100 times the wealth of the bottom 10%.
Last year, together, the cooperative sector in the UK The 'Co-operatives Fortnight' looks for raise awareness of how cooperatives offer a way of doing business in which everyday employees, customers and residents have an equal say in decisions and share the profits.
The 2011 Fortnight will take place from 25 June to 9 July with the theme ‘Yours to share’ which represents the shared ownership and the share in profits that makes cooperatives different. In order to show how cooperatives share, Co-operatives UK aims to get 100.000 signatures for a petition calling for cooperative action to narrow the gap between rich and poor.
Co-operatives UK is calling on the British Government to support action to share ownership and wealth in a cooperative way encouraging business to share profits with workers for example, as it is the case for worker cooperatives or cutting red tape so that it is as easy to start a cooperative as any other form of business.
- TWITTER: http://twitter.com/CoopsFortnight
