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 17, 2010

EdVisions Schools–Workplace and Educational Democracy

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

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

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

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

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

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

Here is the problem that the market was dealing with:

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

Minnesota New Country School as established in 1994.

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

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

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

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

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

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

EdVisions Cooperative

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

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

Expected Behavior

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

Desired Ends

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

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

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

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

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

May 24, 2010

A Tool in the Wrong Hands

Filed under: Governance — Tags: , , — John McNamara @ 11:09 am

I’ve written about the concept of the New Mutualism. This idea was proposed by the Cooperative Party UK in the 1970′s as an alternative to nationalizing industries or privatizing essential services. After Thatcher, it popped up again. There is an excellent collection of articles edited by Johnston Birchall called The New Mutualism in Public Policy.

The book examines how mutualization of water departments and commuter rail would restore basic services while keeping efficiencies and affordability for taxpayers. I written that such a system could be used in Madison to assist the Bus system. It envisions a mutual organization (or a co-operative) consisting of the stakeholders: the workers, the consumers, and the government. Each stakeholder group would have specific needs and desires and have an equal voice at the table.

Unfortunately, in this country, the wrong message is being touted. The term “managed competition” has been used to create the idea that municipalities can drastically reduce expenses and maintain services by turning the job over to worker cooperatives created from the former city workers. This is simply privatization with a slightly friendly face to it. In Memphis, (thanks to Bernard for the link) the idea is to put the work for solid-waste collection out to bid, but help the unionized workers create a company that they own in order to bid on it. It sounds like a neat idea, but it is really a trick.

This would force the workers to slash their pay and benefits in order to compete with the private sector. Recently, a unionized nursing home in Wisconsin found that the county could no longer afford to run it after a tax levy failed. The workers began considering a worker cooperative model but quickly discovered that workers in the world outside of taxpayer supported labor unions has not fared very well. They saw a situation in which switching to a worker co-operative would require paycuts of up to 50% , a severe reduction of benefits, and a dramatic reduction of patient services in what had been a top-rated government run nursing home. Trying to keep the union strong and fighting a private company would likely lead to similar results, but at least they would have a chance and not have to engage in self-exploitation.

These attempts to use the worker coop model as a tool to destroy worker’s rights and benefits is not just wrong-headed but diabolical. Until there is a legitimate mutalization model in the US, the unionized workers should fight for the status quo with everything that they have. The “managed competition” model is just another word for “outsourcing” and one that lures workers into their own destruction.

There is a better way to do it, however. In fact, Birchall’s book talks about solid-waste. A stronger model that would still provide benefits to taxpayers and cash strapped municipalities would be to create a multi-stakeholder co-operative. The City would provide a long-term lease (say $1/100 years) to the co-op. The board would consist of one-third workers, one-third consumers, and one-third municipalities. Membership would involve a purchase of a share for consumers (so those that wish to have a say may) and workers. This would allow the coop a means of raising capital other than through the tax base. Consumer membership might even be further divided into individual household and corporate consumers.

This would create a level of accountability on the sanitation workers and bring consumers into the loop on the real costs of sanitation. Workers would need to justify their pay and benefits, but consumers would have to justify their needs as well. The municipal presence would create a third-party to help provide the “big picture” and keep the co-op locked into the city and regional plan. This would create a very different dynamic that simply outsourcing. It would require that people take on the responsibility of self-governance and, pardon the pun, get serious about dealing with their crap as a community. In the long run, it would likely create a more efficient agency, reduce costs, and create higher levels of satisfaction among both workers and consumers. It wouldn’t be as easy as simply outsourcing and it wouldn’t provide a profit bonanza to private companies, but it could become a real model for creating a very democratic society that goes beyond simply voting for the Mayor or alders.

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 5, 2010

Comments About Union Cab’s Bonus Segment in Michael Moore’s Movie

Filed under: Society — Tags: , , , , — Fred Schepartz @ 6:23 pm

In Michael Moore’s latest film, “Capitalism: A Love Story,” his basic point is that Capitalism is inherently evil. He cites various examples of antidotes to Capitalism, including worker cooperatives. Union Cab, where I’ve worked for 22 years, was one of three worker cooperatives Moore’s film crew spent time with last spring. We didn’t make it into the theatrical cut, but we are included in the bonus features on the DVD that came out last week.

It was gratifying to see my workplace portrayed as a force was positive change in our society. Basically, Moore is saying that Union Cab is everything that is good and wholesome, a workplace that puts people before profits, that is democratic, that sees the community as something to serve, not something to exploit and mine for profit.

More importantly, Moore accurately portrays Union Cab as one of many entities seeking to change society through economic means. There is a zeitgeist regarding worker cooperatives right now, and Moore is out there on the forefront. Amazingly, a great deal has happened in the worker cooperative movement since he started filming last year. In Cleveland, the first of the Evergreen Cooperative‘s opened for business. They are just beginning, but this burgeoning network of cooperatives has been highly touted as “The Cleveland Model.” (http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100301/alperowitz_et_al)

And then last fall, it was announced that United Steelworkers had formed a collaboration with Spanish super cooperative Mondragon to create manufacturing worker cooperatives here in the United States based on the Mondragon model in Spain. (http://www.usw.org/media_center/releases_advisories?id=0234)

One thing I particularly liked is that the bonus features includes an interview with Tom Webb. Webb is on faculty at St. Mary’s University in Canada. St. Mary’s offers a masters program in cooperative studies. In fact, my best friend and fellow Union Cabbie, John McNamara, is graduating from the program this spring. (John set up the interview and the whole visit with Union Cab, but when the time came for the visit, John was out of town visiting family.) The interview is quite useful in terms of putting these various syndicalist elements into perspective and realizing it is all part of a movement, albeit a movement that may or may not realize that it actually exists as a movement.

As far as how Union Cab is portrayed, for the most part I was pleased. There was a great deal of trepidation and anxiety in anticipation of the release of the DVD. I had heard that a couple of our members who were interviewed felt like they were being treated in a bit of a confrontational manner. Our General Manager, Karl Schulte, was a bit upset. He was asked about how much he was paid compared to the lowest paid employee—the ratio is about three or four to one compared to 300 to one for the average corporate CEO. In response to Karl’s answer, the interviewer barked, “What are you, a commie, a hippie?” Rebecca Kemble, the other Union Cab member who drove them around, also said she felt they got a bit confrontational with her as well, hence her being a bit defensive when she says on camera, “I don’t think we have any Communists working here,” when she talks about the diversity of our membership, with some Democrats, some Republicans, as well as socialists and anarchists.

While I felt like I was treated with the utmost respect by Basel Hamden and his crew, my nose was certainly bent out of joint by a comment Moore made during a couple interviews when the theatrical cut was released. He said he liked Isthmus Engineering because they all “look like a bunch of Republicans.” He said that kind of cooperative interested him more than some “hippie-dippy food coop.”

But now that many of us have seen our segment on the DVD, I can say that our fears were unfounded. For the most part, it’s just us, speaking for ourselves, and I have to say we do a good job. The segment comes off in a very positive manner.

After a nearly perfect imitation of the opening shots of “Taxi Driver” with me channeling Travis Bickle (actually, it’s not Bickle but former Union Cab driver Steve Fleischman who used the line to shut up some drunk Young Republicans the night Tommy Thompson was elected governor in 1986. John McNamara told me this story.), I talk about seniority pay increases. Rebecca talks about earning roughly $18-27 an hour on a good Saturday night. She also has a nice line about how Union Cab counts among its ranks many of the “walking wounded from corporate America.” Karl, when asked about how much he’s paid, comments that he doesn’t understand how somebody would want more. He’s able to put food on the table. Isn’t that enough?

Now if I were to quibble, I would have to say that I wish there was more in the way of nuts and bolts details to the specifics about what makes Union Cab a special place to work. I get into that some with my description of our institutionalized system of seniority pay increases, a percentage point for every 2500 hours one works. That’s nice, but I wish Moore would have included the other things I said about our structure, that we have a board of directors elected from the membership by the membership, that we do have a management structure, but it is counter-balanced to protect our members from abuse. We give managers the authority to do their jobs, but they are supervised by the board, so they work for us. We have the Worker’s Council where any member can appeal discipline. We have committees that anyone can join that write policy, which may be eventually approved by the board.

I believe all of this is very important. Touchy-feel words don’t make us what we are. It is the structure of our organization and the various entities without our organization along with the energy of our members that makes us special. That is exactly how we are able to provide jobs at a living wage in a democratic and humane work environment.

In our segment, I’m shown for 30 seconds talking about Union Cab. I wish I had been given more time because there’s so much more I said that I wanted people to hear. Also, and forgive me for sounding self-centered and self-serving, I was rather disappointed that Moore didn’t allow me to plug my novel, “Vampire Cabbie.” Frankly, I was surprised that Moore didn’t include any mention of my book. The idea of a cab driver who drives at night who has published a book about a vampire cab driver, that struck me as the sort of thing that would attract Moore like a moth to a flame. If anything, I was worried that Moore might make me look some kind of kook. But, nooooo! No plug! No love!

All kidding aside, what particularly disappointed me about that omission was that while talking about my book, I also talked about how Union Cab attracts and nurtures various artistic types. Within a year of the publication of “Vampire Cabbie,” two of my fellow drivers published books. Last year we had a successful Union Cab art show. There’s always several musicians driving at Union at any given time. In fact, earlier this year, a second Union Cab music CD was released.

As I said to the camera (and to local reporters Doug Moe and Rob Thomas in interviews this week, neither of whom felt the need to quote me on this point), Union Cab does a great job of nurturing artistic types because, first of all, we pay a living wage, which means you don’t have to work a ton of hours to get by, so you have time to devote to your art. Second, Union Cab is not the kind of workplace that sucks out your soul, so that when you’re not working, you still have enough gas in the tank to pursue your artistic endeavors.

Still, all that said, it was an honor to be in a Michael Moore film, even if it was just the bonus features on the DVD. While I felt a bit disappointed by some aspects of the segment, it was a strong, positive portrayal of a worker cooperative that is, in it’s own way, an important part of a bigger movement.

There is one last point I do need to make. I have to take exception with Rebecca’s comment that “we don’t have any Communists working here.” Actually, we do. I know for a fact that we have at least one, and he’d be a bit pissed to hear that comment. Rebecca seems a bit defensive when she makes that remark. I want to be clear that we’ve always had Communists working at Union Cab, and they have, at various times, played an important role and taken leadership positions, but not for power, not because the Central Committee told them to, but because they chose to sacrifice their time for the common good.

Look for us on page two of the bonus features. Our segment is titled, “You Talkin’ To Me? Commie Taxi Drivers in Wisconsin.”

March 15, 2010

CICOPA: General Characteristics of a Worker Co-operative

Filed under: Movement,World Declaration — Tags: , , , , — John McNamara @ 4:39 pm

If you are a member of a worker co-operative, as defined in the World Declaration on Worker Co-operatives, then CICOPA considers you a “proponent of one of the most advanced, fair and dignifying modalities of labour relations, generation and distribution of wealth, and democratization of ownership and of the economy”.

Heady stuff!

The Statement on the Declaration begins with a discussion of six General Characteristics that leads up to the actual Declaration. They are, in a nutshell:

  1. Humanity has consistently sought a qualitative improvement in the way that it organizes work with a steady progress towards labor relationships that are more fair and dignified.
  2. There are three modals of work:
    1. Self-employment
    2. Wage earners
    3. Worker ownership, in which work and management are carried out jointly
  3. Worker Co-operatives are the highest level of worker development in the present world. They are based on the values and principles of the Statement on the Co-operative Identity (adopted by the ICA in 1995 and supported by the ILO’s Promotion of Co-operatives 193/2002).
  4. Worker Co-operatives commit to being governed by the Identity Statement. In addition, they accept the additional definitions of this Declaration in order to further the worker co-operative model and differentiate it from the other types of co-operation. This will improve grow the movement while preventing deviations and abuses.
  5. The Declaration is necessary to allow the co-operative movement and the world to focus on the importance of worker co-operatives.
  6. The Declaration encourages co-operatives from all sectors to provide membership status to their workers and grant recognition to human work.

In some ways, this is a “shot across the bow” for the fake worker co-ops. These co-ops are really employer co-ops. Usually it is a partnership of a few who then sub-let to “independent contractors” who are not offered membership. This is most common in taxicab companies. It is a shell game used to avoid tax burdens and, in some cases, labor law.

The general characteristics also take a bold step in proclaiming in a very subtle way the old Wobblies motto: “Labor Creates All Wealth!” The Declaration encourages all co-operatives to respect their workers, to treat them as a significant stakeholder group and to create a membership class for them. This is very radical in co-op circles (at least US circles). Most Ag co-ops in the US do not allow members to work for the store. Consumer co-ops often only allow one or two workers (who might also be members) to serve on their boards. Usually, that service comes with a browbeating to ensure that they vote against their class. One consumer co-op that I know takes great pains to lecture their worker members to “think like an owner, not an employee”. As if the “employees” do not have a vested interest in the success of the consumer co-operative!

Quebec is a hot bed of worker co-operation. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that the work being developed there follows this concept. In Quebec, the work has been laid to create the “New Co-operative Paradigm”. I can tell you that this discussion was the most popular of the St. Mary’s MMCCU program for my cohort. Its creator, Daniel Coté speaks at length about the need to develop social cohesion within a co-operative. A key part of his paradigm utilizes the value of Solidarity. Specifically, he sees the core success of the co-operative of the future as the solidarity between the worker and the consumer (by which I mean the consumer, the farmer, the housing consumer, and financial consumer).

The World Declaration on worker Co-operatives may not be the US Declaration of Independence, however, it does present a challenge. It presents a challenge to all worker co-operatives to examine how they operate. It challenges the fake worker co-ops, that are really employer co-operatives to own up to the falsehoods. It encourages all co-operatives to honor their workers, the people who actually produce the wealth and the benefits that the members enjoy.

Next Week: Basic Characteristics

February 18, 2010

The Cleveland Model–Take One

Filed under: Movement,The Cleveland Model — Tags: , , , — John McNamara @ 7:00 am

Recently, The Nation sent out a broadcast with an article about the emerging worker cooperatives of Cleveland asking those of us in the bog-o-sphere to comment. As someone who has been an active member of a worker co-operative for over 20 years and involvement in the national and international movement for the last 4 years, I definitely have some ideas.

The folks are really doing this right. I spoke with one of the organizers of Evergreen Laundry a few years ago. They lined up the customers as part of the planning stage. The idea wasn’t to struggle as so many worker co-ops do in the beginning, but to start-up with a strong source of work (this was touch and go, but it appears that Case Western and other institutions will be sending their laundry to Evergreen). Second, the Mondragon style commitment to return 10% of surplus (the article calls it ‘pre-tax profits’) to a development fund. Third, I like the commitment expected from the workers that may require a long-term buy-in—I think that low-cost buy-ins have a tendency to devalue the membership or ownership aspect of the experience.

I’m a bit stunned at the amount of capital amassed. One of the well identified stumbling blocks for worker co-operative development in the United States has been the lack of access to capital. I realize that there are a number of groups, involved, I would like to know where  the $5 million came from and what strings are attached to it. I’m not casting aspertions, but I just have to assume that these organizations that ponied up the start-up cash expect to getting something out of the project and won’t want it to fail. A look at their website suggests that all three of the start-up co-operatives have the same group of customers (Cleveland Clinic, University Hospitals, Case Western Reserve, City of Cleveland, and Housing Network). This project is a great example of what can happen when different organizations working around economic justice, worker rights and sustainable communities break down the “silos”. I do hope that other communities learn from the Cleveland model especially Milwaukee and Madison (sadly, Madison’s current Economic Director doesn’t really seem to know much about that subject other than the standard refrain that government should get out of the way).

This does turn the traditional model on its head in that this was a top-down organizing effort. This likely helped with fund-raising as established rain-makers were able to tap into professional relationships where a gaggle of workers would likely be turned away with a shrug. I’m not so sure how I feel about that. I’m happy to see the effort up and running, but I wonder how much of the paternalism associated with a  top-down organizing effort will interfere with the transition to a true worker democracy in which the workers may make decisions that the founders fundamentally disagree with. I can see a dynamic where there could be a difficult (even fatal) transition in generational succession. This may be exacerbated by the management being chosen from a management class that may not really have anything in common with the workers. Will future managers be developed within the organization or sought within the existing worker co-operative movement?

Another issue with the top-down model involves labor relations during the start-up phase. Who will decide who gets off of probation and becomes a member before there are members? Will there be an appeal process? How will disputes get resolved without ownership or a labor union? They are creating good paying jobs (although the article didn’t really mention expected pay and benefits) in a very depressed area. I imagine a lot of people are looking forward to the work and see the ownership part as an abstraction. Working is a worker co-operative is not for everybody (at least not without a lot of therapy and training). We don’t refer to the Yellow Family at Union Cab for nothing, the relationships are very personal and very difficult to walk away from when times get tough. The intimacy of the work relationships due to ownership can make the disputes powerful and difficult to manage. Not everybody is ready for that or can deal with it.

This brings up my other concern: how will these co-operatives interact with the co-operative movement? A similar co-operative is Co-operative Home Care Associates of New York that generally doesn’t interact with the larger movement despite being the largest worker co-operative in the country. Will the Cleveland Model co-operatives join the US Federation of Worker Co-operatives? Will they subscribe to the CICOPA World Declaration of Worker Co-operatives? Will they subscribe to the Statement on Co-operative Identity?

I raise the last question because it seems that there is a trend to see co-operatives and worker co-operatives as an extension of the not-for-profit model of community development. We’re not. The growth of social workers creating co-ops is, I think, a danger for US co-operatives as they become more identified with a movement that tends to enable the worst aspects of capitalism. The rise of Policy Governance Model among consumer co-operatives is, in my opinion, a travesty that has allowed small cabals of managers and directors to create fiefdoms and barriers to expressing the user principles as well as the values of co-operatives. I would hate to see that cancer emerge into the worker co-operative world.

Finally, I have a small bone to pick. The authors make this comment, “These are not your traditional small-scale co-ops.” <COUGH, COUGH!> Union Cab with 230 members, Rainbow Grocery approaching 250 members, CHCA with over 1,000 members have been “traditional “ co-operatives for over 25 years. Granted the common stereotype is 5-10 member organizations, but the Cheeseboard and Arizmendi co-operatives all have over 30 members. The Cleveland co-ops are only looking at around 50 jobs per co-operative (according to The Economist). What makes these co-ops Mondragonish is the funding and mutual support mechanism, not the size of the organization.

I think that the Cleveland Model is an exciting development in the worker co-operative movement. However, it is one aspect. Our movement has been active for decades if not centuries. I am glad to see journals such as The Nation finally discover the co-operative model, although they probably could have covered the Democracy at Work Conferences (2006 in New York City and 2008 in New Orleans, and the 2010 conference in San Francisco). Perhaps they could ask their colleagues over as Dollars and Sense for tips on covering worker co-operatives.

To me, the best thing about the Cleveland Model is that it promises to open up some serious capital for worker co-operative development. It will still need to be determined how the strings attached to that capital work. It will also need to be seen if a top-down organizing model works to create a truly democratic work place and governance model or becomes another version of ESOP. Finally, after all the news of 2009, it is nice to be in a movement that isn’t entirely invisible any more.

We can, however, definitely agree that CLEVELAND ROCKS!

February 13, 2010

Another View of the Undercover Boss

Filed under: Society — Tags: , , , — John McNamara @ 10:37 am

The really great people at Labor Notes also noticed this show. Definitely read their take on it.

The Labor Notes essay reminded me of one of the real problems of the show (and the co-operative difference).

The narrative follows a fairly old plot device: The King is bored and feeling insecure about his subject’s love for him so he dons the clothes of a peasant and heads out to the realm to see how life really is. Along the way, he finds corrupt Sheriffs acting in his name, a damsel in distress, and other failures that he never dreamed existed because his royal court kept him sheltered from it all. In the end, he returns to the castle, uplifts the noble peasants who were kind to him, throws down the corrupt, marries the damsel and nestles back into the world of comfort, wealth and power.

That is essentially the plot of this show. Like the ancient narrative that it follows, it ignores reality serving instead to instruct the peasants that it is “hard work” being the decider!

Shakespeare had the most honest version of it in Henry V. Never one to trust the mob, Shakespeare allows his disguised Henry to defend the power of the King and to exonerate the King from the blood of war:

“So, if a son that is by his father sent about
merchandise do sinfully miscarry upon the sea, the
imputation of his wickedness by your rule, should be
imposed upon his father that sent him: or if a
servant, under his master’s command transporting a
sum of money, be assailed by robbers and die in
many irreconciled iniquities, you may call the
business of the master the author of the servant’s
damnation: but this is not so: the king is not
bound to answer the particular endings of his
soldiers, the father of his son, nor the master of
his servant; for they purpose not their death, when
they purpose their services. Besides, there is no
king, be his cause never so spotless, if it come to
the arbitrement of swords, can try it out with all
unspotted soldiers: some peradventure have on them
the guilt of premeditated and contrived murder;
some, of beguiling virgins with the broken seals of
perjury; some, making the wars their bulwark, that
have before gored the gentle bosom of peace with
pillage and robbery. Now, if these men have
defeated the law and outrun native punishment,
though they can outstrip men, they have no wings to
fly from God: war is his beadle, war is vengeance;
so that here men are punished for before-breach of
the king’s laws in now the king’s quarrel: where
they feared the death, they have borne life away;
and where they would be safe, they perish: then if
they die unprovided, no more is the king guilty of
their damnation than he was before guilty of those
impieties for the which they are now visited. Every
subject’s duty is the king’s; but every subject’s
soul is his own. Therefore should every soldier in
the wars do as every sick man in his bed, wash every
mote out of his conscience: and dying so, death
is to him advantage; or not dying, the time was
blessedly lost wherein such preparation was gained:
and in him that escapes, it were not sin to think
that, making God so free an offer, He let him
outlive that day to see His greatness and to teach
others how they should prepare.”

So it is with the CEO of modern commerce. They are the Dukes and Kings of our era and act much in the same manner. There decisions are just by the fact that they made them. Any consequences on the people cannot be laid at their feet. People are responsible for themselves, after all. Larry O’Donnell professes safety, but cuts hours without any realization that speed-ups affect safety. His company, according to Labor Notes, is a “safe” workplace where “Waste Management workers are three times more likely to get killed on the job than firemen, and 60 percent more likely than police officers.”

Of course, taking a week off work to see how the plebes survive isn’t the same as being one. At least the kings in the old stories actually risked their lives, but the CEO can jump safely back to the corporate office at any time. Undercover Boss is the modern grim fairy tale of corporatized America. Worker Co-operation is the reality anti-dote.

January 4, 2010

#17 Sovereignty of Labor (Mondragon Priniciples)

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

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

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

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

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

The Principles of Mondragon Cooperative Corporation state:

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

a) Renounces the systemic contracting of salaried workers

b) Gives labour total primacy in the organization of cooperatives

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Next Week: The Instrumental and Subordinate Nature of Capital

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