We have achieved so many things that we probably would not have been able to accomplish in a company owned by one person.
— Maricela Lopez, a worker-owner at Opportunity Threads, part of the Carolina Textile District.
Western North Carolina has long been a center for manufacturing, especially of textiles and furniture. Despite free-trade agreements, which stripped jobs from communities on both sides of the US-Mexico border, one in four people in North Carolina’s Western Piedmont region still work in manufacturing. Many Guatemalan Mayan immigrants have settled in the area to work in textiles and furniture production. Over the years, they have shaped the region by campaigning for dignified workplaces. Organizer Molly Hemstreet witnessed their struggle to unionize a production facility in Morganton, North Carolina, and began to wonder: Could workers own and operate their own companies?
In 2008, Hemstreet and leaders from the Mayan community co-founded a sewing cooperative, Opportunity Threads. They drew on inspiration from Frank Adams, an early architect of the Highlander Folk School (now the Highlander Research and Education Center). Opportunity Threads has become one of the largest immigrant-led sewing co-ops in the United States, with more than 50 workers as of 2020.
Aiming to expand cooperativism across the textile industry and strengthen local supply chains, Hemstreet collaborated with the area’s economic development association and a textile research and development center to establish the Carolina Textile District (CTD). Fueled by its mantra, “be big by being small together,” CTD is a network that brings together over 30 small manufacturers, including Opportunity Threads, and is led by nine partners, representing 1,500 workers in total. Members cooperatively govern, train new workers, share contracts and contacts, develop strong ethical standards for the industry, and share their struggles and joys.
When the COVID-19 pandemic struck the United States in early 2020, CTD was well-positioned to produce personal protective equipment and cloth face masks. Pivoting its textile and furniture member-companies to manufacture medical supplies was a challenge with many moving parts. It required consulting with doctors and public-health professionals, navigating ever-changing federal guidelines, prototyping masks and gowns, sourcing medical-grade materials, organizing the cohorts of manufacturers, connecting with markets and sponsors, developing a cohesive warehousing and distribution center, upscaling production, and overseeing quality control. As factories in Western North Carolina were shuttering, CTD was not only safely keeping open their plants, but hiring as well. The pandemic underscored the need for CTD and accelerated the network’s growth.
Opportunity Threads was the hub for CTD’s sewn goods during the pandemic. Worker-owners responded quickly, putting their technical skills to use in developing market-ready goods. Other CTD members came on board to help. Since CTD members had several years of “coopetition” under their belts, the network rapidly developed new products and increased production. At one point, they were producing 50,000 units per week, which kept over 60 mills humming. “We have achieved so many things that we probably would not have been able to accomplish in a company owned by one person,” says Maricela Lopez, a worker-owner at Opportunity Threads.
Through this project, CTD supplied 190,000 sanitary gowns to North Carolina’s Department of Health and Human Services and over 500,000 facemasks and other personal protective equipment to frontline workers. Additionally, it generated $2 million in revenue for its textile and furniture manufacturers. According to Sara Chester, CTD co-founder and Industrial Commons co-executive director, “When weekly mask production hit 40,000 units, [we] realized something tremendous was being achieved.”
Instead of communities having to wait for companies to come in and to solve economic, health, and social problems, cooperative industry networks can solve critical problems quickly and creatively. This model is one replicable example of how rural communities can actively build an industry ecosystem where workers own a secure supply chain, collaborate in mutually beneficial ways, and solve their communities’ most pressing problems.
