Right about the time of this post, in 1979, the first Union Cab passenger (the wife of one of our drivers, Mike Gibson who would later serve as Operations Manager) marked the first fare of Union Cab.
We still have a couple of members who were there on Day One. We have one person who has been at Union Cab without a break for thirty years.
Union’s history started about a decade before as the City’s cab drivers began organizing for a labor union to address unsafe working conditions, poor pay, and an inhumane workplace. The history of that time period can be found at Union Cab’s Website.
It has been a long, strange trip as they say. I’ve been there for 21 years (my anniversary date is November 7, 1988). I seen a lot of hard work, a lot of honest mistakes, some dishonest mistakes, and an incredible spirit that has always allowed us to dust ourselves off and start all over again when needed.
Recently, with the sudden publicity of worker co-operatives, I have winced at some of the assumptions that I have heard. How people need to see worker coops as viable and not just a bunch of “long-hair crackpots” or how Mondragon and the Steelworkers will pull worker co-operatives into “the mainstream.” Ugh.
For 30 years, my co-op, Union Cab, has been providing living wage or better jobs in a safe, humane and democratic environment. We met the desires of those cab drivers from the late 1960′s who mainly wanted dignity in their work and a decent paycheck. Our workforce is as blue-collar as any “mainstream” factory and we also have a lot of college educated people as well (sometimes they are the same people, believe it or not).
I’m proud to be part of this co-op and to know the hundreds of people who have come through our doors over the years. Some went on to careers that might seem “bigger” such as Stu Levitan, Michael Feldman (host of Public Radio’s Whadya Know), Butch Vig of the band Garbage, and even Robert DeChiene who helped get Russ Feingold into the Senate and now serves as the Chief of Staff for Rep. Steve Rothman (NJ-9). Others found work more to their liking that driving a cab (it isn’t as romantic or fun as one might think) and a lot of us stayed (or came back).
Our members are active in their community. Several have served elected office and on countless committees for the city, county and their neighborhoods. On any give weekend, one can find a Union Cab active member or alumni playing out at the clubs or deejaying on the local community radio station.The local music awards (the MAMAs) was created by a Union Cab driver, Rick Tvedt.
As far as I’m concerned, we are about as mainstream as it gets (and, yeah, some do have long hair). It is a great community and a great family.
A recent weeklong conference in Sonoma, California – The Economics of Peace – featured a day devoted to lectures and workshops on the cooperatives associated with the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation (MCC). This event marks the third occasion in the last six months where representatives from the MCC, located in the Basque region of Spain, appeared in the US. Previously both Cleveland and Detroit hosted discussions with the MCC. While US developers of worker cooperatives have toured the Mondragon complex since the 80’s, these recent visits are noteworthy as first for the MCC.
In each case the MCC representatives were returning a visit from a US group, so we can’t presume that the frequency of visits will be maintained. Nonetheless the increased public exposure to the cooperative enterprises founded over 50 years ago in the city of Mondragon is significant. The raised profile of Mondragon in the US prompts some thoughts of MCC’s role within the worker community. I am hoping that the following comments, from someone with only a tangential relationship to co-op development (I consider myself an activist, not a “developer”) will generate a discussion about the future of worker cooperatives in a world that increasingly shows signs of complete collapse.
But let me begin noting the amazing success of an experiment (the term the MCC uses) begun by a poor parish priest over sixty years ago. Today, the MCC is a complex worth 24 billion dollars and employing 100,000 in 120 enterprises all over the globe. It comprises factories, banks, insurance agencies and a network of retail stores throughout Spain. Globally the MCC invests in industries located all over Europe, Latin America and Asia.
Mondragon obviously is embedded in the global capitalist order. It functions with that reality everyday. Its decisions are based on the proverbial bottom-line. Furthermore, it operates in countries seemingly without concern for the factors many liberals in this country believe should influence investment decisions. Mondragon invests in developing countries to compete on the level of the capitalists. For instance, Mondragon has manufacturing facilities in Mexico so that they can take advantage of NAFTA to import their home appliances into the States.
The critique of globalism can’t escape being applied to Mondragon. Nor can that critique be ignored by those who laud the spectacular growth of the MCC as proof that worker-ownership works!
- – the rest of this essay is here:
The first time that I met Ian MacPherson, one of the key drafters of the Identity Statement, I mentioned how my co-operative, Union Cab, created our core values the same year that the Identity Statement came into existence. Even though we were completely ignorant of the larger movement, we chose many of the same values including that of openness and honesty.
Ian responded that I must be a trouble-maker. If you’ve met him, you know that he has a wicked sense of humor and I think that he uses it to test people that he meets. He went on to tell me that the group discussing the Identity Statement took an entire day (8-10 hours) on the concept of honesty in a co-operative. It dominated the discussion of the “ethical values of co-operatives” which include honesty, openness, social responsibility and caring for others.
Honesty is a lonely word. It creates a series of difficulties for us as humans since we are such social creatures. The concept of honesty and its confusion in society is the primary reason that the neo-liberal economic model fails. For Milton Friedman’s policies to work, every merchant and corporation must be entirely honest. Otherwise, the consumer cannot make a true choice. Capitalism, however, doesn’t encourage honesty. Quite the opposite. So it was, in the days of “pure capitalism” circa 1810 or so, that merchants mixed chalk in with the flour, rocks in with the coal and even today there are the jokes of the butcher with their thumb on the scale. This led to the Rochdale Pioneers championing honest weights and measurement and unadulterated food.
In worker coops, honesty is vital to the organization. We have to be frank with each other. This is true in our dealings with management of the co-operative and in dealings with each other as humans. This can be difficult, especially in co-ops that have traditional hierarchies in their management, however we need to be able to honestly appraise the business decisions and avoid cults-of-personality
The cults of personality in a worker co-op might be the biggest danger. We aspire to a democratic workplace, but can allow personalities to take over. We create “ladders of inference” about people and this precludes our judgement about their proposals and ideas. On the other hand, leaders may act dishonestly to manipulate people in order to maintain a position of authority. The latter situation, in my opinion, is the more dangerous and it can happen anywhere. Even flattened structures run the risk–maybe they are even more inclined to allow it to occur. The Tyranny of Structurelessness is an excellent essay from the ’70′s that explores how in the vacuum of structure, a secret structure takes hold and creates a power dynamic that may be difficult, if not impossible, to expose or challenge.
Of course, I don’t mean to suggest that it is a good practice to tell your manager that their idea is “stupid” even if you add the phrase “just sayin’” to it. We still need to be aware of people’s emotions. However, we should set up structures that encourage honesty at all levels of our organization–to me this means giving people freedom to speak their minds and reducing the ability of any one person to affect the livilihood of another.
It also means creating a strong code of ethics. Sometimes, this might meet resistance and I think it comes from people feeling affronted that they need a code of ethics. I think that we tend to have very high opinions of ourselves, as worker co-operators. As a result, the suggestion that we create a code, that we are honest about relationships that might affect our jobs or the jobs of people under our control, or that we codify in any way our values gets received as a suggestion that we aren’t being honest in the first place.
We have to keep in mind that not everyone comes to co-operation with the identity statement burned into their soul. Many are fleeing the failed economics of capitalism. They are in a state of post-traumatic stress from being a wage slave. Sadly, they may bring the negatives of the larger economic system with them. For example, some otherwise very honest people might not think twice about stealing (or “liberating” as I have heard it called) from the corporation (they get paid so little and the CEO spends millions on luxuries), but in a co-op that assymetrical tactic of labor-management class war can’t be condoned. We can’t assume that honesty is inherent in ourselves or the members. It needs to be supported by our structure.
In co-operation, there is an economic advantage to being honest. In worker co-operatives, it is imperative as a means of building trust and social cohesion among the membership. Worker co-operators depend upon each other as a community to meet our socio-economic needs. Without the trust of honest communication and dealings, that bond will breakdown and lead to the path of internecine strife and the failure of the co-operative.
4. Unionize your workplace so that you and your coworkers have a say in how your business is run.Here’s how to do it (more info here). Nothing is more American than democracy, and democracy shouldn’t be checked at the door when you enter your workplace. Another way to Americanize your workplace is to turn your business into a worker-owned cooperative. You are not a wage slave. You are a free person, and you giving up eight hours of your life every day to someone else is to be properly compensated and respected.
The italics are mine.
It is always great to start the day with such a upbeat message!
Solidarity, to me one of the most beautiful words in the English language, is not simply a cooperative value. It is a human value. To have a discussion about this value involves talking about so much more than the cooperative world, or of purchasing at the cooperative store. It involves talking about the key quality that creates societies and communities.
Of course, the first thing that must come to mind, upon hearing the word Solidarity, is the great labor anthem of the 19th Century that gave rise to the Industrial Workers of the World, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, and Solidarnosc. Solidarity is a key part of other movements, specifically, the labor movement. The polish workers of Gdansk chose Solidarity to name their union because it is the hallmark of the labor movement from the days of the Knights of Labor to the democratic resistance in fascist Europe to the battles of the anti-imperialist movements of Latin America, the Middle East, and Africa. It is about loyalty and the United Front.
Solidarity is a human value. It is what has allowed us to survive as a species. Sadly, upon achieving survival, we created economic systems that discourage solidarity and actively attack it through greed and avarice. A wonderful series called Ishmael and My Ishmaelby Daniel Quinn discusses some of these concepts in human philosophical development. In her work, The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein discusses how the fascists of South America (led by the Chicago Boys and Nobel Laureates Milton Friedman and Henry Kissinger) specifically attacked solidarity as a means to break the resistance to their new economy. Solidarity is the anti-thesis of ne0-liberals. It runs absolutely counter to the anti-value of self-interest expressed by Adam Smith, Milton Friedman and, to a lesser extent, Jeffrey Sachs.
Solidarity is a major part of the human experience, so nailing down its meaning can be quite difficult.
One of my favorite songs from my youth, Solidarity by Black Uhuru, explores this value:
“Everybody wants the same thing don’t they,
Everybody wants a happy end
They wanna to see the game on Saturday,
They wanna be somebody’s friend.
Everybody wants to work for a living
Everybody wants their children warm
Everybody wants to be forgiven
They want shelter from the storm.
Look at me, I aint your enemy
We walk on common ground
We don’t need to fight each other
What we need, what we need
Solidarity.”
Solidarity is friendship within the community, within the society. A mentor of mine, Tom Webb, program manager for the Masters of Management: Co-operatives and Credit Unions, recently made this comment on the nature of friendship: “Friends are people who can be relied upon.They care about you and you care about them.Friends forgive each other when they ‘mess up’ or lapse into human folly.You know each other’s true worth.You know where they stand and as time progresses you even can imagine with some accuracy what they might say in the face of some event.It is with friends that some of the best things in life are done.If you are truly fortunate in life you get to work with friends.”
Solidarity is about something bigger than the needs of an individual. It is about experiencing the rites of friendship not only with the individuals that we determine to be our “friends” but also with our fellow travelers or in the case of the identity statement, the group of people who, along with us, voluntarily choose to associate to support our common culture, aspirations, and needs.
The Background Paper on the identity statement talks about solidarity as follows:
“The last operational value is “solidarity”. This value has a long and hallowed history within the international movement. within co-operatives, this value ensures that co-operative action is not just a disguised form of limited self-interest. A co-operative s more than an association of members; it is also a collectivity. Members have the responsibility to ensure that all members are treated as fairly as possible.; that the general interest is always kept in mind; that there is a consistent effort to deal fairly with employees (be they members or not), as well as with no-members associated with the co-operative.
Solidarity also means that the co-operative has a responsibility for the collective interest of its members. In particular, to some extent, it represents financial and social assets belonging to the group; assets that are the result of joint energies and participation. In that sense, the solidarity value draws attention to the fact that the co-operatives are more than just associations of individuals; they are affirmations of collective strength and mutual responsibility.
Further, “solidarity” means that co-operates and co-operatives stand together. They aspires to the creation of a united co-operative movement, locally, nationally, regionally and internationally. They co-operative in every practical way to provide members with the best quality goods and services at the lowest prices. They work together to present a common face to the public an too governments. they accept that there is a commonality among all co-operatives regardless of their diverse purposes and their difference contexts.
Finally, it d to be emphasized that the solidarity is the very cause and consequence of self-help and mutual help, two of the fundamental concepts at the heart of co-operative philosophy. It is this philosophy which distinguishes co-operatives from other forms of economic organization. In some countries, the concepts of self-help and mutual help have been ignored by governments, and co-operatives have been organized through government initiative, sponsorship and financial assistance; the unfortunate result is movements controlled and managed by governments. It is essential, therefore , the at the solidarity of co-operators and co-operatives, based on self-help and mutual responsibility, be understood and respected, particularly in developing countries, but in industrially-developed countries as well. “
It is hard to add to the the background paper. Certainly, Solidarity does not mean turning a blind eye to the actions of friends or allies. It does mean keeping the discussion of those actions inside the cooperative community. For a worker co-op, Solidarity means that we honor each other (and express solidarity) by focusing our discussions and arguments in pursuit of the greater good for the co-operative. This means making our agendas and personal interests public to those in our co-ops. It means examining our own actions and positions to determine if we would still support it if we were an uninterested outsider. It means, to some extent, publicly supporting the co-operative–not complaining about our issues when elsewhere (coffee shops, taverns, and the like). It means accepting the decision of the group (blocking consensus only in extreme situations).
Ultimately, solidarity is the recognition that a community requires more than one person’s viewpoint to be heard and agreed upon. It requires more than one bloc or segment. It is a mosaic or a Mandela of people’s cultural, social, political and personal histories. When we join a co-operative, we are choosing a specific team. We are choosing to be part of something bigger than ourselves. With that membership and choice comes the responsibility of making ourselves subservient to the whole. This might run counter to some people’s ideas of individuality–that is fine. For them, the majority of the economic world has been built around the promotion of the individual and they should feel free to explore it. For those of us who believe that our economic world should express our humanity, solidarity is a value that shines bright and baths all of us in its glorious light.
By nature of writing on worker co-operatives, I have touched on the subject of democracy countless times. It is the foundation of co-operation. It is part of the definition, the values and the principles. If we could only use one word to describe co-operation, it would be democracy (which is I think that Michael Moore almost had it right when presented the choice between capitalism and democracy). Of course, the word “democracy” can be co-opted. Nobel Laureate Milton Friedman often claimed that capitalism, in its pure form without government intervention, was the purest form of democracy as people could “vote” on every transaction and the power of their vote was equal to their significance to the economy. For that reason alone, co-operators need to understand and defend democracy as a definition, a value and a principle.
The founding pioneers of Rochdale included a large number of Charterists. They were fighting for Universal Suffrage—the vote. They saw co-operation as a backdoor method of achieving property for working people. Once they owned a share of stock, they could argue for the right to vote as an owner of property. They truly believed in the concept of “one man, one vote” and that if everyone had a vote, they would create a shining city on a hill and usher in an era of peace and prosperity.
It didn’t quite work out that way, though. It underestimated the power structure and its ability to manipulate, obfuscate, and control the process. Here is a sad and cynical take on democracy from Ghana:
The movie does make a point: democracy is expensive. The lack of democracy is even more expensive. I often hear members complain of the cost of democracy–it tight economic times, it can be seen as an unnecessary expense–a competitive disadvantage even. That is false logic, however. Democracy pays for itself by creating a loyal and dedicated workforce that has a vested interest in the success of the company. The money spent on committee time, member forum, and meetings easily gets made up by the ability of the co-operative to survive tough economic times without layoffs or even financial losses. Of course, this film focuses on the electoral democracy, rather than participatory democracy. Electoral democracy is only one aspect of a truly democratic process. I get into this argument quite often in Madison, which is a town dominated by pols. People often see democracy as the right of the people to vote an idea (or person) up or down. I see democracy as the process of creating the idea. It may be that being in Madison causes people to have a negative view of democracy and not see the real democracy that takes place when they can attend a forum and denounce the cost of the forum!
In our co-operatives, we need to be mindful of the democratic functions. For worker co-operatives, this means flattening hierarchy whenever possible. We need to move away from the “Big Man” theory of history and governance and consider, instead, that leaders get created by the movement that created them. If you have a leader who is manipulative and counter-productive, it is likely that the people who elected them gravitate to that type of leadership. The problem is one of culture, not votes.
The question, then, becomes “How do we create a participatory democratic culture?” The answer isn’t that simple. Part of it involves the culture of the organization, the culture of the industry, the region of the of the world, and generation of the workers. It really gets incredibly complicated which is likely the reason for focusing on voting. Voting is simple. Everyone can understand it. Complex ideas distill into simple yes and no questions. Business can move at the speed of business not at the speed of everyone’s comfort level.
This video offers a great perspective:
It is up to us, the members of worker co-operatives to define democracy within our generation, accept that the next generation will want something different, and create an evolutionary culture that honors knowledge, history and change.
As the shibboleth of the co-operative movement, democracy needs advocates and we must accept the role of stewards. We need to develop democratic cultures and processes that honor the individual and the community. Sometimes this will mean supporting the decision our co-operative makes even if we know it is doomed to failure—helping it to succeed against that fear—and being present, without admonition, to find new solutions if it does. Ultimately, it is about educating our membership and creating a sense of openness that allows members to really control their co-operative free of silent or hidden cliques. For those of us who have been in the movement for a while, we need to remember how it was when we were the new kids with the great ideas that nobody wanted to hear. Democracy means, in part, to have the courage to change the culture and accept the voices of others even if we disagree.
I accidentally wrote on the values out of sequence. Democracy should have been posted prior to equality. The authors of the Identity statement certainly chose the order of the values carefully. Equity follows Equality for a specific reason. Likewise, democracy follows the more individual values of self-help and self-responsibility. As equity is a check on equality, democracy is a check on the individual. This, again, shows the inter-relatedness of the values (and the principles).
Next Week: Solidarity—the last, but not least, of the six values.
Filed under: Society — Tags: bosses — John McNamara @ 7:04 am
When I was young, I would occasionally recognize the ads for Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and even Grandparents’ Day. I would ask my mom when “Kids’ Day” was. She would always reply (without hesitation), “Kids’ Day is everyday.”
I thought of that when I opened my email this morning and was met with this message from FTD Florists:
Greetings John,
For the great leader in your life – let them know how much they are appreciated.
I didn’t wake up in North Korea did I?
The holiday that they are pitching is for something absurd called Bosses’ Day and Bosses Week (next week). Apparently, Secretaries (or Administrative Assistants) deserve one day, but the Bosses get a whole week. Perhaps they deserve a national holiday, the poor dears, so that they feel appreciated in our society.
Could Hallmark and FTD (a co-operative by the way) develop up a more demeaning holiday without completely leaving the realm of decency? As my mom might say, “Bosses’s Day is everyday.”
In the spirit of openness, please consider the following as you read this post. My name appears in Capitalism: A Love Story’s credits under the heading “Special Thanks”. I provided significant information to DogEatDog Productions regarding worker co-operatives, Mondragon, and the St. Mary’s University program, Masters of Management: Co-operative and Credit Union. I also assisted the production company in coordinating interviews and filming of my co-operative, Union Cab of Madison, which ultimately did not make the theatrical release (although I hope that it will be included in the dvd release).I attended a special screening provided at no cost to the membership of Isthmus Engineering and Union Cab on October 1, 2009.
The following comments are my own and should be read in light of the above disclaimer.
*******
For a true “review” of capitalism, one should consult what remains the definitive work on the subject (regardless of your political views). That is the work Das Kapital by Karl Marx. In his expansive three volume treatise, one can find such poignant pearls as this comment from volume 1:
“Owners of capital will stimulate working class to buy more and more of expensive goods, houses and technology, pushing them to take more and more expensive credits, until their debt becomes unbearable. The unpaid debt will lead to bankruptcy of banks which will have to be nationalized and State will have to take the road which will eventually lead to communism.”**
Capitalism: A Love Story provides the highest public profile for worker cooperatives in the United States that they have ever received. While it falls far short of the economic analysis of Marx, Moore correctly taps into the basic lack of fairness within the economic system and puts human faces on the statistical failure experienced during the last year.
The film is a great example of Michael Moore’s sense of humor and fair play. As with Sicko, Moore takes on the complexity of Capitalism and brings it down to earth with personal accounts of its effects, the disclosure that even the people who created derivatives can’t define them, and offers a real-life alternative to running a market economy based on the value democracy instead of greed.
One could probably write volumes on what Moore left out. As mentioned, Marx already has. However, in about 120 minutes, C:aLS tries to remove the social support that Capitalism receives from those that don’t benefit from it without making us feel too foolish for being suckers. Moore also correctly avoids the conspiracy theories of who runs the government by focusing on what Wall Street and our elected officials did in the light of day in front of the C-SPAN cameras.
For a large part, the movie preaches to the converted and for those of you who already identify as being “on the left” the movie is a fun, affirming event rather than the call for action with which it seems to end. For others, I am not sure that the film will resonate that much and may also be affirming to those who don’t really trust Moore or like his style. It was this latter group that seemed to be Moore’s primary focus and I think that may have hurt the overall ability of the film to get a coherent message out.
As with many reviewers, including The Economist, I was a bit shocked that Moore’s choice for economic advice was Wallace Shawn especially when I know that he spoke with people that had much more veritas in the area of economics, but the ones that I know about aren’t from the United States. Still, Moore has never shied away from foreign ideas and, one could argue, that Capitalism was an import for which our founding fathers saw as a threat to the republic. I think that the choice of Shawn suggests that the focus of the movie wasn’t to create a viable alternative as much details just how much capitalism sucks.
My biggest critique of C:aLS was the inclusion of the lengthy discussion about theology and WWJD. One that Moore continued on his blog the Sunday of the first weekend after the movie opened. This segment, to me, exposed a trait among the American Left that is almost as obnoxious as their unwillingness to understand market economics. The Republican Party may have risen to power on the basis of Gods, Gays, and Guns as Wisconsin lawmaker Mark Pocan has proclaimed; however, those social issues have absolutely nothing to do with capitalism. Too often, however, the Left assumes that religious people are reactionary because they elect republicans. However, the republicans have never run on deregulating the economy, closing plants and shipping jobs overseas–they win by getting social conservatives to the polls to vote against gay marriage, abortion, and immigration.
Attacking capitalism and what happened on Wall Street by pointing out the teachings of Jesus seems a meaningless gesture and assumes a lot about people who go to Church. In my travels, I find that the christian movement types tend to see Wall Street as much a den of iniquity as Las Vegas–with the same rules. They already see the sin of greed at work. In the more extreme cases, the conspiratorialists even see the combination of non-christian forces at work controlling the economy and the government. They already agree that Jesus would disapprove of the type of capitalism (cheating capitalism) at play with the Banks. Using this imagery might have the unintended consequences of reinforcing beliefs about the role that non-Christians play in the economy.
I think that this time would have been better spent explaining why co-operatives are a better market economy. He could have made it a nice transition by asking the question, WWJD and then focusing on to incredible works to come out of the energy of Jesuit Priests: Moses Coady with Co-op Atlantic and Don José María Arrizmendiarietta with Mondragon. Instead of the discussion with the priest and bishop, he could have talked to Andrew McCleod a co-op developer and author of the book, Holy Co-operation which details how the teachings of the bible (Old and New testaments) promote the idea of a co-operative economy (had I known this was part of the focus, I would have let the production company know).
I argue this not just to see my co-op in the film, but to make the case that we can have a market economy based on democracy. Moore gives us the false choice between and economic model and a philosophical value (capitalism or democracy). This is the other short-coming of the film–it doesn’t seem to know what it wants or to understand the subject. We are taught that capitalism replaced feudalism. To me, capitalism did not replace feudalism it simply replaced the human at the top with currency. Instead of owing service to the lord for a piece of land and the ability to work, people now serve the dollar. As the barter/trade/service system became replaced by a market economy, we kept the basic anti-democratic structure of feudalist practice known as “The Golden Rule” (those who have the gold, make the rules). Capitalism, keep in mind, came of age when slavery was a constitutional right in the United States of America and the right of kings was only beginning to be successfully challenged. As our communities became more democratic, we started to resist the excesses of capitalism to make it fit to our collective world view. This led to government regulation and the constant push and pull between the masses and the wealthy elite.
So, Moore is correct. Capitalism is not something that we can fix. It isn’t evil, though, it is just an economic system using the market place for a society that no longer easily exists with the majority view of the governed populace. The idea of democratic capitalism is an oxymoron. Co-operation on the other hand, is a democratic method of market economy that has stood the test of time. I wish that Mondragon has allowed Moore to film (the rumor is that they were worried about the response by General Motors, one of the major customers). I would love to see Moore follow this movie with one about Co-operation. He could tour the co-operative societies and movements of the United Kingdom, Canada (Maritimes, BC), Spain, Italy, Argentina, Japan, and countless other countries. This is a market economy that began in earnest in 1844 with 24 pioneers in Rochdale, England and now numbers over 800 million people world-wide. Even in the United States, the co-operative movement provide wages of around 75 billion dollars a year, 2,143,256 jobs and revenue of 652 billion dollars (source: UW Center for Co-operatives)
In summary, go see the film. It is fun and will be worth your time and money (especially if you like hiss-the-villain movies). The version of The Internationale at the end is worth the price of admission. Moore does make us realize how basically unfair capitalism has become especially when the top 1% make the rules for the rest of the 99% to play by (and how willingly they will destroy each other proving that the is no honor among thieves). In interviews, Moore uses the analogy of a pie served to ten children. If one child takes 9 of the pieces for himself, the other kids will immediately know that act is unfair, yet we accept it everyday in our economy. You will cheer for Marcy Kaptur*** and wish that we had more elected representatives like her. You will leave, I hope, feeling inspired to change the world.
If you also leave the theater completely unsure of how to change the world, I would suggest going down to join your local consumer co-operative, moving all of your banking to the credit union that serves your area, switching your insurance to a mutual insurance company such as Nationwide and, if you feel really into changing the world, discussing with co-workers the idea of collectively going into business as a worker co-op and putting your boss out of work.
As Ghandi and others have said: Be the change you want to see.
**I want to thank Rob Rowlands (University of Birmingham, UK) who presented this quote as part of his paper on a Mutual Neighborhood. Please watch Breathing Lessons for a future post on that intriguing subject.
***Having grown up in Toledo, OH, the movie made me feel proud of that my history (not only because of Kaptur, but the Cleveland: We Not Detroit video as well).
Filed under: Uncategorized — John McNamara @ 11:36 am
The first lesson that I received about the concept of equity as a co-operative value occurred at the MMCCU student orientation from Tom Webb. He explained the difference between equality and equity as follows:
[We have delivered the orientation in a perfectly equal manner. Each student received the same information packets, saw the same power point presentations, and heard the same discussion. However, if a student were blind or deaf, the delivery of the orientation would not equitable as not everyone would be able to receive the information.]
Thus, equity is the other side of equality. It is the value that keeps equality from becoming a tyrant in our co-operatives.
The background paper on the Identity makes the following comment:
“Equity refers, first of all, to how members are treated within a co-operative. They should be treated equitably in how they are rewarded for their participation in the co-operative, normally through patronage dividends, allocations to capital reserves in their name or reductions in charges.”
In worker co-operatives, the value of equity must also apply to pay scales, benefits, and work rules. This is especially true in worker co-operatives that organize industrially instead of by trade. For a cab company, the rules and pay might really differ depending on the job (driver, mechanic, call center, billing, etc). In this example, the different types of workers have different expectations for their performance and their duties. For instance, an attendance policy that allows workers to call in for a day off an hour before their shift works if there are a lot of workers, but is an operational failure if the worker calling fills a key position that cannot be easily replaced or covered by existing workers. In this example, the value of equality needs to be balanced by equity to keep the co-operative functional.
We often focus on “equality” to the exclusion of equity. Equity seems like special treatment and anti-egalitarian. However, without equity in the mix, workers may be exposed to a level of exploitation by the majority of the workforce or the organization may find it difficult to meet the operational needs of the organization and the desires of the consumers.
To manage the push and pull between equality and equity, co-operatives should establish a set of core values unique to their organization. These values should be based on the co-operative identity, but also reflect the structure of their co-operative. My co-op created our core values the very same year that ICA adopted the identity statement. Like the ICA, we acknowledge the importance of “openness and honesty”. However we also went into greater detail with the concept of managing growth, membership responsibilities, and worker rights. Our core values do not replace the co-op identity, but add to that identity to create the Union Cab identity within the larger framework. Worker co-ops (and co-ops in general) are the creation of their members. Their identity is part of the larger world of co-ops but must also reflect the unique individuals who join and work.
As and added step, worker co-operatives should establish a code of ethics. The idea should be to recognize that different roles and jobs have different needs (in terms of pay and work rules) and have commonality in the basic approach to work. This can have very different applications. The values and ethics provide the basic approach to the job and allow for the equitable work rules that recognize the different types of work being performed.
An equitable workplace isn’t one that we think about much. Certainly, the Americans with Disabilities Act provides some basis for discussion, but worker co-ops must go beyond the physical disabilities. Worker co-ops must also consider the different nature of the position. A cashier in a grocery store has very different stress issues than someone in receiving. A phone answerer in a cab company has different issues form both dispatchers and drivers. Addressing these differences has to be part of the discussion when we consider the concept “equal pay for equal work”. Perhaps the correct slogan is “equal pay for equitable work”?
Worker Co-operatives should avoid the false call for “equality”. Equality without Equity is a tyranny of the majority and undermines the worker co-operative identity.