The Workers' Paradise

August 17, 2010

EdVisions Schools–Workplace and Educational Democracy

Filed under: Education,Management,Worker Rights — Tags: , , — John McNamara @ 10:11 pm

One of the great treats at a national worker coop conference is to learn about the incredible stories that exist. It is easy, sitting in our cooperatives at home, to imagine a world where we are the greatest thing since sliced bread. Then we come to a conference and get our mind blown–not just once, or twice, but several times.

One such event was learning of EdVisions. I had heard rumors of these folks. Located in the mystical Mississippi Valley of Southern Minnesota. They seemed like fairies from the days of Shakespeare’s England creating a magical place of learning and excitement. Needless to say, all we ever heard were the rumors of their existence. They are, after all, Charter Schools. Charter Schools, much like those fairies of Shakespeare are a dual edged sword as willing to spoil milk and ruin harvests as to help a poor Shepard. It shouldn’t be a surprise that the main stream media can’t figure out EdVisions as they don’t fit into the narrative of Charter Schools, School Reform, and Neo-liberalism.

As it was, I ended up sitting next to the Dee Grover Thomas, Principal of the flagship school: New Country Day School. She gave me a bit of a heads up for her speech. It was an incredible talk (I hope that this is an appropriate time to apologize for my grammar and spelling to Dee and my English teachers).

Ever the teacher, she asked the audience what they would like to study. Amazingly, the reply was “co-operatives!” she then asked if that would require history? yes. Writing? Yes. Math? yes. Art? yes. The point being that the core subjects can be worked into any field of study.

Rather than my telling you what they are about, here is their statement: “The belief is that teacher leadership is not about power, but about mobilizing the largely untapped attributes of teachers to strengthen student performance by working collaboratively in a shared capacity. Cooperatives are about working collaboratively and sharing in planning, action, and in results. Cooperatives are democratically owned and managed. The founders of EdVisions Cooperative believe in teacher voice and teacher empowerment. They also believe in modeling democratic action as a means toward teaching adolescents how to live in a democracy.”

Here is the problem that the market was dealing with:

  • Estimated 50% of teachers resign with in the first 5 years
  • Teaching is a non-promotion job only promotion to administration
  • Schools are losing 1 of 3 students to drop outs each yeas
  • Schools are seldom democratic
  • Teachers are not seen as professionals and little ed entrepreneurship has happened. Schools look and act the same today as they did 50 years ago.
  • She noted that The TSB kids, despite what they are doing, still have to raise their hand to go to the bathroom—that is messed up!

Minnesota New Country School as established in 1994.

  • Got rid of bells and classes or employees
  • 120 students 6-12
  • 40% special ed/35% low income

Project based learning—the ask the student what they are interested in (what turns them on) and then they apply to core principles (history, language, math, science, art)

School should be arranged like life—we don’t spend exactly 45 minutes on the math part of our jobs and then move to the writing part for another 45 minutes, so why do we run schools this way.

They chose to limit the school size to 120 students to keep a sense of community

Student ownership of their education with teachers as guides on the side.

It is more about learning than about teaching. They have to design their project and have to sit down with three adults and defend their project. At  the end, they sit down with three adults to show what they have learned. Sometimes, they have to unlearn before they can begin to learn.

EdVisions Cooperative

What would happen if teachers became owners instead of employees? Would they look at teaching differently? Eliminate the “us” vs. “them” in the battle between teachers and administration and parents.

Started with one school (MNCS) and 13 owners.  Today: 12 members schools and 3 affiliated non-profits, 150 members and 8.6 million budget, (the non-profits help to fund the school through different mechanisms).

Expected Behavior

  • Collaboration—build and sustain strong professional relationships
  • Civility—respect, dignity, kindness (train on restorative justice)
  • Communication—clear ideas
  • Co-creation—everyone plays a role
  • Accountability—every members assumes responsibility for the organization’s performance
  • Commitment to improvement and development.

Desired Ends

  • Take charge of professional lives (normal school dictates to the teachers)
  • Accountability for the learning program
  • Embrace change—technology, cell phones, communication.
  • Gain independence
  • Be leaders
  • Be able to contribute to each others’ professional development
  • Become Owners.

I’ll give Dee a lot of credit. She got some tough questions about labor unions*, the lack of sports programming, and others. Also note the number of special ed and lower income children. This isn’t a school designed (as mine was) to replace the aristocracy of corporate Vice-Presidents, this is about fundamentally changing the way we educate in this country.

It reminds of a certain Spanish priest who believed that the workers’ kids could be just as productive with their mind as the bosses’ kids. Those kids grew up to create Mondragon. The work of EdVest clearly makes the 5th Principle of Cooperatives as active as it can be. The have taken the cooperative economic model with an educational element and truly made it an educational model with an economic element.

If the Charter Schools were all like EdVisions, I would be on the front-line pushing for more. This is a fantastic model.

*Her response to the Union question? She said that the teachers are free to join the union, but don’t want to. Further, what she would like to see is for the union to start opening and running their own schools just like EdVision did.

July 19, 2010

Worker Co-ops and Workers, Unity vs. Cliques

Filed under: Human Relations — Tags: , — John McNamara @ 11:24 am

How do we, as a movement, create a different organizational structure that creates synergy out of our differences? More importantly, how do we create a culture that overturns the worst lessons learned in the dominant paradigm?

To me, the Human Relations in a worker co-operative should be dedicated to the full human development of the individual as part of the overall community of the world. We should be borrowing the good things from our dominant culture and subverting or destroying the bad things. While it might be fair to argue over what is “good” or “bad”, we have a touchstone to rely upon. The Statement on the Co-operative Identity and the Mondragon Principles provide the cultural map required for co-operatives to engage their members and the community. We have to activate our concern for community in a way that humanizes our co-operatives and creates societies that truly deviate from the dog-eat-dog normality.

The first time that I heard the word “clique” was in 10th grade, I thought that my classmate said “click”. He was talking about all the cliques in our high school and how annoying they were. I thought this meant that kids had started “clicking” their tongues or something! I am glad that I didn’t start “clicking” to fit in! Of course, that is part of the socialization process in our culture. We create “the other” and then join groups based on not being “them” but on being “us”. My high school class only had 82 students and we still subdivided into three large groups and several smaller cliques.

Our willingness to self-divide and identify “us” verses “them” continues unabated in our society. Politicians (professional and otherwise) have long used this to achieve and maintain power. Corporations have used this to divide and conquer worker movements.

How do we use cliques in our co-operatives?

If we allow them to exist (and I imagine it would be impossible to banish them), how do we prevent the worst aspects of them (elitism, personality cults, discrimination, harassment and bullying) from destroying our co-operative ethos and the value of mutual self-help and solidarity? In my mind, I find the nature of cliques and sub-groups to be counter-productive and even the internal enemy of worker co-operatives. Ultimately cliques gain their power from destroying the social cohesion of a co-operative. I imagine that there are all sorts of self-esteem issues and personality types wrapped up into this.

In some co-ops, it may be easy to diffuse since the business is small, exists in one place, and everyone essentially works the same hours (think Cheeseboard). The “clique” essentially becomes the rather homogeneous group of members. However, in a large spread-out organization (like home care co-ops, taxi co-ops, or other organizations), members may be distributed across time and space to the point that workers might not even recognize each other as members of the same business. How do we work to overcome cliques in co-operatives where the membership might never meet the majority of the members due to work schedules?

I don’t really have a great answer for that question. I think, however, the key will always be in the values. Openness and honesty must be central to our work lives. I think, too, that we need to create a culture that doesn’t encourage one group of workers to be thought of as more important than another. We have to make equality and equity a reality in our co-operatives. At some level, it become an issue of individuals standing up and defending the values and principles of co-operatives. When we hear a member discredit another member (or work group within the co-operative) we need to risk our own popularity to explain why that idea (creating the “other”) is non-co-operative and even a danger to themselves (after all, they may become “the other” one day).

I imagine that co-operatives that have regular meetings and social events of the membership (on a daily or weekly basis) probably do better; however, that isn’t always practical and may pose problems in a 24 hour workplace.  The larger point, is that we can’t sit back and expect social cohesion to simply happen. As the co-operative grows and ages, the level of cohesion will change with it. In chemistry, the saying is that like attracts like (or that might be “like dissolves like”), so the job of a larger co-operative will be to help its membership see the similarities in all of the members of the co-operative. These similarities, of course, are the human qualities and desires that we all share. The idea shouldn’t be to build loyalty on a shift-by-shift basis (as a typical HR group might do), but on our humanity and co-operative membership.

A worker co-operators, we have an obligation to treat ourselves better than the bosses would treat the workers in their employment. When we act worse than our competitors in how we treat each other, we not only fail to honor each other, we fail the worker co-operative movement and the larger co-operative movement. We must institutionalize methods to help members unlearn the bad habits of the traditional workplace and learn the value of social cohesion with everyone in the co-operative. We need to eschew the cliques within our organization and see the co-operative (and its stakeholders) as our society. We need to create peer support structures within our co-operatives to develop and promote our solidarity with each other as members and teach other co-operatives how to do it.

Ghandi famously encourage us to be the change that we want to see. Worker co-operatives have an obligation to present a better option in how the company treats its workers and how its workers treat each other.

July 12, 2010

Worker Co-ops and Workers or All in the Family

Filed under: Education,Worker Rights — Tags: , , — John McNamara @ 11:47 am

This might take several posts to really work through the issues, but the nature of worker coops conjures up visions of a workers’ paradise (and the source of the name for this blog); however, too often conflict rises and worker co-ops easily devolve into a deformed workers’ state (the alternative name for this blog when I am cranky).

Without a doubt, the biggest strength and greatest weakness of worker co-operatives revolves around the internal issues of discipline and treatment of workers. An acquaintance of mine in Madison told me about his two experiences with worker co-operatives. Both were bakeries (one small one and one large factory style).

The small one was controlled by the members who were mostly, in his words, Trustafarians. They weren’t interested in growing the business because they didn’t need to do so. For stiffs like my friend, who didn’t have a trust fund, this meant working for minimum wage. The love of making bread and doing one’s own thing didn’t pay the rent. To make matters worse, the paychecks would be distributed together in a basket. The core group often didn’t pick up their checks for months at a time! This only highlighted the economic disparity among the membership and made my friend feel belittled and embittered.

The larger bakery produced at a level where wages and benefits were competitive, but it was really controlled by management and had little input from the worker members. To highlight this, at the annual summer “employee” picnic, management provided commercial mass produced white bread and  buns and bread. My friend was shocked that management wasn’t even willing to spring for the worker’s own bread for the picnic and went for the cheapest crap that they could find.

My long career in worker co-ops (22 years) has seen a lot of internal disputes. I remember a trying time when it was external forces that threatened the co-operative and one fellow member noted that the success or failure of our co-op lies entirely within us. Regardless of the external economy or attacks on our company, we are, as Moses Coady would say, the Masters of Our Destiny.

I would like to pretend that size matters, but it doesn’t. As the tale of two bakeries suggest, the real struggle comes from activating co-operative values and interpreting them in the real world of worker co-operatives. There is a very interesting paper entitled Dispute Resolution in Worker Co-operatives: Formal Procedures and Procedural Justice by Elizabeth Hoffman. My co-op was the subject of this case study and I was president during the period of study. I have a few issues with the work (she never interviewed me or other officers for our perspective of what happened), however, I completely agree with her analysis and it ties in well with another important work, The Tyranny of Structurelessness by Jo Freeman. Co-operatives are societies and they require a certain level of bureaucracy and structure to work effectively. Unfortunately, a lot of people come to worker co-operatives because they want to get away from “the man” and stupid rules, and all the other BS of corporate America. As William Golding taught all of us, however, it just isn’t that easy. Humans are social animals and will establish a social order. It can be an order based on personality, mythology, power, or humanity (ethics, values and principles). For co-operatives, we choose humanity (or I hope that we do).  The point, however, is that an order will be created with or without our efforts.

How often do we hear bosses talk about their company as “being like a family”? I always find that annoying. How patronizing! However, they are simply trying to describe their structure which is based on personality and power. Sometimes I hear that language in co-operatives. We talk about the Yellow Family at Union Cab, but no one is talking about parents, we are talking about siblings, cousins, and weird uncles (I think after 22 years, I get the cranky weird uncle title). Of course, if we really think about this analogy, aren’t we also talking about sibling rivalry and all the BS that goes into dealing with families. There is a great line from the play, ‘night, Mother in which the protagonists speaks to her inability to choose her family.

The difference is that we chose to be part of our co-operatives. We voluntarily choose to join and participate. We don’t have the right to act like obnoxious siblings. We have an obligation to interact with our co-operative on the terms of the ethics, values and principles of the co-operative movement. This is not an easy step. Corporate America and the dominant paradigm created by them encourages us to act as siblings to their parenthood. Workers in our society are encouraged to fight each other (over race, immigration, gender, sexual preference, religion, creed and a host of other false differences) and let the parents (managers, politicians) control our lives.

Unfortunately, we sometimes bring this corruption into our co-operatives. Not all, but many, co-operatives mirror the paternalistic hierarchy of the corporate world. We create a “dad” or “mom” in the form of a General Manager and then act out the role of obedient and disobedient children (and attack each other in miming sibling rivalries). We need to be better than this and we can do it. Some feel that having more that 40 members means being forced into this world. Others might argue “human nature”. I think that we can do more and better by simply focusing on the Co-op Identity.

Rainbow Grocery is a great example of a large co-operative that has flattened its hierarchy. I am not on the inside, so I can’t speak to how their conflict mediation works, but they have shown a way that even a large co-op can eschew the Family Circus. Union Cab is currently revising its dispute resolution system holistically (for the first time in 30 years). The challenge for getting rid of “dad” or “mom” is that we can’t simply replace them with “big brother” or “big sister”. We have to really find a way for all of us in the society to exist as equals and take that responsibility seriously. This means spending a lot of money (co-operative assets) on education, training and information (the 5th Principle). It also means making requirements on our membership that may seem onerous (such as participating in the education, training and information).

I believe that part of the duty of a worker co-operative involves elevating its membership from the siblings of corporate America’s “families” and creating fully-developed human beings that can interact as equals and recognize their connection to the larger world of workers and economics. This will be how the worker co-operatives grow and move forward, not by imitating our former bosses but by creating a truly new paradigm based on our identity.

July 5, 2010

Producer Co-operatives and Workers

Filed under: Management,Worker Rights — Tags: , — John McNamara @ 1:22 pm

In his work over the last decade, Professor Daniel Côté has developed a new principle of management for non-worker co-operatives. The core of this work focuses on loyalty of the stakeholders. In his argument, Côté argues that all stakeholders of the co-operative must experience the co-operative benefit.

It is important, I found out over the weekend, to identify to whom the word “stakeholder” refers. Stakeholder has become a term used in business circles over the last couple of decades to identify interested parties that may not have a fedicuiary interest or responsibility but still value the enterprise (or benefit from it). In our cities, neighborhoods (and the people living in them) have a stakeholder role in the businesses that operate in their neighborhoods. Much to their dismay, many tavern owners in Madison have come to realize that the thousands of people living around them (who may never spend a penny in the tavern) have a stake in how the tavern operates.

In the more direct sense, workers form a primary stakeholder group of every co-operative. In the case of a consumer co-operative, the consumer member can easily find another store to shop. If the consumer co-op were to close or demutualize, their would be little effect on the consumer member other than a change in habit and a sense of loss For the worker of a consumer co-op, however, the closing of the store could mean long-term unemployment, loss of housing, healthcare and other hardships.

To some extent, the same can be said for a producer co-op. Farmers might, however, face a harsher marketplace. It is exactly this reason that Agricultural co-ops should embrace the Co-operative Paradigm. Côté makes this point in his description of the NCP: “A third assumption may therefore be made on the basis of this experimentation, relating to the social value attached to the co-operative organization: the NCP opens the way for the creation of social value based on (1) a business model that makes a significanf difference for stakeholders (2) while providing the footing for creating solidarity (3) and strengthening the community, (4) through the development of citizen values (5) leading to a different society, one that is more human and more egalitarian.” (Côté, 2005)

In other discussion about the NCP, Côté he comments that “Loyalty is based on the vision and reliability of senior management. Organizations that have it rely on long-term commitment and regard people (clients, employees and shareholders) as their best assets. . . it requires a focus on human dignity, and needs to find an equilibrium between personal and collective interest.” (Côté, 2000)

My personal experience with producer co-operatives is somewhat limited. When I have attended conferences and training sessions, I tend to meet very conservative (politically and socially) people from the generation of my parents (or pre-Viet Nam). I don’t want to suggest that they are negative people, but they see the co-op world as a form of collectivized capitalism and don’t necessarily see the big picture of humanity and social change. Workers tend to be hired hands (and they often prohibit members and the family of members from working for the co-op).

However, one of the new kids on the block is Organic Valley that has been shaking up the stereotypes. They certainly have a different view. I was pleasantly surprised to see that their web master is none other than mIEKAL aND. He spent a couple of decades in Madison as an artist and maintained a house in my neighborhood called the “Museum of Temporary Art”.

Organic Valley makes the natural leap that comes from organic farming. If happy cows produce better milk, then happy workers produce better service. The organic movement has to treat its workers as good as it treats the non-humans in the production chain. Of course, in the commercial farming world, the co-operatives still have an obligation to treat the workers well. The values and ethics of co-operatives apply to all stakeholders within the community, not just the membership.

————

Côté, Daniel (2005) “Loyalty and Co-operative Identity: Introducing a New Co-operative Paradigm” published (en Francais) in Revue Internationale de l’Economie Sociale RECMA, #295

Côté, Daniel (2004) “Co-operative Cohesiveness and the Democratic Process: The Key to Managing a Large C-operative” (French version: Revue du CIRIEC-Economies et solidarité, Vo. 34, No. 2

Côté, Daniel (2000) “Co-operative and the new millenium: The emergence of a new paradigm” in Fairbairn and Russel (eds) Canadian Co-operatives in the Year 2000: Memory, Mutual Aid and the Millenium. Saskatoon: Centre for the Study of Co-operatives.

June 14, 2010

Consumer Co-ops and Workers

Filed under: Human Relations,Worker Rights — Tags: — John McNamara @ 11:14 am

The role of workers in a consumer co-operative (and how the co-op interacts with them) has as many variations as one would expect for a community based economic movement. Some co-operatives (thought not many I expect in today’s world) bar workers from being members. Some may allow membership but not board representation, or may limit their board actions to only those of “member” but not worker (as if people can split themselves in that way).Others might allow workers (who are members) to exist without restraint.

One could certainly take the view that the co-operative exists for its members and to benefit its members through access to the commodity goods and services that the members want at prices that they can sustain. In this respect, the employee relations in a consumer co-operative may be no different (nor should they be) than any other enterprise operating in the same marketplace. However, I think that is a mistake (and I imagine that most consumer co-op people see it as wrong as well). The Co-operative Paradigm requires something different. It requires that co-operatives be leaders in their community. In the case of consumer co-operatives, how they treat their workers has a lot to do with how the community sees them. After all, it seems a bit wrong to sell “fair trade” coffee in a store that pays less than the area’s living wage to its own workers.

How do consumer co-operatives work to minimize the exploitation of the workers?

I think that the key method must involve viewing the co-op’s workers as key stakeholders in the enterprise whether or not they are actual members. This means seeing as more than “human resources”; it means seeing them as fully developed humans and partners in the co-operative’s mission. By embracing the workers as partners, it should lead to a revisioning of the relationship (which may lead to a multi-stakeholder model such as Mondragon’s wildly successful Eroski chain of supermarkets and retail outlets).

This doesn’t mean allowing one or two seats on the board to be held by workers as long as they promise to vote against their interests as workers.

I would suggest (short of becoming a multi-stakeholder) that it may mean encouraging unionization of the workforce. With a labor union, the workers would be able to speak with a single voice just as the membership speaks through the voice of the board of directors. It would help to create a better power balance in the workplace. Of course, labor unions cannot be imposed on a workforce, they need to be invited in by the workers, not the managers. This takes a perceived need (and, to be frank, many workers in the service and retail industry have been ignored by labor unions for so long, they may not even see them as an option any more).

Even without a labor union, consumer co-ops can do other things. One consumer co-op in my area has created an employee advisory board to provide assistance on policy development to the General Manager. Another means would be to create a truly independent appeals process for discipline and dispute resolution. Co-ops could even create semi-autonomous work teams that would flatten out hierarchy by repowering workers to control their work lives within the policies of the board (interestingly, Whole Foods does create teams and took this idea from the Austin food co-ops).

Ultimately, the power relationships within the co-operative need to be understood and equalized. The relation between consumers and workers should be one of co-existence not dominance by the consumers. Consumer co-ops completely fail when they simply mirror their competitors in structure and think that they are doing it right. It is kind of like watching children sneak into the grown-up table at Thanksgiving. No matter how good their manners, they are still playing “grown-up”.

Co-ops require more management (and more experienced management) than a traditional business. For one, the stakeholder issues get more muddled. Two, in addition to the normal market pressures, the democratic structure must also be addressed. Finally, the management of people has to be done in the same spirit of the co-operative values and principles as everything else. As I referred to earlier, it is the height of hypocrisy to promote Fair Trade for distant farmers and treat the workers in the store as wage slaves. The workers in a consumer co-operative do not exist as resources but as stakeholders and partners in the co-operative.

June 7, 2010

The Co-operative and Its Workers

Filed under: Human Relations,Worker Rights — Tags: — John McNamara @ 3:36 pm

How should co-operatives treat their workers?

This is a bigger question that simply one of worker rights. In worker co-operatives, the workers are the owners. What expectations should they have from the General Manager (if they use that structure) or the board of directors? In a consumer co-operative, many of the workers are also consumer members-can they really divorce themselves as members from their experience as workers? Of course the Ag Coop’s workers have the more traditional corporate worker dynamic, but what should be expected from a socio-economic entity that supports honesty, openness, caring for others and social responsibility as corporate values?

Over the next few Mondays, I will talk about these issues by sector. What I think co-op workers should expect and be entitled to in a co-operative workplace. I might ruffle a few feathers, but I have become quite good at that lately!

This will create a category of “Worker Rights”. I really hope that people engage with comments. I won’t be inflammatory on purpose, but I want to really explore this issue. To that end, I want to explain my opinion on an important word choice right now. That word is “exploitation” I printed most of the following to start a class on personnel management through the MMCCU:

I use the term exploit in its classical sense with two definitions:
1. To make productive use of
2. To make use of meanly or unfairly to promote one’s advantage.

For exploitative, the dictionary uses “unfairly or cynically* using another person or group for profit or advantage”. However in a capitalist system, all labor may be considered to be exploited since labor (even in a unionized environment) has no control over how it is used. There is an inherent “unfairness” in the system that cannot be entirely erased by good behavior of individual managers or boards of directors.

To that end, I use the term exploitation and exploit to mean any use of labor when labor does not control the means of production. The existence of a contract reduces the level of exploitation, but does not erase it.

Now to be fair, I don’t think that cooperatives are evil tyrants over the workforce, but labor is one of the things that members exploit. Some cooperatives don’t allow workers to join, others might allow them to join, but not serve on the board. Each cooperative is different. The key is that workers do not control the means of production. In the US, few cooperatives are unionized and most have fought against unions when the opportunity arised–this means the each worker must negotiate with the cooperative separately (and the co-op’s policy committee). It is hardly an equal relationship.

A great example is my local consumer cooperative which “proudly” pays its workers the “County Living Wage”. That sounds nice, except the coop exists entirely within the City of Madison, not rural Dane County and the City’s living wage is almost $2 more per hour. To change that would require workers to go against management before the policy committee and get the board to amend the “means” policies to allow the board to set wages instead of management. I think that it should be quite easy to see the power-dynamic that exists

I also use the term “self-exploitation” in terms of worker cooperatives. This is one of the reasons that labor unions do not always work well with worker cooperatives. This happens when worker cooperatives pay less than scale and short-change themselves on benefits to be competitive on price. Rather than raising the bar (as a labor union might do), they lower the bar on working conditions and pay. However, when workers engage in self-exploitation, they do so democratically.

I think that as long as cooperatives are the secondary model to global capitalism, they will be forced to engage in some sort of exploitation and (as with Union Cab and Mondragon) self-exploitation. That we have a democratic process to limit it and can change the way that we manage “human resources” to mitigate its effects, is one of the values of cooperatives to the world at large and our local economies.

When I use the term exploitation or exploits, I am not trying to call anyone out on poor labor practices of their cooperative. I am using the term that I think correctly defines the power situation within the workplace as it exists in today’s marketplace.

This is the end of my rant–I just want to clear the air on this word choice so that it doesn’t become the focus of discussion. Thanks for reading!

*I would argue that all Human Resource discipline is based on the cynical notion that people are only motivated by self-interest. This is diametrically opposed to the cooperative principle (as explained by Tom
Webb) that all cooperators must be motivated by the core belief that people are inherently good.

February 9, 2010

Undercover Boss–A lesson in the Co-operative Difference

Filed under: Human Relations,Society — John McNamara @ 7:04 pm

After the Superbowl, CBS presented its new non-scripted show, Undercover Boss. The premise is timely. CEO’s of major corporations lose the suits and go to work on the front-line without revealing their true identity. Can these bosses work under the corporate policy that they wrote?

The first episode featured President of Waste Management, Larry O’Donnell. Larry gets to see first hand the effects of cost cutting measures designed to improve profitability and reward shareholders. Probably the most incredible moment occurs when Larry realizes that his policies essentially force staff to urinate in coffee cans that they carry with them as opposed to wasting precious minutes using a lavatory. In the end, Larry promises sweeping changes to honor the men and women who remove quite a bit of material and human waste from our communities.

I thought how this show would be even better if they could juxtapose the profiled business with a worker co-operative. Or instead of revealing Larry’s epiphany, they could have created a panel of front-line workers from Waste Management to watch the show and develop a list of ways for the company to change.

Other little things that I noticed was the fear on the face of the middle-managers when they had to respond to Larry’s request. I wonder if that fear even registers with him? Maybe he doesn’t even see it because it is the normal reaction. I certainly know what would happen in a worker co-op if the GM or anyone presented demands disguised as  requests. The person would probably unpack the request–how are we going to pay for it? is this really going to accomplish what the GM wants? does this fit in with the goals and values of the organization?

I don’t know if the schtick of the show will keep my interest but it certainly was enjoyable to see the structural failure of profit-based policy get its comeuppance.

January 11, 2010

#18 The Instrumental and Subordinate Nature of Capital

Filed under: Human Relations,Identity Statement Series — Tags: , , , — John McNamara @ 10:20 am

“We do not aspire to economic development as an end, but as a means.”

–Don José María Arizmendiarrieta, spiritual founder of Mondragon

This Mondragon principle, in practice, operates more closely to the Identity Statement principle of Member Economic Participation. I included it in this side road of the over all series because I believe that Mondragon presents a nuance all too often lost in the co-operative movement and, in the silo-ed environment of the US worker co-operative movement, we often tend to forget the role of capital in our organizations is significantly different from that of our industry and capitalist competitors.

The role of capital in a worker co-operative should be two-fold:

1) ensure the on-going operations of the co-operative

2) allow the co-operative to maintain the highest level of safety and quality of work-life.

Thus, this principle presents the balancing act of worker co-operatives. As the opening quote suggests, if we are just in it for the money, what are we really trying to accomplish? However, DJMA has also said, “Cooperativism without the structural capacity to attract and assimilate capital at the level of the requirements of industrial productivity is but a temporary solution, an invalid formula.”

The definition of this principle is as follows:

” The Mondragon Cooperative Experience considers capital to an instrument, subordinate to Labour, necessary for business development and worthy, therefore, of:

a) Remuneration, which is:

  • Just, in relation to the efforts implied in accumulating capital,
  • Adequate, to enable necessary resources to be provided,
  • Limited in its amount, by means of corresponding controls,
  • Not directly linked to the profits made.

b) Availability subordinate to the continuity and development of the cooperative, without preventing the correct application of the principle of open admission.”

As a tool, the role of capital should not exclude members from participation in their co-operative. This is a key point for worker co-operatives. The level of capital investment by the member should be appropriate to the needs of the industry and the ability of the worker to contribute. Otherwise, the role of capital dwarfs the rights of the workers, the human beings.

Another important diversion for worker co-operatives is the separation of capital from profits. Too often I hear directors (who have come to us from the “for profit” world) talk about the need for “return on investment” or “return on equity” as the means for deciding the correct course of the co-operative. However, that places capital in a position of greater importance than it needs to be or should be. While a surplus (profit) is needed to re-capitalize the organization and to expand, that should be the limit of its effect. We should not seek to maximize ROI because that mindset leads to the disaster capitalism that has plagued our macro-economy for thirty years.

Capital, in a cooperative, exists to serve the needs of the members collectively. In a worker co-operative, Capital should mean ensuring good paying jobs, safe working conditions and the opportunity for human development. Co-operatives exists as a means for socio-economic transformation of the community, not for the further enrichment of the few who control capital. This may be one of the key differences of cooperation from its market based cousin capitalism. Capital, in a cooperative, should be used to elevate the human being, to eliminate (or minimize) exploitation, and create a sustainable community.

This may seem like an obvious concept, but it is not. Too often co-operative managers hear the siren song of the capitalists. When we start hearing managers talking about industry “best practices” we should immediately ask who those practices are best for. Are those practices “best” for the workers or the stockholders? Are they best for the consumers or the stockholders? Are they “best” for managers or the members? Are they “best” for the community or the stockholders? We need to see that our co-operatives must develop their own best practices for the industry. By creating best practices that do not get tied to maximizing ROI or ROE, we can create strong, vibrant workplaces that will, in turn, create sustainable, vibrant communities.

These are, I believe, the questions that Don Jose wants us to ask. We cannot simply pretend that we are at the grown-ups table when we manage our businesses. We cannot model the “industry” without focusing on the unique role of capital in our co-operatives. As the opening quote states, the role of capital is simply a means to a better future. It should never be considered an end unto itself.

Next Week: Participatory Management

January 4, 2010

#17 Sovereignty of Labor (Mondragon Priniciples)

Filed under: Human Relations,Identity Statement Series — Tags: , , , — John McNamara @ 1:00 pm

The Mondragon principle “Sovereignty of Labor” created departure from the cooperative movement. While the Rochdale Pioneers had good intentions, they abandoned worker cooperation in the 1870’s. The Fabian Socialist moved even further from the ideals of Robert Owen declaring consumerism as the lowest common denominator for human relationships eschewing workers as merely another stakeholder group. Even the French cooperativist Charles Gide turned away from worker associations. Sadly, this act left the labor movement adrift from the cooperative world even as organizations such as the Industrial Workers of the World and the Congress of Industrial Organizations developed worldviews akin to the ideal of cooperation.

In the US, as in most of the Capitalist dominated world, the idea of labor being sovereign is almost non-existent. Business schools spend a lot of money teaching future managers how to manage workers—increase their productivity and the companies profits Except in the more enlightened firms, managers treat workers as errant children. Likewise, the dominant culture makes work something to be avoided and champions obstruction as “fighting the man”. People who do work hard tend to be treated as suck-ups and “upwardly mobile”. We mock the Ragged Dick stories in which “by luck and by pluck and good boy may succeed”. We have been conditioned to hate work and to distrust anyone who suggests that we work hard. The wobblies ran a cartoon called Blockhead who ridiculed the “company man”.

A part of me says, “damn straight!” why should workers gleefully assist the people exploiting them? The life of a worker under capitalism is not any better than it was under feudalism. In some ways, it is worse. The bond between serf and lord was based on land, food and safety. Capitalism replaced those bonds of survival by monetizing them and making currency the commonality of humanity. The chattel slave became the wage slave in the first round of outsourcing that allowed the owner to reduce or eliminate the cost of housing and feeding the workers in their employ.

The Jesuits had a different tradition, thankfully. St. Ignatius, founder of the Jesuit Order, took his vows of celibacy just a few kilometers from Mondragon in the foothills overlooking Onati. The Basque followers of St. Ignatius believed that work could lead to transformation and salvation. In the Spanish Empire they attempted to covert the native Americans of the Tipu-Guarni* through worker collectives known at Jesuit Reductions and immortalized in the movie, The Mission. It was a modern day member of their order, Don José María Arizmendiarreta (DJMA) who would bring that ethic to the small town of Mondragon and teach five young mean the value of cooperation.

The Principles of Mondragon Cooperative Corporation state:

“The Mondragon Cooperative Experience considers that Labour is the principal factor for transforming nature, society and human beings themselves, and therefore:

a) Renounces the systemic contracting of salaried workers

b) Gives labour total primacy in the organization of cooperatives

c) Considers Labour to be worthy, in essence, in the distribution of the wealth created.

d) Manifests its will to extend the options for work to all members of the society.”

There should be a different culture in worker cooperatives, where the workers truly own and control the company. However, waving a magic wand cannot do it. To this end, it is important for worker cooperatives to adopt the notion of the sovereignty of labor. We need to instill a cooperative work ethic in our organizations. Not a work ethic based on enriching others (or even consumers for that matter), but of social transformation or us and our peers based on honesty, openness, and solidarity and caring for others.

Don Jose spoke often on this topic. “Man transforms and makes nature fertile through his labour,” he wrote”, and labour is the greatest asset that the community possesses: to live with dignity, one must embrace work.” Of DJMA, did not mean a mindless embrace of the protestant work ethic to benefit the sputtering Franco economic engine. He meant that workers should own their labor. They should be, as another Jesuit priest from the previous generation argued, “Masters of their Destiny”.

That is the point of this principle. We, as workers, should honor work. We should give to our cooperatives 100% of our effort. When we do this, we begin to transform ourselves and our community creating something of greater value. We must honor all work and recognize that all of those who work as members of our cooperative (or as people who may become members). Sometimes, this work ethic can turn itself on its head and we regard the presence of “management” or “leaders” as we would in the outside world. This is an incorrect understanding of this principle. Sr. Ormaechea denounces the “duplicity of individualism” which might make those of us in the US wince a bit.  However, the sovereignty of labor is in relation to capital not individuals. In the capitalist world, we have learned that managers and leaders tend to be the agents of capital, not labor (sadly this is even true of some labor leaders). The role of the cooperative should be to empower all workers. Management or leaders (as we shall see) come from the workers and belong to them—they are not alien to the work force, but part of it.

We do not invoke this principle by emulating Talyorist strategies or adopting a proprietor’s attitude towards co-workers. Treating our fellow members as our employees is not the correct method of expressing the sovereignty of labor. Instead, we embrace this principle by developing each other as co-leaders in our enterprise. We operationalize this principle by making decisions that enrich the lives of the workers (in terms of safety, education, and health) over the base need for profit. We honor this principle by treating each other as equals and as humans deserving of our respect and love. By doing these things, we change the nature of work from an act of necessity to one of social transformation. We overcome the cultural animosity acquired from being a wage slave to create a new culture of mutual self-help and self-responsibility.

*The currency of Paraguay is the Guarni, which represents the historic measure of wealth in the region (how many Guarni were owned by the Spanish slaveholders)

Next Week: The Instrumental and Subordinate Nature of Capital

November 16, 2009

#11 Caring for Others

Filed under: Human Relations,Identity Statement Series — Tags: , , — John McNamara @ 12:55 pm

This is the last of the ethical values and the last part of the identity statement that was added to the set of familiar “Rochdale Principles” in 1995. As such, it wraps up the concepts that have gone before. It acts as a bookend with the first value of self-help.

We can’t help others if we can’t help ourselves. We can’t be only about ourselves. In thinking about this entry, I couldn’t help but remember the scene from Hair in which a women confronts the father of her child who is otherwise a hip cat trying to change the world:

Cooperatives are a social movement, an economic movement, and an educational movement. As a result, caring for others takes us beyond the social responsibility so easily co-opted by caring capitalist and benevolent dictators. We have to be about caring for each other. This value of caring likely attracted the likes of Don José Arizmendiaretta and Moses Coady and other Christians in Italy and throughout the co-operative world. This sense of community service and support finds itself in the religious movements of  the Abrahamic religions. For more on this topic, check out Andrew McLeod’s book, Holy Coooperation!

For those of us in the secular world, caring for others is just as essential a value as it is for the religiously inclined. It is a human value, after all. The human species can survive on its own, but it flourishes as a community. As such, the need to cooperate is necessary to our survival.

Tom Webb presented the value of Caring for others in this manner:

“Caring implies not just charity but active concern about how to act and create structures so as to enable others to realize their potential and live full and satisfying lives.”

Worker Co-ops have a special mission under this value. We need to create structures in our co-operatives that develop us as human beings and even world citizens. We need to help our members break away from the bad habits of other workplaces that only value the labor of the worker. The “move them up or move them out” aspect of Human Resources (whose very name suggests that the human is simply another asset to be managed) must be replaced with Human Development.

Many workers (at least in the larger worker coops) come to co-operatives without a lot of knowledge about co-ops. They may be seeking a good job in the industry more than a commitment to co-op development. I’ve heard one co-op organizer describe them as post-traumatic stress syndrome victims. A lot of workers have learned the wrong lessons from other workplaces and they need to see that the workplace can be healthy for human  beings. Caring for others means that our policies and work places place the worker’s well being (physical and emotional) at the center of their purpose. This means creating strong resolution process that go beyond simply ending conflict, but transforming the individuals to make them stronger people.

Loyal and happy workers lead to loyal and happy customers. By creating a supportive and nurturing community inside our cooperatives, we create a strong and vibrant business model. Caring for others creates the basis for the co-operative difference in a worker co-operative. Creating strong relationships and human development among our work force allows us to develop life-long relationships with our customers.

Of course, not everyone is able or willing to participate in this sort of environment. It may be that the wrong lessons of how humans treat each other have become so ingrained that the individual can’t overcome them and prosper in a co-operative community. It may be that some people see the co-operative community as “easy to get over” and manipulate others for their personal ends. The value of caring should not imply that co-operators are emotional doormats. The value of caring for others should empower ourselves to step up and confront members who don’t act co-operatively. Mostly, these issues will be resolved through education and development programs. In some cases, however, the only way for the co-op to exhibit “caring for others” will result in asking unco-operative members to leave the community. We can’t pretend that co-operatives can fix everyone—especially in the United States where the co-operative option is such a minor part of the overall economy and workplaces. In this extreme case, caring for others means protecting for the larger community. Of course, even in this sad situation, the people involved should be treated with dignity and respect.

Caring for Others gives guidance to co-operatives on how to create thriving, human based businesses. This ethical value moves co-operatives beyond the concept of social responsibility. By expressing caring for others, co-operatives create a healthy workplace that helps people realize their full potential as human beings.

Next: We start on the familiar principles and will make a few detours along the way to learn about the Mondragon principles as well.

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