I was recently reelected to DAWN’s Board of Governors and the Training and Certification Committee. I am also a founding member of the organization. The following opinion (pitch, if you will) is all mine, however, and should not be seen as a statement by DAWN or representing DAWN.

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Last weekend, the third annual spring meeting of the Democracy at Work Network (DAWN) convened along with the certification of its third cohort of Peer Advisers. It was an incredible weekend and we were reminded by our the folks on the Marketing Committee that we need to get the word out.

What is DAWN? 

DAWN is, as it names implies, an organization of people aimed at assisting worker owned businesses in improving their functionality and governance as a democratic workplace. What makes DAWN different from a consulting service or academic pursuit arises from the population of the group. DAWN focuses on Peer Advising. The majority of people in DAWN either work in a worker cooperative or have worked in a workers cooperative within the last five years. This is an essential element. While we do have members who work as professional consultants, DAWN looks to embody the concept of inter-cooperation and solidarity. Peer Advisers don’t need to learn about the dynamics of workers cooperatives since they live those dynamics.

However, this isn’t just people who work in co-op sharing war stories. The certification process ensures that the PA can provide the level of assistance needed. The first year of membership is spent engaging in intensive training through webinars and weekend retreats. while learning about financing, legal structures, strategic planning and a host of other issues, PA apprentices conduct research about coop models, teach each other about those models, and participate in an internship utilizing their host and a mentor for guidance. All of this culminates, if successful,  in becoming a Certified Peer Advisor.

DAWN’s Goal

DAWN ‘s stated goals are to:

• meet the demand for technical assistance and development advice with high-quality services, and
• increase worker cooperative technical assistance capacity from inside the movement.

I think that an unstated part of this is to also get our worker cooperatives (over 300 in the United States) to not always rely on a “do-it-yourself” method of development. Too often, in my opinion and experience, co-operatives either ignore development as something too expensive or too corporate or just too complicated. If co-ops do engage in development, then it is usually the result of a small group within the coop driving it and not necessarily part of a strategic vision. At best, everything is successful and the people leading have the knowledge, skills and ability to manage the manage the program and  are around long enough to see it through to fruition. At worst, it creates a series of false starts that further stigmatize coop development or organizational development as expensive, time consuming and not worth the effort. For most cooperatives, I imagine, the reality lies somewhere along the continuum between those extremes with most co-ops just feeling too busy managing operations to deal with the larger picture issues until an issue reaches a boiling point and demands the attention of the group.

Why DAWN Can Help Worker Coops Succeed

Operations tend to be what we are best at as co-operators. I think that this is a nature aspect of worker cooperation. We get the gritty details of getting people cabs, fixing bicycles, running retail operations, and making/roasting coffee. Sometimes the bigger picture of long-term planning, capital planning, organizational culture, governance and accountability gets lost in the mix as we try to keep our customers coming back, pay ourselves and our vendors. Some of these development issues get us outside of our comfort zones and don’t seem to really make a difference, so why spend our members’ hard-earned equity on it?

Worker Co-ops need to create new ways of managing. We aren’t our competitors and don’t want to be. Taking the time (and money) to think and create new ways of managing the collective assets of the cooperative in a manner that strengthens the organization along cooperative values and principles should help make our coops stronger and more resilient to the demands of the market place. It should create added-value for the consumers of our operations. Sometimes, this can be hard to do by ourselves. We may not always have the right mix of knowledge and skills or there may be underlying social issues that prevent moving forward. This is true of any type of business, not just worker coops and is why consultants often get brought into any business.

DAWN offers the ability to efficiently deal with development issues and build structures tailored to the individual cooperative. Outside facilitation can assist the members is seeing their organization from a different perspective, learn from other worker coop models (cross-pollinate if you will) and develop systems and strategies that will help their cooperatives meet missions, core values and be successful. DAWN is a fee-for-service organization. It isn’t cheap, but it does provide value.

DAWN was created to help coops help themselves through a peer assistance program. If you think that your coop needs some outside assistance, please consider DAWN as a resource created specifically for worker cooperatives.

To keep up to date with DAWN check them out on Facebook or Twitter

This weekend just happened to fall right after I represented my cooperative hosting the Sustainable Business Network quarterly breakfast in Madison with guest speaker from Gundersen Lutheran Health Systems.

The Wisconsin Farmer’s Union, part of the National Farmer’s Union, promotes the slogan “legislation, education, cooperation” and they really do mean all three things. In addition to helping family farmers work for legislation to protect their family farm and promote sustainable farming practices, the Union also operates a Youth movement with and Kamp Kenwood, a cooperative owned and operated summer camp that teaches the principles of co-operatives while also providing a fun summer camp for members.

While it was fun to present Mondragon to a group of people who hadn’t yet heard of the Basque cooperative society, it is more important to share the take-away mirrored Bill Nelson’s message. The next 40 years will likely see a dramatic change in the way that the world produces farmers as the Ogallala Aquifer dries up.With a projected world population of nine billion or greater and significantly less water and land to produce food, the challenge to today’s young farmers will be incredible. It was my point that the challenge to the founders of Mondragon was also great, but the the role of the cooperative allowed them to focus on their values, work together, and find solutions instead of amassing profit. It will be the co-operatives that figure out the solution to climate change, because our focus is on sustainability  not simply amassing profit. Money doesn’t do any good sitting in a bank vault. Like manure, it only works if we spread it around and prevent run-off.

The panel brought three great stories of how cooperatives create sustainability. Fifth Season was the newest of the three coops presented. This is a relatively new model of food coop in the US. Rather than GM dominated consumer coops that cater to the wealthy, it is a multi-stakeholder co-operative that offers membership to each of the six different segments of the food chain: producer, producer groups, processors, distributers, buyers, and workers. Everybody is at the table. They aren’t operating retail outlets, however, most of their buyers have institutional needs, so it is a bit different than the foodie focused consumer coops, but it also caters to working people who can’t really afford shopping at boutique food stores and still want good food. It is a really neat experiment in sustainability and local development in the rural area of Wisconsin. Organic Valley also presented with a focus on how they are working to become even more sustainable  The organic producer coop  has been a leader in sunflower oil technology and has found the means to develop it for either food-grade or bio-fuel. In addition  they have been working the Gundersen Lutheran (which is also a member of Fifth Season) to install two ginormous wind turbines. The energy production gets shared between the two organizations, but Organic Valley’s representatives said it covers almost 90% of their electrical needs! Finally, Cooperative Care’s  Tracy Dudzinski spoke on the important work of providing home care and health care in the rural areas and the powerful nature of cooperatives to transform workers from people who work to live into fully actualized human beings as well as the growing need for home care as the baby boomers age into a large community of single people with limited personal support networks.

The last bit brings me back to my Mondragon talk and one of the things that I wish that I had mentioned at the panel. During the discussion of  the three panelists, I was reminded of a series of short stories by Hamlin Garland entitled Main Travelled Roads . He wrote about the farmers of the Coulee Country of Southeast Wisconsin. How they were preyed upon by eastern bankers, crooked salesmen, and a host of other issues that helped found the Grange and ultimately the Progressive Movement and the Wisconsin Farmer’s Union. I wondered how he would see the farmers of Wisconsin today (I wasn’t sure how many people in the audience got my reference, but I was presuming that everyone who grew up in Wisconsin and is a farmer has read this book–it is a great collection of short stories). More importantly, I wish that I would have amplified Tracy’s comments recognizing how cooperatives, especially worker cooperatives, function to change people. Arizmendiaretta, the spiritual founder of Mondragon, always believed that worker ownership would transform workers into strong and moral community leaders. It has been my experience to see that effect over and over again. It is one of the reasons that I believe that it will be the cooperative movement that manages to deal with climate change. It will take real leadership to build a new sustainable economy. Not leadership in the form of politicians, but leadership in the form of making tough decisions that provide the most benefit to the most people even if that means some short term sacrifice. Politicians are a dime-a-dozen these days, but few are leaders.

It was my pleasure to meet some of the future leaders of Wisconsin in Eau Claire this weekend. Leaders who understand the important role of education and cooperation and will help lead to better legislation. Leaders who are committed to dealing with three of the most important issues of our day: food security, energy and climate change, and an aging population and health care. At the very least, rural Wisconsin seems to be in good hands.

Perhaps, then, it should also be a day to ask questions of our movement. Where are we heading in the next four years? How will we take the energy and enthusiasm from the dozens of events and conferences last year and channel it into meaningful change? There are a number of areas in which the nation and the world seem to lack leadership. The Co-operative Movement needs to start making itself known and not limit itself only to those areas where the “market fails”, but to argue that the Co-operative model can build a sustainable economic system. We need to make sure that the Obama administration hears us, but we also need to make sure that the Governors and Mayor hear us as well.

• Arguing for a an ethical accounting system that transparently accounts for the destruction of natural resources should be a cooperative goal.
• Pushing for subsidies for the solar and renewable energies equivalent to those received by the fossil fuels (including their unwritten expense of natural resources) should be a goal.
• Job creation through the development of worker owned companies should be a cooperative goal.

There are many more: homelessness, unemployment, education, and healthcare all have seeming insurmountable obstacles, but really can be solved through a cooperative model that will promote self-help and ultimately build stronger communities economically and socially. The most important thing for us, as cooperators, is to leave the sidelines and jump into the fray. Start emailing and mailing your elected officials. Make sure that cooperatives get mentioned in your local elections. Start making coops visible wether it is a school board or the water utility.

Imagine 2012 has to go beyond a really great conference. The ideas need to start being implemented. That will only happen if the one billion coop and credit union members start making their collective voice heard.

Ron Colemen, the Director and Founder of the Nova Scotia based GPI Atlantic (a non-profit research institute measuring wellness and developer of the Genuine Progress Index) spoke on the nature of progress and how the means of measurement work against a sustainable ecosystem. The following are my notes from his talk and the following commentary. However, first let me add a few comments. This conference didn’t just bring together economists such as Coleman and the cooperative world, it also presented a challenge to the existing cooperative paradigm. We need to do more that play by the rules that are made for us. We need to change the rules. As Coleman points out, the way that we count creates the the ability to hide the environmental costs of our actions. No accounting firm would ever allow a cab company to ignore depreciation of its vehicles and the surplus or profit shown would be expected to help replace those assets. So why don’t we have the same concept with natural assets (trees, water, breathable air, etc)?

Likewise, the small federal credit unions of Brooklyn have resisted the urge to get big. Not surprisingly, they maintain a humanity about them that has only become a marketing ploy of some giant credit unions. It isn’t enough to call a business a coop or credit union. It needs to be making a real difference in the world.

 Ron Coleman on the New Economic Paradigm

The window for change is shrinking rapidly. Within a short period time, the earth will be locked into the a period of climate change.

Coops are planting the seeds of the new economy. If change doesn’t happen within this movement, then where will we find it?  Yet every coop uses the same accounting system that has gotten the world into trouble in the first place. To make a change, we need an accurate accounting system that includes the human, social and ecological costs. If co-ops can structure their annual reports to include the real cost, it can affect price signals and make a change in the way that we do business.

Let’s begin with diagnosis and then change the way we measure progress.

Our current GDP based accounting system that only measures market flows in monetary value of what is produced. It ignores a wide range of social, human and ecological costs which send inaccurate signals to the public and the policy makers. Accounts assess values and we can change how that works. The current account mechanisms do not account for natural wealth, beauty and ecological services, voluntary work, family/leisure time and more.

Robert F. Kennedy on the GDP: “It accounts everything except that which makes life worthwhile.”

If you hire a housekeeper, the GDP goes up. If you marry your housekeeper the GDP goes down. If you hire a stranger to care for your child, GDP goes up, if you care for your child, it has no economic value.

The quicker we cut down trees, deplete our fisheries and use up our fossil fuels, the faster the economy will grow.

What we count reflects what we value. it determines what makes in ont the policy agenda and influences behaviour. Is this system appropriate for cooperatives and credit unions? We do our own members a disservice by using an accounting system that is fundamentally flawed and anti-cooperative.

If we understand that, then the alternative is very straightforward. We need to expand our accounting. We need to include social capital in our accounts. Natural resources should be subject to depreciation and requiring re-investment. Voluntary work, safe communities enhance social capital.

General Progress Index Accounts

Crime, sickness, disasters and pollution clean up are counted as costs rather that contributions to well being. 1/4 of the world’s prison population is in the United States and the Prison industrial complex grows the economy.

The GPI Nova Scotia has over 100 detailed reports. Natural Capital Account, Human Impact on the Environment, Living Standards, Social and Human Capital.

Price signals are very powerful. Nothing removed SUVs from the road more effectively than a massive increase in fuel.

This is the 20th anniversary of the Canadian moratorium on Cod fishing–the GDP sent no signals since the only thing that counted were the fish that were caught. There was no accounting method for fish stocks and when they collapsed, 40,000 jobs collapsed with them. This proves that environmental costs lead to dramatic economic losses.

Using a net process, we can see that the costs to farming are increasing as a percentage of Income.

Full Cost Accounting:

• Internalize “externalities”
• Recognize economic value of non-market assets (voluntary sector, natural capital)
• Fixed–>variable costs (e.g. car registration, insurance)–give credit to workers to carpool or use public transit.
• $ Values–strategic only= inadequacy of $ as valuation instrument. “Value” = larger.

Dutch experiment with part time work at good pay and benefits. People work better in shorter hours. .

The political will is not present (even with the New Democratic Party). What will bring the political will to happen? Bhutan is the first sovereign nation will be using this new accounting system and present the rudiments of the paradigm presented to the United Nations in 2013.

However, Cooperatives can start doing this today. They can be a powerful force in the development of a new economic paradigm.

Commentary on New Economic Paradigm from Joy Cousminer

Commented on how large credit unions call it the credit union industry instead of the credit union movement and that is antithetical to what credit unions are.

“BetheX credit union was formed to serve poor and working poor in New York City. Most early members were women on welfare  (Aid To Families with Dependent Children). the Board is a volunteer group. Members benefited by having a safe place to save compared to a sugar jar. Women made small loans and could avoid the loan shark and the pawn shop.

Our growth is horizontal–we seek out poor people and do not recruit from the middle class, but they find us on their own. We visit homeless and domestic abuse shelters to find new members.

We specialize in start-ups and run credit reports to please the bank examiner but ignore them. We make loans to seniors even those over 70. Employees come from the community and hire relatives (considered a “no no”) and all start as tellers and work their way up. The Credit union pays all health care and dental and a clothing allowance for the workers. We encourage staff to improve their education. As we do better financially, we reduce fees and interest.

Created a group called “We care for Credit Unions” to assist small credit unions.

By making money easily available, we are reducing stress, and helping families. Poor people do not dream of living in mansions, they dream commensurate with their station in life. They want a nice dress for their daughter and a car that won’t break down on the way to the family picnic.”

My coursework for the PhD is almost complete (two papers and comp exams). The world at Union Cab has evolved to the point that our flattened hierarchy no longer makes me “The Man”. I think that this allows me the energy and comfort zone to return to a discussion of worker cooperatives in the United States (and elsewhere as they effect our movement).

I will return to a Monday morning post and other posts as the news warrants. I have a lot to write about, especially impressions from the Imagine Conference held in Quebec last October. I have also gained a lot of insight into the lessons of power and disrupting power in our movement.

In addition to my posts, I want to re-invite everyone in the worker coop world to offer a guest column or even a regular column. I would still like this site to provide an arena of discussion and debate. If you want to do a single column, a quarterly column, a monthly column, a weekly column or even a daily column, please let me know and I will provide you with the log-in credentials. We need our voices in the discussion of our economy and our movement. If we can’t engage, then our work will be defined for us (most likely by people with different agendas than worker control and economic democracy).

I am looking forward to a great year to build on the momentum from the Year of the Cooperatives. I hope that you join me.

The article reviews Norman McLean’s “Young Men and Fire” and theorizes about the breakdown of organization among the 15 smoke jumpers that led to the death of 13 of them.

It struck me as a timely article as many of our co-operatives have started to embrace a new economic environment that fundamentally changes our sense of place in the world. This is especially true in states that have proceeded to follow in the steps of, to use Naomi Klein’s excellent word, “disaster capitalism” or the “shock doctrine.” Just as the firefighters in 1949 found themselves in a situation that no longer made sense with their expectations, the changes to the role of government and its relation to the economy have created a new reality that needs different perspectives. There is a key paragraph in Wieck’s article that I find especially pertinent, it references one of the key assumptions of the smokejumpers that the fire being attacked was a small brush fire that could be easily contained by 10:00 am the next morning–it turned out, due to winds, weather and terrain to be something much bigger:

“The crew’s stuborn belief that it faced a 10:00 fireis a powerful reminder that positive illusions (Taylor, 1989) can kill people. But the more general point is that organizations can be good at decision making and still falter. They falter because of deficient sensemaking. The world of decision making is about strategic rationality. . .Sensemaking is about contextual rationality. . . People in Mann Gulch did not face questions like where should we go, when do we take a stand, or what should our strategy be? Instead, they faced the more basic, the more frightening feeling that their old labels were no longer working. They were outstripping their experience and were not sure either what was up or who they were.”

This cause paralysis, fear, and ultimately very bad decisions by individuals which ended their lives. Our co-operatives are not facing forest fires, however, we are facing a changing economy. Wieck’s lesson is that we need to do more than follow through the rote of strategic planning. We need to engage in collective sensemaking as well. As we get pushed out of our comfort zones, we need to try to re-align our senses.

I think that this is something that worker co-operatives may have an advantage in dealing with. We tend to, as Roy Morrison quotes the Mondragon members, “build the road as we travel.” We have, as a movement, a culture of innovating, making do, and generally trying to negotiate an economy that doesn’t really get us. To do so, however, means resisting the tendency towards conservatism and isomorphism within our resepective industries. “Our co-operatives must primarily serve those who see them as bastions of social justice and not to those that see cooperatives as refuges or safe places for their conservative spirit” ( Don José María Arizmendiaretta, Reflections, 461)

To that end, there are a number of conferences this year that will be focusing on these themes. One of the first, and I hope, not the least will be the Madison Cooperative Business Conference.

A Little History

This conference began, in a sense, right here at The Workers’ Paradise. Back in January of 2011, I began discussing the upcoming Mayoral Election. Both major candidates had invoked the idea of cooperatives as an economic model and I hope that this would actually become an issue for two candidates that were almost identical in their approach, philosophy, and support. As that campaign began to gain steam, the Governor of Wisconsin unleased his vision for the economy. This only pushed the idea of cooperation even more. As the candidates began talking to the people of Madison, the word co-operative started to become repeated. One candidate engaged in the call-and-response which is why I urged co-op members to vote for Paul Soglin. Paul won by just 363 votes or about 182 voters (less than the total number of worker co-op members in the City of Madison.

We gave Paul a few months to settle in and then a number of co-operators asked about the conference. The Mayor stepped up and assigned key staff people to it. Despite a difficult budget year, he found matching funds for the conference.

The Madison Cooperative Business Conference 

(June 7, 2012, with a pre-conference seminar on June 6, 2012)

We wanted this conference to be different that most of the other conferences. We wanted to focus our attention on three groups of people: City and Regional Planners who might not see the co-op model as viable for delivering services and solving problems, business owners interested in retiring, and people interested in starting a co-operative to solve a failure in the market. We want people who are new to the co-op model to attend. We want business owners to learn that they can escape capital gains taxes by selling their business to their workers (they get retirement and the legacy of their life’s work continues). We want communities to see how co-operatives might help provide solutions to homelessness, hunger or even provide new fancy destination projects such as a Public Market.  The key note speaker will be Roy Messing from the Ohio Employment Ownership Center out of Kent State. There will also be speakers from Richmond, CA (Terry Baird, assistant to the Mayor in charge of worker coop development) and from the Quebec ( Michel Clement, from Co-operative Development Management). In adiditon to a number of workshops, the conference will end with a plenary discussion about how to move forward and start putting the ideas into action in the Dane County area.

What You Can Do

If you are in Madison, register and attend the conference! It is only $25 for the day (and $25 for the pre-conference seminar with Roy Messing)–$40 for both events. More importantly, if you know someone in the South-Central Wisconsin area who owns an business and is within 10 years of seeking retirement (think of your favorite locally owned company), urge them to attend (or at least send their accountant).

If you are not in Madison, or can’t be during the conference, then please let your friends know and encourage any business owners you know to attend.

Conferences can only do so much and this one has been specifically designed to ignite people who aren’t knowledgable about co-ops. It is designed for people whose kids might not want the family business, but don’t want to see their life’s work disappear when they retire (conversly, for the kids who inherited a business and would rather do something else, but don’t want to lose their parent’s legacy). It is for communities that want to start building a sustainable infrastructure and looking for ways to solve problems without having to depend on diminishing State and Federal assistance.

Unfortunatley, I cannot attend, but I hope that this gets a large turnout and that we will one day be able to look back at this conference as a turning point for Dane County, if not Wisconsin.

I am watching the race from a far. It will be a flurry of activity, no doubt. While I understand that the incumbent governor has raised over $13 million from out of state and the Democratic challenger, Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett has barely $1 million on hand, I can hope that there will actually be a discussion. My advice to the challenger? Take a cue from Mayor Paul Soglin. Start championing the cooperative community of Wisconsin as the real job creators.

Co-operative jobs are, simply, better jobs. They will stay in Wisconsin. They will be sustainable over the long term. The cooperative model can even help provide services to the communities. Presuming that the Affordable Care and Patient Protection Act survives the US Supreme Court, cooperatives will be the most sustainable and effective model of health care delivery.

The State needs to do more to help cooperatives move forward.

• Allow workers to pool their unemployment benefits in a lump sum to start a worker cooperatives;
• Help workers buy out companies in crisis (crisis due to not being profitable enough) or to allow the current owners to retire without losing their retirement to Capital Gains taxes.
• Examine educational options such as Ed Visions in Minnesota as a means of a true overhaul of the k-12 school system.

Co-operators exist throughout Wisconsin. A message pushing the co-operative model will find a lot more support than Mayor Barrett might think. It might even encourage people who normally vote Republican to cross over. It is time to start a new chapter in Wisconsin’s progressive history. A candidate in this recall race who embraces the core values of co-operatives will also find that they are embracing the core values of many Wisconsinites and the historical beliefs of small “r” republicans and small “d” democrats.

The GOP leadership, such as it is these days, wants to take Wisconsin back to a place that most of us really don’t want to live. It is also a place that really never existed in the United States. The GOP race to the bottom for the vast majority of the citizens while their wealthy benefactors receive a blank check needs to be aborted.

We don’t need a welfare state for any group. We need a community that believes in sustainably, mutual self-help, and self-responsibility. I think that message, through the co-operative model, crosses party boundaries. I hope that Tom Barrett gets it.