The Workers' Paradise

January 16, 2012

All Work Has Value

Filed under: Pensimientos,Worker Rights — John McNamara @ 10:46 am

On Martin Luther King, jr. Day, one the administrators of Union Cab’s facebook page posted this quote:

“You are demanding that this city will respect the dignity of labor. So often we overlook the work and the significance of those who are not in professional jobs, of those who are not in the so-called big jobs. But let me say to you tonight that whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity and it has worth.” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at the Memphis Sanitation Strike, April 3, 1968

Dr. King was murdered the day after giving this speech. It is a great sentiment from a great leader. One perfect for today. Of course, the sanitation strike was about more than labor, it was also about human dignity and the continued efforts to force the south of the United States to shed its racist past. It was also part of Dr. King’s recognition that the issues facing America were more than racism, but that class and global economics played a role in the oppression being felt in Memphis.

It reminds me of a quote from another great leader: Don Arizmendiaretta. His translates roughly as:

“The world has not been given to us simply to contemplate it but to transform it and this transformation is not accomplished only with our manual labor but with first with ideas and action plans.”

and

“The human person that proceeds to cultivate his or her ideas with the only objective of being productive, insensibly and fatally, becomes a slave to the productive machine.”

It is not uncommon, I have found, in our larger worker cooperatives for the division of labor to breed animosity and distrust. This is especially true when it involves those workers who either have cultivated their skills and talents, or simply have an affinity for managing the governance of the organization.  Because we come from a larger economic community where the role of the “boss” is suspect, it seems easy for us to distrust anyone in our cooperatives who might actually take on some of the necessary tasks look like the work of the boss. I don’t know how many times I have heard the tired analogy from Animal Farm expressed whenever a worker is upset with a decision of the board or a committee (I generally wonder if the person making the comment has actually read the book or has merely memorized the Cold War anti-communist mantra).

The point of all of this is that all work has value. As Dr. King points out to the sanitation workers, it doesn’t matter the job may be, it has dignity and worth. Ironically, it is a lesson that we often need to re-learn in our co-ops (which often tend to be in the small job industries). The members who engage in planning and moving the co-operative towards its goals and vision, should earn just as much dignity and worth as those who operate in the revenue producing segment.

I think that both Dr. King and Don Arizmendiaretta would agree that, at the heart of it all, all work is worthy of dignity and worth because it is performed by human beings. It is really the human, that makes work worthy and dignified. In a world that determines success by the bottom line, that point gets lost quickly; however, in our co-operatives (which exist specifically to create human and dignified workplaces), it must be embraced.

December 12, 2011

Towards a Cooperative Legislative Education Foundation

Filed under: Education,Movement — John McNamara @ 4:21 pm

Cooperatives need to start being engaged in the development of public policy. This doesn’t mean taking sides in the bipartisan wars that often force US citizens to choose which party to support: the party supported by Wall Street that wants to eliminate regulations and the party supported by Wall Street that supports some regulation.

The Corporatists already have a thriving organization called the American Legislative Exchange Council.They have become quite newsworthy over the last year as state after state has begun passing laws developed at their conventions and in their think tanks. As The Center for Media and Democracy has shown, this 30 year project of the Corporatists to destroy Keynesianism and even revert back to the days prior to the Sherman Anti-trust Act, has been behind significant legislation that has undone decades of the social contract in the United States.

We can wring our hands about this, or we can learn the lessons worth learning. Our elected representatives have little time to learn about new ideas. They need people to help inform them and even draft proposed legislation. There is nothing wrong with concerned citizens doing this. The problem is that only one side of the multi-factor equation is really acting along these lines and that is ALEC.

I propose that we worker co-operators (and maybe even the other sectors as well) form a similar think-tank. We need to start working together to develop public policy that promotes the ethics, values and principles of co-operatives. These proposals will create a more sustainable community and provide the antidote to the profiteering ways of wall street by providing the means for a base economic structure. The profiteers can still profiteer, but communities can also choose to build strong local economies to offset the effects of the corporatist class.

I propose calling this group the “Co-operative Legislative Education Foundation” or CLEF. The Clef is a musical symbol used to instruct the music. It serves as a reference point for the musical. So, this organization, CLEF, will also serve as a reference point for our communities. I like the idea of using the Middle C Clef as a symbol for this foundation:

File:CClef.svg

This suggests that our goal will not be the extremes of our community, but the balanced middle. The proposals for this organization should be at least bi-partisan but include as many sponsors as possible. Our goal should not be to get a single party elected but to create good public policy that builds strong local economies.

Over the last ten years, the US worker cooperative movement has blossomed. We have moved from a rag tag group of alienated co-operatives with few regional and local support systems to a thriving movement. We have a well established federation, the USFWC, which will be hosting the 5th National Worker Co-operative Bi-annual Conference in Boston next June, we have two strong regional groups: The Western Worker Cooperative Conference and the Eastern Conference for Workplace Democracy. We have helped to create CICOPA North America. We have a busy peer adviser network in the Democracy at Work Network and an educational non-profit, the Democracy at Work Institute. We need a political wing–again, not to promote any political party–to develop and promote good public policy that will advance our co-operatives, build strong sustainable local economies, and re-power workers in taking control of their lives through democratic control and ownership of their work.

Creating CLEF will be one of my goals in the coming year. For those of you with the time and interest, I hope that you contact me–our movement is already creating a better world, by drafting and supporting public policy, we can do even more and create opportunities for millions of workers in this country.

December 5, 2011

Great Negotiators

Filed under: Uncategorized — John McNamara @ 3:07 pm

What is the role of “management” in a worker co-operative?

In some, it seems that they take over, effectively adopting the role of Agency in the organization and turn the membership, the workers, into passive actors in their own enterprise. In others, a great effort is made to deny their existence–this can be through the use of titles or structurally choosing to have no formal power in the organization.

Most of our co-ops, I think, settle along this continuum. In our worlds, the “managers” by name or otherwise, have the ability to make some decisions, but generally can’t really tell anyone else what to do. This puts them into a very interesting role–that of negotiator.

In the role of negotiator, the “manager” assesses the needs of the organization, the needs of the membership, the needs of the consumers. Balancing all of this against the Co-operative Identity and the co-ops own mission and values. It isn’t an easy job. In fact, I would argue that “managing” a worker co-operative is a quantum level higher than managing a non-co-operative in the same industry (or even a consumer co-op in the same industry). Of course, the benefit of the worker co-operative world is that we don’t have to make decisions alone. We can, and should, bring the other members into the discussion as much as possible.

Some might think that this sort of participatory, democratic management might slow the organization down. It doesn’t as long as the communication lines are kept open. If the group is kept in the loop, then a quick decision, generally, can be made with a few phone calls, emails, or based on the pre-arranged parameters established by the group. Of course, this depends on the level of functioning as well. If the group is committed to things such as Robert Rules of Order and other mechanisms designed to ensure “sunlight” in democracy but horrible for timely decisions, then the process can really bog down. To overcome this, we only need take the concept of Sarbanes-Oxley to heart. SOX was the law written after the Enron debacle to help stop Enrons from happening again. Ultimately, it presumes that separation of duties and knowledge will stop most conspiracies. The Enron conspiracy consisted of about 4-5 people. The idea, here, is that if the teams report their actions, if the ability to sign of on deals requires 2-3 people, and if the decisions need to be noticed, it will be possible for quick decisions to be made in a democratic structure without opening the door for corruption.

In worker co-operatives, this may mean assigning a person to negotiate and sign off on insurance policies, but requiring the discussion and bids to be reviewed by the team. This allows an overall concept to be forged and still allows the “manager” to negotiate and close a deal. It also works internally.

Well, my discussion drifted a bit here. I was originally hoping to discuss how managers in worker co-ops engage in negotiation on a daily basis. Encouraging members to operate at a high-level of functionality and efficiency, working with consumers to adjust expectations, and meeting with vendors to get the best deal available all while maintaining high levels of loyalty and commitment to the co-operative. Internally, it is all about recognizing the member as an owner and helping them understand their role as an owner. We can’t “crack the whip” or bark orders at people. We need to nudge and educate the individual worker-owner, but we also need to communicate. We need to listen and be willing to learn a better way to do the job. It really is a negotiation which, I am learning, is a major part of  “co-operation” although it is something that we don’t really talk about.

November 28, 2011

Co-ops Need to be Part of the 2012 Election Cycle

Filed under: Education,The Cleveland Model — John McNamara @ 11:40 am

This morning I received an email from a friend about running for the county board. My response was supportive, with a caveat. Talk about how the County can promote cooperatives as a means of rebuilding a sustainable economy.

As the 2012 election cycle begins (in Wisconsin, the spring election for local goverment commences on December 1st when Candidate can start circulating petitions) and the recall election of Governor Walker edges ever closer to reality (over half of the needed signatures have been collected in just two weeks with 45 days left), co-operatives need to get their message out.

While our co-ops tend to be apolitical beasts, we need to recognize that there are times when we must be involved. Now is one of those times. It doesn’t mean endorsing candidates, but it does mean getting worker co-operatives recognized and talked about.

Last year, in Madison, we successfully managed to make worker co-operatives (and co-operatives in general) an issue in the Mayoral campaign. One candidate embraced us, the other ignored us. Very little separated the two (and if it wasn’t for a major controversy over a local hotel, it might not have been close). Today, we have a Mayor who has committed to working with co-operatives and will be hosting a conference on co-operatives for city planners and decision makers next spring.

This coming year, we have even more to talk about. There is the National Cooperative Development Act working its way through the Congress. There are more examples of local communities embracing co-operatives. Not the traditional “hippie” communes of Madison, San Francisco and Portland but places like Cleveland, OH and Richmond, CA. Cities who have suffered the most from globalization have started to rebuild their economies with worker co-operatives. As the article in the Los Angeles Times (see the Richmond link) points out, these aren’t just the usual boutique bakeries (although they do exist), but include plumbers and other professional services.

We need to push the candidates, regardless of their party, to recognize co-operatives as a strong economic model for growth. It is a model that depends on the the mutual self-help and self-responsibility of its membership. Co-operation offers a true alternative to the tired debate between neo-liberalism and Keynesian economics. This year, the International Year of the Co-operative, offers us a great opportunity to talk about the real “road to serfdom” which is the subordination of our communities to globalized capital.

Start bugging the candidates–if they are running for congress, ask them to declare their support for the National Cooperative Development Act. If they are local elections, ask them to support (or even suggest) ideas on how the county or municipality can help co-operatives develop and succeed (such as ensuring that co-operatives are part of the development process for any city project–i.e., can a co-op model solve the problem before the city).

If enough people start asking the co-op questions, the candidates will definitely hear us. If we ask enough, they might even respond. If we keep asking, they might even learn about and start supporting co-operatives after they get elected.

November 11, 2011

Mega-Academic Coop Conference for IYC12

Filed under: Uncategorized — John McNamara @ 6:59 pm

CALL FOR PAPERS
Cooperating for Change
in the International Year of Cooperatives

June 24th-27th, 2012

University of Quebec at Montreal
Montreal, Quebec, Canada

The United Nations had declared 2012 to be the International Year of Cooperatives. In response, cooperative organizations around the world have been planning events to acknowledge, promote, investigate and celebrate the achievements of cooperatives.
In this spirit of collaboration and celebration, the leading cooperative research and education organizations and networks operating in Canada – the Canadian Association for Studies in Cooperation (CASC), the Interdisciplinary Research and Information Centre on Collective Enterprises (CIRIEC Canada), the International Cooperative Association Committee on Cooperative Research (ICACCR) and the Association of Cooperative Educators (ACE), the Measuring the Cooperative Difference network and Territorial Development and Cooperation network – are joining forces with their most important stakeholder groups – the Canadian Cooperative Association (CCA), le Conseil canadien de la coopération et de la mutualité (CCCM), le Conseil québécois de la cooperation et de la mutualité (CQCM), le Comité de la relève coopérative du Québec, the Ontario Student Cooperative Association and the North American Students of Cooperation – to organize this conference.
The goal of the conference is to bring together the overlapping communities of researchers, educators, practitioners and policy makers from academia, professional associations, civil society organizations and government to share knowledge and engage in discussion about policy proposals and strategic directions for the sector, both in Canada and internationally.

Conference Theme
The theme of the joint conference has been chosen to draw attention to the core mission of cooperatives, which is to make a positive difference in the lives of their members and communities.
How cooperatives take up this mission has always been conditioned by historical circumstances. In our own times, the various challenges of and opportunities for cooperative activity are conditioned by such factors as the changing nature of our economies (e.g. trade liberalization, lean production, transnational production, shorter product lifecycles, economic concentration, etc.) and the environmental (e.g., climate change, global warming, habitat and species loss, degradation of arable land) and socio-economic harm created by these economic changes (e.g., high levels of under- and unemployment, contingent labour, chronic poverty, income polarization, food insecurity, inadequate social and educational programs).
Cooperatives in Canada and around the globe have been responding to these problems, often in innovative ways. This theme of the conference is intended to highlight the fact that in responding to these challenges and opportunities, cooperatives produce change. Some of the changes are directly intended, others are unanticipated by-products. These changes occur within and across different social realms – the economic, political, the cultural – as well as impacting our natural world. Changes also, and perhaps most importantly, occur within and among the members of cooperatives, producing the personal growth and changes in organizations with facilitate better economic, social and environmental performance.

Conference Topics
We invite abstracts and proposals that investigate how cooperation, including inter-cooperation among cooperatives, promotes change in the lives of cooperative members, their communities and the larger society.
Possible topic areas include the following:
• Management Structures and Practices
• Ownership and Governance Structures and Practices
• Business and Marketing Strategies
• Social, Economic and Environmental Impact Evaluation
• Youth and Student Cooperatives
• Social and Solidarity Cooperatives
• Inter-cooperation between Cooperatives Internationally
• Aboriginal Communities
• Poverty Reduction and Local Development Strategies and Practices
• Local, Organic and Fair Trade Production in Agriculture
• Sustainable Production in Extractive and Resource Industries
• The Role of Education in Cooperating for Change
• The Role of Research in Cooperating for Change
• The Role of Public Policy in Cooperating for Change

Submission Guidelines
We invite researchers, students, and practitioners to submit any of three types of proposals:

  1. Individual Papers – Proposals should include: a) your name, title, affiliation and email address; b) a short (two-line) biographical note; c) title of the paper; d) a 100 word abstract (to be printed in the program), and; e) a 500 word summary of the argument, which should include the relationship of the paper to the literature, the research question, methods and, where applicable, findings. Proposals for both empirical and theoretical papers are invited.
  2. Panel Proposals – Proposals should include: a) the title of the panel; b) a 250 word description of the issue or theme that the panel investigates and how the individual papers relate to the theme/issue; c) the names, affiliations and contact information for all panel participants, and; d) 250 word  descriptions of all panel presentations. Panel proposals should include 3 or 4 presentations.
  3. Proposals for Roundtables – Proposals should include: a) the title of the roundtable; b) a 500 word description of the issue or theme that the roundtable investigates and how the appropriateness of the individual members for participating the roundtable; c) the names, affiliations and contact information for all panel participants, and; d) a short description of the key points/areas that the members of the roundtable will cover. Participants are not expected to deliver formal papers.
  • The deadline for the early bird call for proposals for panel sessions and roundtables is Nov. 21st, 2011. Priority for travel subsidies and scholarships will be given to applicants who meet this deadline.
  • The final deadline for paper abstracts and proposals for panels and roundtables is January 24th, 2012.
  • Abstracts and proposals may be submitted either in English or French (in either Word or Rich Text Format). They should be sent by email to casc.acec@usask.ca. A total of two presentations per person will be permitted.
  • All proposals (for individual papers, panels and roundtables) are subject to peer review. Applicants will be informed of acceptance by February 15th, 2012. A directory of conference delegates will be published in the Conference Program; if you do not want to have your name, contact information and institutional affiliation published, please notify us when you submit your abstract.

Program Committee Members

  • Darryl Reed (York University), President, Canadian Association for Studies in Cooperation (CASC).
  • Lou Hammond Ketilson (University of Saskatchewan), Chair, International Cooperative Association Committee on Cooperative Research (ICACCR).
  • Marie J. Bouchard (University of Quebec at Montreal), Vice-president, Interdisciplinary Research and Information Centre on Collective Enterprises (CIRIEC Canada) and Chair, Canada Research Chair on the Social Economy.
  • Sarah Pike, Executive Administrator, Association of Cooperative Educators (ACE).
  • Tanya Gracie, Program Manager, 2012 International Year of the Cooperative, Canadian Cooperative Association (CCA).
  • Michaël Béland, Director of Communications and Programs, Canadian Council of Cooperation and Mutuality (CCCM).
  • Fiona Duguid, Senior Policy and Research Analyst, Cooperatives Secretariat, Government of Canada.
  • Sonia Novkovic (St. Mary’s University), Past President, International Association for the Economics of Participation (IAFEP) and Academic Co-lead for the CURA grant on Measuring the Cooperative Difference.
  • Marie-Joëlle Brassard, Director of Research and Development, Quebec Council of Cooperation and Mutuality (CQCM) and Co-Lead for the CURA grant on Territorial Development and Cooperation.
  • Tom Klein Beernink, Ontario Student Cooperative Association (OSCA).
  • Erin Hancock, Board Member, North American Students of Cooperation (NASCO) and coordinator for the CURA grant on Measuring the Cooperative Difference.

TBA, Comité de la relève coopérative du Québec.
Conference Information
For more information on the conference, please visit: www.coopresearch.coop

Sadly, this competes with the US Conference on Workplace Democracy and USFWC Annual meeting in Boston, MA at the same time. It would really be great if there was a way to work together on these conferences. This seems to create a big divide between the academics and practitioners at a time when they need to working together.

November 2, 2011

Support the Oakland General Strike! #oakland #ows

Filed under: Human Relations — Tags: , , — John McNamara @ 8:29 am

Today, workers of Oakland, CA will be putting their “tools down” and their “hands in their pockets”.

What is happening in Oakland isn’t unique and some have argued for the entire nation to join them; however, calling a General Strike with only a few days notice is a bit tricky at best. Certainly, Oakland has felt the ravages of Wall Street as have all of our communities. Add to that a horrendous Police apparatus that shoots rubber bullets at passive protestor’s heads and, just last year, executed a young black man in a BART train station (yes, they were BART cops, but a part of the same system and it happened in Oakland).

I am proud to see so many of the North Bay worker coops shutting their doors and joining the marches today. Check out their Facebook page for more information about who is participating.

The US Federation has also released this statement:

“Worker Cooperatives support Occupy Wall Street…
The United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives (USFWC) stands in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement, and the Occupy movements around the world. As a national grassroots membership organization of worker cooperatives—businesses owned and democratically controlled by our worker members — we support and are honored to join you in this call for an economy organized to meet human needs.

We are heartened to see the beginnings of a genuine discussion and debate about different economic models —models that value fairness at their core. As many of us come together for the first time to discuss the problems that face us, and as we begin to collectively reimagine our economy and society, we believe it is critical to actively make space for all voices to be heard. We urge this new movement to remain open and plural.

…and we invite you to join us in occupying Main Street
Cooperatives are the fastest growing socioeconomic movement in the world, with close to one billion members. Worker cooperative businesses are in all sorts of industries: engineering, importing coffee, baking bread, doing web development, cleaning houses, nursing and home health care, running grocery stores, driving taxis, and more. But worker cooperatives are part of a much larger cooperative economy that includes credit unions, consumer coops, housing coops, agricultural producer coops, and rural electric coops — in the US, nearly 30,000 cooperative enterprises own over $3 trillion in shared assets.

Cooperatives are based on values.
Worker cooperatives are businesses that are owned and operated on democratic principles by the people who work in them. Because they are organized around the will, talents and needs of the human beings who work in them rather than the imperative of growth and ever-increasing profit margins, worker cooperatives have the capacity to promote and extend new, humane and imaginative ways of meeting the material needs of people by producing and distributing goods and services in society.
When dozens, hundreds and thousands of these enterprises pool resources and cooperate with
each other based on the values of self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity and
solidarity, a fundamental transformation of culture and society occurs. This has taken place most notably and enduringly in Mondragon, Spain, and the Emilia Romagna region of Italy, where worker coops drive the economy and fund and control social services, health care, retirement and education.

The cooperative movement needs you. And the world needs the cooperative movement.
As the Occupy movements have made clear, and as the UN recognized in declaring 2012 the
International Year of Cooperatives, we need a new way forward to a better world. Cooperatives can be economic engines and laboratories for democracy — a powerful, practical part of building an economy and society that works for all its members.”

(end quote)

I am not sure that we have all discussed our role in a general strike; however, it is clear to me that we must support those wage slaves who wish to break their bondage and free themselves. We are only one stepped removed. While worker cooperators may own their assets and equity, they do not control their economy. We still suffer at the whims of globalized capitalization.  We are only one step out of the chains that bind our fellow workers.

Union Cab and several Madison worker cooperatives and other cooperatives joined the protests in Madison last Winter. The workers knew that the attack on teachers, sanitation workers, bus drivers, and other public employees was just the beginning. That attack has since spread to credit unions and people with disabilities. We can’t pretend that the people occupying Wall Street and similar protests around the world aren’t fighting our fight.

If you live in the Oakland area, join the march. Join your fellow humanity and stand up and demand a better world.

October 31, 2011

Welcome, Year of the Coop! #coop

Filed under: Movement — Tags: , , — John McNamara @ 10:50 am

Today, marks the official beginning of the United Nations’ International Year of the Cooperative. This took a lot of work on the part of the International Cooperative Association and now it is our responsibility as members of cooperatives to make something of it. It would be a true shame if the only thing to develop from this energy is a thousand Facebook posts and some Youtube videos.

Those of us in the US/Canadian worker cooperative movement need to envision what we want our movement to look like in a year. A great leap forward has already been accomplished with the creation of CICOPA-North America. What will we consider a successful year?

I know that in my cooperative, my personal goal is to get rid of the “boss” position. Currently, I am filling that role as the interim General Manager. I hope that by this time next year, that position has changed in scope or title so that it no longer has the formal power of the boss in our organization. In fact, there are a number of visions of what our cooperative should look like. This year, we took the power to discipline and fire away from the General Manager and create a series of peer councils that handle accountability issues. My hope for this year will be to change the concept of “manager” from a person who makes decisions and can order people to do things to a person who help democratically run teams make decisions and then helps work groups implement those decisions.

Of course, the is the world of minutiae that I find myself immersed in right now–it almost feels like an internal exile from the national and international movement. Still, ours is a movement of small organizations that combine to become something incredible. If the small worlds of our independent coops don’t embrace the spirit and challenge of the International Year of the Cooperative, then what is the point of the energy. It is a year to embrace our values and principles at every level, but most importantly, at the level of our cooperatives.

It is only by making our cooperatives a true difference in the economic world that we can truly be an answer to the needs and desires of those occupying wall street and elsewhere. We do know the answer and we live and work it everyday.

How will we improve our cooperatives? How will we improve our participation with other worker cooperatives? Finally, how will we educate the public, especially the 99%, that worker cooperatives offer a real solution to the economic woes of the world?

October 24, 2011

Speaking of Laws: CA AB1161

Filed under: Movement — Tags: , , , , — John McNamara @ 2:09 pm

In my last year on the board of the US Federation of Worker Coops, I pushed for a 10 year plan that would, among other things, attempt to enact laws specific to worker cooperatives in at least 5  more states than currently have them (I believe that Vermont and Illinois are the only ones that specifically mention worker cooperatives). Naturally, I was very excited to see that the folks in California were on the same wave length.

California Assembly Bill 1161 aims to create a legal entity of the worker cooperative. Currently, worker coops in CA have to organize under the Consumer Cooperative Act which can be a bit cumbersome. I am a bit loathe to comment on the bill, since I live in Wisconsin. However, it does effect the worker cooperative movement and will have an impact as other states consider similar legislation. The good people at NoBAWC have posted a page on the topic and encourage discussion. They have a link to a pdf on a summary of the bill and a link to a pdf version of the actual bill.

Overall, I think that this is a great effort. However, I do wonder at a few things.

Instead of using the definition of worker cooperatives from the CICOPA World Declaration on Worker Cooperatives, it waters that definition down to mean any multi-staker holder cooperative that has a membership class. CICOPA requires that workers comprise more than 50% of the membership and that more than 50% of the workers are members. Under 1161, the non-worker members could outnumber the workers (for instance, if Rainbow opened up a consumer member category).

AB 1161 the statute does provide protections and requires that the worker members have a majority of seats on the board of directors and that the worker membership class has veto power on membership votes within the following five areas:

  1. the dissolution, sale or merger of the cooperative
  2. the disposition of all or a substantial part of the cooperative’s assets not in the ordinary course of business
  3. the filing of a petition in bankruptcy or the entering into an an arrangement among creditors
  4. conversion to a structure other than a cooperative
  5. acquisition of any asset or assets that constitute greater than 25% of the pre-acquisition assets on the cooperative’s balance sheet not in the ordinary course of business.

I understand that this provides protections for the worker members; however, it ignores some basic problems in that workers have a tendency to vote against their interests (see Reagan, Bush, Clinton, Bush, Obama) and the power of capital has a history of corrupting the leaders of workers (see Lane Kirkland, SEIU, and the Teamsters).

Another troubling aspect is that this bill would erase the already generous limit of 15% return on investment. The workers might still have political control of the business, but it is clear that they may not have economic control. What happens with the capitalists funding the worker cooperative decide to tell the workers to jump? Their choice will be to democratically ask how high or dissolve. It reminds me a bit of James Connolly’s excellent essay, “Let Us Free, Ireland!” which I discussed last November on this blog.

I am worried about what this law would allow coop leaders to give up for the investor’s money. This proposal really seems like asking the foxes to help build and manage the hen house. Yes, I realize that this might help get money into economically depressed areas, but if we are only talking about creating decent jobs, we don’t need the cooperative movement to do that. Worker cooperatives need to be about more than a decent paycheck. I would rather see greater incentives for employers to sell to their workers.

I’m not against an investor class, however, I think that this proposal opens the doors way to far. I like Equal Exchange’s model which limits the ROI to 5% and 400 investor members (I think that it is technically 399). What is being proposed in 1161 seems too much like the New Generation coops of Wisconsin and Minnesota, there needs to be more control on capital. It should follow the principle of Mondragon that Capital must subordinate to labor.

AB 1161 is still a work in progress and I imagine that it has a way to go before enactment. I don’t know enough about California politics to comment on its chances. Also, I recognize that California is not Wisconsin and that the number of worker cooperatives far exceeds what exists in Wisconsin. Most worker cooperatives would likely be unitary (essentially a collective) and I imagine that the number of new generation worker coops produced by this bill would not be substantial. However, I would hope that the folks out west find a way to incorporate the CICOPA Declaration and definitions into the language and seriously think about the effect of capital in an organization especially where the ROI is limited by only what the board wants to pay out.

Nevertheless, I am glad to see people starting to think about what we need in terms of legislation to help build the worker cooperative movement. I think that this is a great discussion that we need to start having across the country–what, exactly, is a worker cooperative and when does it quit being one?

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I know that I am probably stepping on some toes with this post, so I would like to remind everyone that you are free to sign up as a contributor (or just send a response).

October 17, 2011

We Need New Laws

Filed under: Movement — Tags: , , , , — John McNamara @ 12:37 pm

Over the weekend, I wrote my Assembly Representative, Mark Pocan. The last time that the Democrats held the majority, Rep. Pocan co-chaired the powerful Joint Committee on Finance. Of course, today, his party is in the minority of a very partisan Assembly whose Speaker is planning a run for the US Senate.

In any even, this was my letter:

Rep Pocan,

I would like to meet with you to discuss the possibility of drafting bi-partisan bill to assist workers in Wisconsin to create their own jobs. Specifically, I would like to see Wisconsin follow a successful model in Spain.

My basic proposal would be to allow workers who become unemployed to elect to receive their entire unemployment insurance benefit in one lump sum provided that at least 80% of it is invested into a worker owned enterprise under Chapter 185 of the Wisconsin State Statutes (Cooperatives).

This could have a dramatic effect on the state’s unemployed and even provide an added incentive for owners to sell to their workers (as the IRS Section 1042 provides a means for owners to avoid capital gains tax if they sell to their workers). It is clearly a bipartisan proposal as it would create jobs with an entrepreneurial spirit. Rather than forcing workers already stressed about their ability to make ends meet to jump through a lot of hoops, this law would allow them to either join an existing worker coop or join with other unemployed workers and create their own cooperative.

2012 is the International Year of the Cooperative and this could become model legislation in the United States. The cooperative movement offers real change and hope to the nation’s working men and women. As a 23 year member of Union Cab of Madison, I have seen first hand how our cooperative has humanized our industry in Madison and literally allow people to drive themselves out of poverty.

John

I might add that this also has a benefit in that worker cooperatives don’t leave. They won’t move to another state. That means, of course, the the State gets to keep all of that start-up capital circulating in Wisconsin. These are real jobs that will be here for a very long time (I read somewhere that the average lifespan of a cooperative is about 60 years compared to under 10 for most businesses). In the Basque region of Spain, roughly 30-40 non-Mondragon worker cooperatives start each year. Mondragon connected coops are sprout at the rate of about 20-30 a year. Imagine what would happen to Wisconsin’s economy if we started creating even 40 worker cooperatives a year? Solving local problems and providing local employment?

We wouldn’t need the “Cleveland Model” or well meaning hand-outs. We can create a Wisconsin model of bootstrapping using the existing unemployment insurance program. As this idea develops, I will continue to write about it. If you live in Wisconsin and think that this is a good idea, write your Assembly Representative or State Senator.

October 12, 2011

Report from Quebec City

Filed under: Movement — Tags: — John McNamara @ 6:50 pm

US Federation President Rebecca Kemble blogs from the North American Worker Cooperative Conference.

http://www.progressive.org/worker_co_op_movement.html

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