Practices of cooperative members' democratic control

Co-operatives are democratic organisations controlled by their members, who actively participate in setting their policies and making decisions. Men and women serving as elected representatives are accountable to the membership. In primary co-operatives members have equal voting rights (one member, one vote) and co-operatives at other levels are also organised in a democratic manner.In general, this principle leads to the membership empowering a board of directors to make decisions who then often empower a manager to make operational decisions. However, in many worker co-operatives, this principle comes to life with non-hierarchical structures in which all decisions (the big strategic and philosophical to the small operational) allow input and decision making by the collective.