The report adopts an approach based on the concept of decent work deficits in order to identify specific problematic situations to which worker-owned cooperatives have been responding over the time. However, this report focusses particularly on independent workers (also called freelancers) whose situations are not covered sufficiently by political and institutional debates on non-standard employment.

As the examples from Belgium, Finland, France and Spain illustrate, cooperatives have been a laboratory for experimentation on innovative and sustainable forms of work and employment, providing a response to the needs of workers in non-standard employment situations, as well as their aspirations for creating a working community of the 21st century. The cooperative laboratory for new forms of work and employment suggests several possible scenarios which might allow us to embrace present and the future of Work. We invite you to discover them, as well as policy recommendations we are addressing to EU and national authorities.