The Workers' Paradise

September 6, 2010

Happy Labor Day!

Filed under: Movement,Worker Rights — Tags: , — John McNamara @ 12:06 pm

Well, in most of the world, Labor Day  is on May 1st. In the United States, Grover Cleveland made it the first Monday in September specifically to avoid the connection of May 1 and the Haymarket Square Tragedy. The struggle that day for the 8 Hour Day was destroyed by government agents, but the long-term vision of those martyrs was eventually realized. In fact, if you happen to enjoy a weekend or a day off, thank the labor movement.

As we celebrate the rich labor history in the United States, we also need to think about ways to reinvigorate it. While the traditional labor movement has had a rough couple of decades, other parts of the labor movement have grown. Worker Cooperatives increase in size and number every year and the Industrial Workers of the World also seem to be growing. In the last year, the announcement of Mondragon and the United Steeelworkers stunned our world, but since then nothing has seemed to happen.

We need to find a way to get things moving again. We need to create a vision like the leaders of the bygone era had. Maybe not the “Eight Hour Day” or even “Abolish the Wage System”, but we need to create a common anthem and goal for the labor movement. It needs to be something that workers in worker coops and workers in labor unions can get behind and rally towards.

Health Care for All?

Free Education?

Free immigration (If Capital can move across borders, why can’t workers)?

Even a hundred years ago, workers were willing to fight and die for an 8 hour work day and the right to join a labor union. What is going to give this generation of laborers the passion needed to change the world?

August 24, 2010

The Co-operative Index

Filed under: Education,Governance,Movement — Tags: , , , , — John McNamara @ 8:18 pm

One of the last workshops of the National Worker Co-operative Conference introduced the Co-operative Index to a United States audience. Before going into the details of this tool, it needs to have a bit of the history explained.

In 2005, Johnston Birchall addressed the International Co-operative community. It was the occasion of the the 10th anniversary of the adoption of the Statement on the Co-operative Identity. Prof. Birchall called for the community to “operationalize” the statement. In effect, to take the document off of the wall and out from under glass and make it part of the day-to-day decision-making process of our co-operatives. He used a phrase that had already started spreading around the movement: “market the co-operative advantage” or MOCA. However, he also used another phrase: “Managing the co-operative difference.” Birchall argued that we really can’t create a co-operative competitive advantage until we manage our co-operatives differently from our competitors.

In 2003, the St. Mary’s MMCCU program had begun towards this end, but the rest of the co-operative world had yet to really embrace the statement. It needed a push and Birchall gave it one. The folks at St. Mary’s also heard his call. While they were busy improving their Master program, they were also looking for opportunities to highlight the co-op difference and create the competitive advantage.

John Chamard, Sonja Novkovic and Tom Webb discovered a Polish professor of organizational psychology who had developed a method of measuring participatory workplaces with an eye towards helping them to improve themselves. His name is Ryzard Stocki and he created the Open Index as a tool for non-profits to measure themselves against their ideals. It was decided to see if such a tool could be developed for co-operatives and that the best sector to start with was the worker co-op sector. In 2008, the St. Mary’s team brought together a group of Co-op developers from Canada and worker co-op practitioners. I was one of the participants in a weekend long session of developing an “ideal” worker co-operative against which we could measure real world worker co-operatives. It was an exciting, and at times frustrating, process. In the end, we created a framework for a diagnostic tool that worker co-operatives could use that was different than tools such as the SA8000, World Blu Democratic workplace survey, or other such measurements. At the New Orleans meeting of the US Federation of Worker Co-operatives, the Federation membership agreed to support it.

We based our tool on the Identity Statement and the principles of Mondragon that go beyond the identity statement (sovereignty of labor, subordinate nature of capital, payment solidarity, and participatory management). The tool was fine-tuned and then put into the field to test its effectiveness. After the initial attempts were made, the reports were analyzed and the tool was fine tuned. It is now ready for a mass distribution. The workshop was its official exposure to a US audience.

What is the Tool?

The tool is a lengthy survey designed to measure the perceptions of immediate stakeholders in a worker co-operative (separating those who identify as “leaders” with those who identify as “rank-and-file”). It asks questions designed to rate the ability of the cooperative to meet its obligations under the identity statement: Values, Ethics, Principles as well as its organizational ability to meet its members’ needs. It creates an index for the co-operative to measure across time and, eventually, will create an index to measure against other worker co-operatives.

There are two methods of using the tool. It can be used for a very brief snap shot of the “state of the cooperative” or it can be part of a more intensive triangulation of issues facing the cooperative. In either case, it can, and should, help influence strategic planning, education, training, and leadership development. At the national and international level, it can help planner determine workshop needs and membership needs.

The first method is the simplest and cheapest. The co-operative works with someone from St. Mary’s to set up the survey (more information is available from either the US Federation or the Canadian Worker Cooperative Federation). The co-operative participates with a very real goal of 100% participation by its members. The assistant helps produce a report that distills the scores on a maturity index for the different segments: values, organizational, principles, etc.

The more involved method involves have the assistant work with a small committee of the co-operative. this could be the social audit committee or the strategic planning committee. Ideally, it is a committee of members representing the cooperative stakeholders (i.e. not all directors, or all rank-and-file). The survey gets completed as before, but the adviser also helps the committee build a document base to examine how the perceptions of the survey interact with actual policy and practice of the co-operative. This allows the committee to make solid recommendations on structure, operations, and governance as a means of improving the co-operative along the maturity curve.

Ideally, a co-operative might do the full process every three to five years and the short process annually. Obviously, the size and nature of the co-operative will make some differences in the process. However, even smaller co-operatives might find that they have a disconnect between groups within the co-operative.

This tool can help co-ops dig below the surface issues to get at root causes of problems and provide strong solutions. On the other hand, the tool can help co-operatives see where their strengths are and help them learn to share those strengths with other co-operatives.

The initial work on this tool has been so successful and the support for it so enthusiastic that the Canadian Co-operative Association received a substantial grant to design similar tools for the other sectors. The call the overall project “Measuring the Co-operative Difference Research Network”. Hit the link for more details.

With the development of the Democracy at Work Network of peer advisers coming on-line in January and the advent of the Co-op Index Tool, Federation member co-operatives and all worker co-operatives in Canada and the United States will have a powerful means of analyzing their processes, their policies and the functioning of their co-operative as a co-operative. This, in turn, will allow them to not just “manage the co-operative difference” but create a strong competitive advantage for themselves and other worker co-ops. This project is exactly, in my opinion, the sort of thing that the Federation was founded to accomplish. It allows us to bring our considerable brain power together in an act of mutual self-help and solidarity with the goal of creating strong sustainable workplaces and communities.

August 16, 2010

Compassion in Worker Cooperatives

Filed under: Movement — Tags: — John McNamara @ 10:49 am

I wasn’t quite sure what to expect when I wandered into the meeting room. The description discussed the important role of compassion in dealing with conflicts as opposed to the more common acts of assigning blame.

It was led by Michael Johnson who is part of the Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives, GEO and has been living in an intentional community for 30 years. Part of this workshop was based on his real-life experiences in attempting to find more productive methods of resolving conflict.

At the core of this workshop lies the idea that if we really want to create a different workplace, then we need to really change the manner of our interactions. Of course, this is also the line of thought that Don Arizmenidiaretta, the spiritual founder of Mondragon, followed for his entire life. The Basque Don saw worker cooperatives as a means of social and human transformation. He saw our cooperative movement as the method by which people would not only have a job that treated them well, but would learn the value of humanity and become better humans through the process.

In the somewhat cynical world of secular economics, we don’t always consider that aspect of our movement. This is a shame, because without that guiding ideal, we tend to mirror the dominant world’s attitude of human resources, and problem solving. We see people who don’t play well with others as threats to the organization and respond appropriately. We can even see people who hold a different opinion as threats. We need a different method.

Michael, of course, recognizes that some people aren’t ready for cooperation and communalism. The organization has to remain healthy. The difference, he suggested, is developing a means of active listening and a culture of compassion. Try to understand the other person’s point-of-view. We may find more commonality than difference. Even if the person still needs to leave the organization, both parties may obtain positive lessons and grow from the experience.

It was an very interesting discussion to have on only a few hours of sleep! There are many quotes from Arizmendiaretta on the human nature of our cooperatives, but I think that this gets at the core of this workshop: “The human person that proceeds to cultivate his or her abilities with the only objective of being productive, insensibly and fatally becomes a slave to the productive machine.” I take from that comment  and the workshop hat we have a duty to ourselves to go beyond “policies” and reach out to the humans in our coops. It doesn’t mean that we should tolerate selfish and anti-cooperative behavior, but we should take the time and effort to see our humanity reflected in our co-workers even if the experience involves asking them to change their behavior or leave the cooperative.

August 8, 2010

The Youth Movement in Worker Coops: Toxic Soil Busters

Filed under: Movement — Tags: , — John McNamara @ 1:19 pm

So what do you do when you find your neighborhood is full of lead from a by-gone era? Teens in Massachusetts decided to get busy and make some money on the side.

The Toxic Soil Busters are a youth cooperative. These are “youth” in terms of age. They are located in Worchester, MA. They work to clean the soli of their community of the lead paint that was so heavily used by during the industrial age of this area. Since lead poisoning effects children in a more severe manner than adults (although still dangerous), this coop is essentially young people (non-adults) helping to clean the community of lead to help the generation behind them.

This isn’t some high school science project led by a kindly teacher. This is a business owned, controlled and managed by its members who just happen to be teenagers. They do the testing, they do the removal. More importantly, they make the decisions on how to organize and run the business.

I’ve been hearing about these folks for a little over a year, but they have been active since 2005 and have cleaned 36 properties. They use pyto-plant remediation to remove the lead from the soil. The plats pull the lead out of the dirt and the soil busters take the plants away.

It was a great presentation. Janeazzii (I hope that I have that spelled right) lead the group in a chant: TSB Profit? In Lead with Stop it!

She then told her story about finding TSB and learning. They do the interviewing for new hires (youth interviewing youth), they do the hiring and, if neccessary, they do the firing. They manage their own capital and they find incredilbe learning opportunities (including how to deal with conflict). They discussed a scenario in which a person just wanted the money; however, they did talk about the conflict of friendships and other pressures that all of us deal with in our cooperatives. They don’t turn this over to a mentor, they deal with it themselves.

The experience has led to greater community activism (I have to note, that since the job starts with cleaning the land, it seems quite natural that natural for this to expand outwards). This is a great lesson for our cooperatives of much older members. We need to make the connection between having good jobs, clean land, and social justice.

Patricia was next. She noted that TSB debunks the myth that teenagers only care about shopping, eating and sleeping. If young people are our future, then why don’t we treat them like it.  Teenagers see a void in the world where they are considered and to fill this void, they look for a way to belong. She noted that why she can handle these responsibilities, she can’t write a check, nor can she serve on the US Federaton of Worker Cooperatives board of directors.*

TSB is a space where teens and youth can find a space and feel involved. It is a place for them to find power and their voice. TSB strengthens their community and joins with other organizations regionally and nationally.

The Toxic Soli Busters’ received the second standing ovation of the day (the Evergreen Initiative was first).

The first question, how to export this. They suggest to make sure that you allow the youth to talk.

Do people age out (the Logan’s Run question)? The two that are leaving (for college) will be training the new hires. They aren’t leaving with their experience, they are leaving that behind. One of the founders who is in college acts in a mentor role.

A question about legal age to work. In Mass, the legal age is 14 and the TSB are talking about creating a mentoring program to help younger people interested in the work.

*As president of the USFWC, I will say that our had a spirited discussion, but recognized that we didn’t really have a process to deal with it. We agreed that we need to create a process. We have committed to changing the by-laws to make space for youth on our board by our next membershing meeting in Austin, TX in 2011 and have invited Patricia to participate in our meetings this year.

August 7, 2010

Deep Thoughts on Coops

Filed under: Movement — Tags: , — John McNamara @ 3:10 pm

“Cooperation summons people to a collective project, but leaves each person with his or her own responsibility. Cooperation is the development of the individual, not against others, but with others. The objective is the human person, not the monstrous development of the individualist who is determined to, or at least at constant risk of , crushing other. Rather the objective is the development of what is the best and most sacred within each human person. Cooperation is something that is close to humans. Cooperativist philosophy rejects both the collectivist and the liberal conceptions of the human natures. It recognizes instead the unique value of the human person, but insists that this person cannot be totally him or herself until entering into creative as well as spiritually and materially productive relationshps with the worlh  or she is part.” –Don Jsoé María Arizmendiarrieta (spiritual founder and leader on Mondragon Coopertive)

This statement provided the basis for this workshop at the US Federation of Worker Cooperative National Conference. The title of the workershop, Deeper Meanings of Cooperation, was meant to get at the society of our cooperatives and, as facilitator Rebecca Kemble noted, how we refashion ourselves as humans and deal with co-workers who either won’t or can’t refashion themselves.”.

It was a round-table discussion that focused on the issues of self-responsibiitiy and self-help. We discussed how we work with conflict in our cooperatives and how we manage disputes. Part of this discussion involved the reason that people choose coopeatives. While some come to the coop movement out of a desire to work in a democratic environemnt, others come becuase the coop succeeds in providing good jobs and benefits for the industry. As Adam Chern of Union Cab pointed out that it isn’t neccessarily discussed in the lofty terms of coops but in the simple concepts of thsoe who see the need for long-term sustainability and those that want short-term gains. It reminded me of the analogy of the the Grasshoppoer and the Ant. These are two very different world views and as coop leaders, we need to figure out how to manage them.

There was a lot of discussion about creating strong educational programs and better communication structures. Lisa Russell from Equal Exchange noted a cultural part of our country. In her travels with EE, farmers in Salvador noted taht the Americans talk in small groups in the hallway, but stay silent in meetings. While the farmers make a point of airing their differences and working them out.

Peter Hough of the Canadian Worker Cooperative Federation noted that conflict may also result from the lack of a formal business plan and vision of the organization while John Langley suggested that we also need to recognize that “getting rid of the boss” doesn’t ensure change. Further, that people may start out with very idealistic goals but can gravitate towards a narrow self-interest.

There are a number of great comments along these lines. We ended the session with a discussion about pay levels and how that can create conflict when it seems to run counter to the vision or ideal of cooperatives. We also discused the cultural differnece between physical and intellectual labor. This drifted into a discussion of the social capital that we create. Not all of the wealth is financial. We need to find a way to reach out to those that only see the financial and help them see the social capital that they build.

I felt that we were getting at a lot of issues in our cooperatives. How do we create a truly meaningul community and society within a larger paradigm that seems to champion the antithesis of our values, ethics, and principles. One person suggested that the tension between capitalism and cooperation can be a good thing and help us impove.

Ultimately, I think that our discussion was getting at the concept of Entropy. In the physical world, Entropy is part of teh second law of thermodynamics. Without working on a system, it will decay to its most unorganized state. So it is with our cooperatives. We cannot expect people to simply walk in from the outside world and embrace the cooperative ideal. We need to create institutional norms and mores. We need to work against the entropy of our cooperatives that leads people to narrow their self-interest. This means creating and defending structures within our cooperatives to educate and inform on the cooperative identity. It also means that we need to be willing to confront (in a cooperative way) the negativity and we need to support each other.

In her opening remarks (held after this session), Executive Director Melissa Hoover said that we need to quit thinking ourselves as the “alternative”. We need to see ourselves as the model.To do this, we need to discover ways to help workes “refashion” themselves. Arimendiarietta famously asked if the worker co-operative is an economic movement with an educational component or an education movement with an economic component. He believed in educaiton. He also saw work as a form of social transformation. We need to see our workplaces as places to create social capital which can be used to help people reach their potential as humans. If not, then we must ask, as Sidney Prohubischy once did, “why work so hard to be a capitalist?” We have a responsibility to reach higher.

June 28, 2010

The Democracy at Work Conference

Filed under: Movement — Tags: , , , — John McNamara @ 2:18 pm

I took last week off due to a couple of things. The most important of which involved my wife and I becoming “Domestic Partners” in Dane County. Five years ago, we married ourselves in a handfasting ceremony at one of the area’s First Nations* “mounds”. We decided to seek legal status for some personal reason, but it was also a fun experience. This week, I was going to continue the discussion about how co-operatives should treat their workers. However, three events have caused me to delay it. The first involves my co-operative, Union Cab, which will be having two informal membership meetings this week. The first involves dealing with frustrations about bureaucracy and “management’s punitive practices”** among other angst driven issues. The second involves my co-operative’s attempt at creating solutions for dealing with our current “smokey hut” where people currently enjoy their smokey treats but which will likely be illegal when Wisconsin’s smoking ban goes into effect on July 5th. The former has been called by a couple of stewards, the latter by the General Manager.

The last reason is that a couple of key deadlines will be upon us. As President of the US Federation of Worker Co-operatives, I find it necessary, even obligatory, to push our annual conference. The Apex organization of worker co-operatives in the United States will be holding its annual meeting and biannual conference in Berkeley, CA from August 6-8.

The deadline for a discounted registration is June 30, 2010.

The deadline for registration is July 5, 2010–you can still attend after this date, but we may not be able to count you in on the dinner and meals. REGISTER TODAY!

With the theme, “The Work We Do Is The Solution” hundreds of worker cooperative members and cooperative developers will meet at the University of California—Berkeley from August 6-8, 2010 to share information, strategies and tactics to make their cooperatives stronger as well as to help create new worker cooperatives. The US Federation of Worker Cooperatives sponsors the conference and holds its annual meeting.

Texas Populist Jim Hightower will be the keynote speaker. Other featured speakers include the Evergreen Cooperative project from Cleveland (featured in TIME and The Economist as an innovative economic development strategy), the Toxic Soil Busters youth cooperative from Worcester, MA which has city contracts to do lead remediation, and representatives from EdVisions, which is changing the face of public education by developing teacher-run small charter schools across the country.

USFWC Executive Director Melissa Hoover emphasized the theme of the conference, noting that, “Worker cooperatives can be economic engines that generate the surplus we need to tackle the big problems. They can create jobs that offer opportunities for meaningful personal and professional growth.   They can build community power and shared wealth.  They can choose to conduct business in a restorative and sustainable way. They can create a powerful values-based and principled framework for making decisions about work, industry, and the economy.”

The conference will be held at the Clark Kerr Conference Center. The 2010 Conference may be one of the most important meetings of the decade for those interested in creating a more sustainable economy.

The USFWC has created a nation-wide Peer Advisor Network to assist member cooperatives and start-ups with guidance from people working in worker cooperatives. Along with new capitalization efforts underway, there has never been a better time in the United States to start a worker cooperative. We have created a strong support structure for fledging cooperatives as well as existing cooperatives who may need a hand up.

We have worked hard over the last four years (since the NYC conference) to create a vibrant national movement. We currently sit on the edge of success. This is our moment to surge forward. If you read this blog with any regularity, we need you in Berkeley. We need you in the movement. The time for worker co-operaters and those that believe that our economy should mirror our values need to act today.

See you in Berkeley!

May 10, 2010

The Guiding Light

Filed under: Identity Statement Series,World Declaration — Tags: , , — John McNamara @ 5:20 pm

Over the last several months, I have used this space to discuss the two core documents for worker co-operatives: The Statement on the Co-operative Identity and the CICOPA Declaration on Worker Co-operatives. Worker co-operative practitioners need to read these documents. More importantly, they need to conduct their co-operative’s affairs and lead their co-operative with respect to these documents.

It really isn’t enough to post a sheet of paper on a wall with the words on them. While that is important, it simply doesn’t go far enough. We need, in our co-operatives, to invent ways to bring these documents to life. Co-operatives should adopt strategies such as including a statement with each policy proposal that details how this proposal expresses the identity of a worker co-operative in terms of these guiding documents. Trainings should begin with a review of the documents and how they interact with the training. Ultimately, even our operational decisions should reflect the guiding light of the co-operative identity and the declaration.

Unlike our competitors, our business must be intentional. We can’t simply throw pasta on the wall and see if it sticks. We need to consciously embrace the identity and infuse it into our operations, our planning, and our governance. If we aren’t really different from our competitors, then why co-operate? The way that we create that difference, a difference recognized world-wide, comes from expressing the collective values, principles, and identity of the worker co-operative. We don’t need to re-invent any wheels. We just need to make them turn.

May 3, 2010

CICOPA: Relations with Workers’ Organizations

Filed under: Movement,World Declaration — Tags: , , , , , — John McNamara @ 7:00 am

The final section of the World Declaration on Worker Co-operatives deals with the co-operative movement’s relations with the international labor movement. CICOPA calls upon the co-operative movement in general and worker co-operatives in particular to engage in dialogue.

The statement reads: “The co-operative movement should maintain a permanent dialogue with the trade unions, as the representative of the workers, in order to make sure that they understand the nature and essence of co-operative worker ownership as a distinctive modality of labour relations and ownership, overcoming the typical conflicts of wage-based labour, and that they support it in view of its importance and the prospects that it offers to human society.”

This post is quite timely as I was just discussing this in my May Day posting and fellow contributor, Bernard, also alluded to some other discussions. This is more important than the employer’s organizations. Workers must work together.

While I, personally, think that worker ownership is the way to go, I also recognize that it requires a lot of work that requires a serious commitment to education. Many people are quite happy working for a unionized workplace. They may not want the burden of having to manage the company in addition to doing the operations. One bike shop owner in Madison told me that his idea was to create the bike shop and convert it to a co-op. when he raised the idea with the workers, they weren’t interested. The workers liked working for him, but didn’t want to be tied down to the business—they liked having the freedom to leave when they wanted and weren’t really interested in committee meetings. The boss, in their mind, was doing a great job and created a great workplace, so why mess up a good thing.

We don’t train workers to be owners in our society. In fact, we do the opposite. We train workers to be subservient or even child-like. When companies talk of their business “being like a family” we can count on the “boss” being “dad” and the workers the “children”. As long as they are obedient and do as they are told, everything is fine. That is part of the dynamic with the aforementioned bike shop. Why would kids go out on their own when the parents are supplying everything they need and not making very many demands?

Of course, not everyone likes the child state. Many want to expand and grow. Labor-management antagonism derives from this dynamic. There comes a point, after all, when the interests of the child and those of the dad diverge. In families, everyone has a voice that is roughly equal (at least once everyone achieves the age of 18), but in economics, the voice of capital has a magnitude over that of an individual worker. Labor’s voice only matches capital when it pools the many voices into one. Labor unions provide a voice for the workers. They allow workers to focus on their jobs and act in their self-interest.

Labor unions, of course, also propagate capitalist society. Any honest capitalist will tell you that they prefer a unionized workforce. It may cost them a little up-front, but it also prevent wild cat actions, waters down demands, and even prevents revolution. Labor Unions seek a piece of the pie, they don’t want to talk about the recipe or the menu.

My preference, obviously, is for worker ownership. I fully believe that a world economy with worker co-operation as the dominant business model would be a sustainable economic system with a strong global community based on peace, justice, and equality.

It seems to me that labor unions help level the playing ground, but they don’t challenge an inequitable system (with the exception of the syndicalist union of the IWW). I support labor unions because of this, but I know that a better world is out there.

I have to recognize, however, that many workers simply don’t want to be worker-owners. I believe that attitude exists because of an education system that channels people into being either workers or bosses. An educational system that promoted co-operation over a profit-motive would create graduates who see work in a very different light. Don José María Arrizmendiarietta demonstrated this after World War II. The worker’s children in the small factory town of Arrasate (where he was sent) were not allowed to go to the school paid for by the plant bosses. Don José created a school for the children of the workers. Those children learned their letters and numbers under the co-operative teachings of the Jesuit priest. They also learned economics through the lens of Don José’s focus on a social economy in which the community economic structure would be based on education, justice, equality and equity. When the first group of students who earned their way into the University returned to their hometown and worked at the factory, they knew that they had to change the world. They knew that workers can run things if given the education. They left their jobs and retuned to Arrasate creating the ULGOR Cooperative and Mondragon was born.

The strategy laid out in the Declaration seems very reasonable. We, as worker co-operators, need to support the entire labor movement. We should support unions. However, we should also work to educate those in labor unions about worker ownership and encourage them to support us. We need to elevate their consciousness as well as our own. There are incredible partnerships to be made. We don’t need to choose between worker ownership and labor unions. As the hopeful pairing of the US Steelworkers and Mondragon might demonstrate, we can combine forces, and build the world the both groups want together.

May 1, 2010

Happy May Day! The International Workers’ Day!

Filed under: Movement — Tags: , — John McNamara @ 11:43 am

I greet you all–those who support the workers of the world. Today is our day to celebrate our achievements, remember our fallen brothers and sisters in the fight for justice, equality and recognition that world runs through the efforts of workers not politicians, capitalists or entrepreneurs.

May Day and worker cooperatives have a key point in common. Both have been co-opted by the state capitalist societies of yesteryear (USSR) and today (China) and well as modern neo-liberals. It is up to us to reclaim our history, our traditions, and our structures from those who would use the image and name of worker control to create its opposite.

Today should also be a day for us in the worker cooperative movement to connect to the labor movement as a whole. Last week, Labor Notes held their bi-annual conference in Detroit. This group of dedicated labor unionists reached out to the worker cooperative movement. The Restaurant Opportunities Center showed up and even picketed a  restaurant chain who has been up to a lot of bad things:

In Madison, there is a group that connects Earth Day to May Day. They schedule a number of events between April 22nd and May 1st to highlight the connection of achieving a sustainable environment and a sustainable economy. Perhaps the co-operative movement in the United States should do something similar. We should connect Earth Day, May Day and Co-op Day (first Saturday of July) along the same lines. Sustainable environment, sustainable economy and a sustainable community. It seems to me that these three holidays could form an excellent trinity of action each spring.

In Madison, it is a beautiful day. Whether there are May Day activities in your community or not, take a few minutes to revel and congratulate yourself for being part of the greatest movement in the history of the world, the people who brought you the weekend: the Labor Movement.

April 26, 2010

CICOPA: Worker Coop Relations with Employer Groups

Filed under: Movement,World Declaration — Tags: , , , — John McNamara @ 2:17 pm

This section of the Declaration on Worker Cooperatives (as the next one) consists of a short paragraph:

“Employers’ organizations can promote the development of cooperative worker ownership as an entrepreneurial form whose first objective is the creation of sustainable and decent jobs with and entrepreneurial added value, and as an appropriate exit strategy for the recovery of companies in crisis or in the process of liquidation, while respecting their autonomy, allowing their free entrepreneurial development and without abusing of this associative labour modality to violate the workers’ labour rights.”

Since this is an international statement, the definition of an employers’ organization will vary from country to country (as will its power in the economy and local government). I imagine that in some countries, an employers’ organization could even be a death squad with the mission of suppressing labor movements and union drives. For the purpose of this discussion, however, it seems best for those of us in the US, Canada and the UK to consider the role of worker coooperatives and the Chamber of Commerce. At some level, we may also want to consider groups such as the National Association of Manufacterers (NAM) and other groups.

This section seems like a call to worker cooperatives to educate their regional business groups. On the whole, this seems like a good idea. Cooperatives tend to get dismissed, in the United States anyway, as a bunch of tree-huggers, granola crunching, birkenstock pony-tailed hippies. By allowing this image to purvail, cooperatives in general and worker cooperatives in particular allow themselves to be ignored as a minor part of the economic model. We become a meaningless niche of the intelligentsia to be ridiculed instead of a model for a sustainable economy.

Our worker co-operatives must engage our local business community. We need to show them that the workers can run a business just as well or better than a single owner. We need to explain the co-operative difference. Isthmus Engineering won’t outsource their jobs to another part of the country to get cheap labor because the workers are the owners. City managers and politicians never have to worry about a worker co-operative picking up and moving out of the region (they might worry about a coop leaving the city proper, but that is a different issue).

This section of the Declaration provides a call to action on the part of our worker coopperatives. Specifically, we need to do the following:

1. When possible engage the local business associations either through membership or participation.*

2. Appoint someone in the organization to scan the media and respond to all mentions of cooperatives (especially negative connotations). Challenge the business community and the media to see co-operatives as valueable resources and sustainable assets to the community.

3. Show up, or monitor, city and county committees. Raise the cooperative model in general and the worker cooperative model in particular as viable means of sustainable economic development. This can be done through a regional or local coordination group or by individual cooperatives.

4. Create a united front of cooperatives to spread the word about cooperatives. Create the real image of our membership. Yes, there are people who fit the stereotype, but our combined memberships consists of hundreds if not thousands of workers and their families who contribute to the local economy as wage earners, property owners, renters, and consumers. The money generated in a worker co-operative stays in the community.

It is too easy for worker co-operatives to get lost in their operations. It is too easy for us to shrug and say that it isn’t our problem or that we have bigger fish to fry internally. That may be true, but we must engage the outside world. We need to be active leaders in the local economy. We need to raise the profile of worker co-operatives. Our co-operatives can only benefit from these actions. By engaging the employers’ organizations, we dispel the myths and untruths about worker co-operation and workplace democracy. We create a dynamic in which worker co-operation may be considered a solution to a problem from the early stages instead of as an afterthought. By creating a stronger impression with employers’ organizations, we create stronger co-operatives and may even create new business opportunities for ourselves.

*In Madison, two local booster groups, Chamber of Commerce and Downtown Madison, Inc, have chosen to endorse candidates in local elections. For co-operatives such as mine, this precludes our membership as our policies require us to remain neutral in elections and only lobby for positions.

Next Week: Relations with Labour Organizations

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