There are many different kinds of cooperatives - worker coops, producer coops, consumer coops, social coops, housing coops, etc.
Though this group is called Drupal Worker Cooperative - it seems that the intent is not just around worker co-ops themselves, but also around fostering something like a producer (in our case, service provider) cooperative for drupal workers (say - freelancers and existing businesses/worker co-ops).
These (producer or service provider cooperative) have a different legal and operational organization, and can be used for reducing costs for a lot of different things. Agricultural Cooperatives are the most common examples of producer cooperatives, which provide an (ideally) democratically organized array of services, supplies, marketing, distribution, etc. all at a discounted cost because a collective economy of scale is created, and the meta-organization that is this co-op (ideally) operates as a not-for-profit entity (it exists for the benefit of member organizations/businesses).
The model for this usually consists of a staff of workers who work for said entity, coordinating the collective needs of the member businesses and providing services. It is owned by all the member organizations - who have equal voting power. However, there are usually no distributions of draws, as excess revenue beyond payroll is re-invested in the producer co-op to expand services, capacity, and to hire more help. The staff themselves can be organized somewhat like a cooperative as well - though the ownership model can in some ways be different than a standard worker co-op (there are several ways to address this).
Thus, a 'Drupal Service Providers Cooperative' could provide:
IT-related services
- LAMP hosting (imagine - our own democratically managed hosting provider!)
- High performance LAMP deployment/development platform services (like Pantheon)
- Acquia-Gardens type services
- Training (for member businesses/freelancers and clients)
- Email, Video-conference, Group collaboration, and other services (for both member businesses and for clients)
Operational/Etc.
- Accounting
- Legal Consulting/support
- Training/Support for cooperative culture, democratic processes and operations
- Shared facilities for freelancers
- Group Benefits (insurance, 401(k), etc.)
- Even a credit union!
It could also serve the role of fostering the development of other drupal worker co-ops and freelance collectives. The sky is the limit!