Matthew Brown as Part of Who Owns the World? PCC Conference at the New School 2019

Summary

Matthew Brown at Who Owns the World Conference, convened by the Platform Cooperativism Consortium at The New School in November 2019. Brown is a guest speaker for the “Gig Worker, Freelancer, Self-Employed: Who Is Watching out for Them?” discussion panel.

How can the worker co-op form help workers in the informal economy, marked by deregulated tech firms and a decline of unions, both in the overdeveloped world as well as in the economically developing world? Where and how does technology play a role in answering this question?

Councillor Matthew Brown is Leader of Preston City Council in the north of England, where he has been widely credited as the driving force behind the Preston Model, an economic strategy at the city and county level that presents a comprehensive, interlinked approach to community wealth building as a practical and transformative alternative to austerity and disinvestment. First elected to represent the Tulketh ward in 2002, Councillor Matthew Brown subsequently took on portfolios that included community engagement and inclusion, social justice and policy initiatives, leading to his election in 2018 as Council Leader, and to a position as an advisor to the Labour Party’s Community Wealth Building Unit.