Did you know the United Nations declared 2012 to be the International Year of the Cooperative? The UN based its statement on the co-op business model's stunning growth. The UN found that, in 2012, one billion people worldwide were co-op member-owners, or one in five adults over the age of 15. The largest is Spain's Mondragon Corporation, with more than 80,000 member-owners. The UN predicts that by 2025, worker-owned co-ops will be the world's fastest growing business model. Back in this country, the phrase "worker cooperative" probably evokes vague notions of Communism, small-time craft vendors or the organic grocery store around the corner.

The UN claims businesses that are owned and managed by their workers tend to provide for equitable distribution of wealth, genuine connection to the workplace, and, just maybe, a brighter future for our planet.

Shift Change - a new documentary by Seattle area filmmakers Mark Dworkin and Melissa Young that will be screened Feb. 6 at Tacoma's Grand Cinema - visits the more than 50 year old network of cooperative businesses in Mondragon, and thriving examples of such businesses in the U.S. - from bakeries to solar energy to linen service and engineering. Through in-depth interviews with worker-owners, attendance at co-op meetings, and visits to the factory floor, the film shares on-the-ground experience, lessons and observations from the worker-owners on the front line of the new economy, arguing that in an economy where not much is certain, it's worth considering different ways for ordinary people to join forces in the name of profit.

THE GRAND CINEMA, 6:30 AND 8:30 P.M., $4.50-$9, FOLLOWED BY Q&A WITH FILMMAKERS, 606 FAWCETT AVE., TACOMA, 253.593.4474