Written in Spanish and English (on facing pages), this manual is a practical guide for those interested in forming a worker-owned cooperative. It includes examples based on the personal experience of teaching about cooperativism and worker-owned cooperatives to a group of construction workers with diverse levels of education; vocabulary and practice exercises are provided. Chapter 1 discusses the history and idea of cooperativism. Chapter 2 focuses on the doctrines and principles of cooperatives. Chapter 3 describes these types of cooperatives: production and marketing, marketing, service, retail, and worker owned. Chapter 4 on structure of worker-owned cooperatives describe functions and rights of these five branches: membership, board of directors, administrators, education committee, and social audit committee. An example illustrates how each branch functions in a worker-owned cooperative. Chapter 5 examines the relationship between rights and responsibilities of the members of a worker-owned cooperative and establishes the difference between them. Chapter 6 explains advantages of democratic businesses by comparing them to conventional companies. Chapters 7-12 consider making decisions in a worker-owned cooperative, membership fee, distribution of profits and sharing of losses, Internal Capital Account, by-laws, and organization of the cooperative. Chapter 13 lists names and addresses of 30 state and national resource organizations, 10 basic references, and 7 bibliographic sources. (YLB)