The Workers' Paradise

July 12, 2010

Worker Co-ops and Workers or All in the Family

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

May 10, 2010

The Guiding Light

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

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

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

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

April 15, 2010

Worker Cooperatives – a viable economic alternative?

Filed under: Uncategorized — Tags: , , — Bernard @ 2:20 am

A brief report on the CCCD California Cooperatives Conference April 2010

A multi-million dollar network of worker cooperatives in Cleveland, a successful alliance of Latina cooperatives in the Bay Area, and a worker cooperative store selling farm-direct food in West Oakland were just some of the projects presented at the California cooperative conference in Santa Rosa this past weekend.

Add to these ventures the news that the United Steel Workers are planning to create cooperatives so that union members actually own their jobs and not just rent them and one must ask, “Worker cooperatives? What, in America?”

This year’s conference organized by the California Center for Cooperative Development (CCCD) focused on “job creation and building community-based economies to strengthen communities, create wealth, and transform lives.”

The CCCD is a newly organized non-profit dedicated, as it says on its website, “to promote cooperatives as a vibrant business model to address the economic and social needs of California’s communities.”

In an age when an abundance of crises seem to accelerate mass anxiety, it is all too easy to feel disempowered and retreat into our personal lives. Signs of resistance and hope, which could prevent this sense of powerlessness, do not make the evening news or the front pages of our daily press.

Worker cooperatives, food stores and housing co-ops are a tiny sector of the America economy, but community activists are beginning to recognize their importance. As activists across the country move beyond a resistance strategy with essentially minor victories, to proposals for positive, long-lasting economic change, cooperatives increasingly become an option to investigate. Co-ops have a track record of providing a solid economic base to under-served communities. Cooperative Home Care Associates in New York provides above scale wages and real job control to over 1500 workers who would otherwise be exploited and marginalized. And right here in Northern California Alvarado Street Bakery, a worker cooperative, was highlighted in Michael Moore’s film Capitalism: A Love Story as an industrial bakery with good wages and benefits far surpassing the industry norm.

Historically, cooperative ventures have arisen from the efforts of ordinary people during previous economic slumps. In the Depression hundreds of self-help groups formed in California (and across the country) that used barter and time exchanges of labor to create an economy without money. The network created by these groups formed the basis for Upton Sinclair’s gubernatorial campaign in 1934.

Economic community development projects have been around for decades, and there have been successful revivals of failing communities. But all too often these “successes” do not benefit the original in-need population, as in the case of urban gentrification. In other situations the “revival” may last for a few years but then fail due to unforeseen outside economic forces.

What the current crop of activists recognizes is that to achieve longevity economic development has to happen from the ground up. Professionals are necessary to move a project up to scale, but they must take direction from below and not assume that pleading to the power structure to provide benefits will insure long-term success. The social change process cannot be a top-down, outside-in affair, but must be exactly the opposite. When it moves into the arena of economic development, the work of democratic planning and community involvement, the strong points of social justice activism, changes lives in meaningful ways.

The transformation of community activism into economic activism began before the current recession and financial crisis. The Just Wage movement began in the late 1990’s, for example, and has had notable results. Justice for Janitors campaigns and union organizing drives in the growing service sector are other successful examples that have affected many communities across the country. The current economic crisis, however, accelerated the search for viable solutions to economic hardships as they became even worse than before.

The latest developments that have caught the attention of community activists revolve around creating economic power closer to the point of production, not by seizing production in the Marxist paradigm (not in itself necessarily a bad idea), but by collectively developing production to serve as a source for jobs.

Cooperatives, for instance, are on the agenda of Restaurant Opportunities Centers United (ROC-United). ROC-United is opening organizing centers across the country. In Chicago they are planning a cooperative restaurant based on their successful Colors Restaurant in New York City. In Detroit community groups and union organizers are discussing the formation of a worker cooperative food store to serve the inner city. And across the country established worker cooperatives have organized regionally, adopting the form pioneered in the San Francisco Bay area by the Network of Bay Area Worker Cooperatives (NoBAWC, say No Boss!). NoBAWC includes over thirty worker cooperatives and collectives with over a thousand individual members. At the US Social Forum in Detroit this June, cooperative economics will be a major aspect of this second US Forum that follows the model of the World Social Forums. Organizers expect 20,000 activists to attend. And later this summer, the Federation of Worker Cooperatives will be holding its third national conference in Berkeley.

These developments are significant in themselves, but they become all the more important when they ally with related movements. The Cooperative Conference, for example, brought together participants with the Sonoma County GoLocal campaign. This is a new and savvy network organized as a cooperative to link businesses and individuals in a joint effort to retain local economic power. And to eventually expand the local economy with job creation.

Couple this endeavor with credit unions, housing co-ops, land trusts and eco-friendly businesses and what we have begins to look like a movement for real change. While Wall Street spins dreams of financial bliss, the nightmare they brought to Main Street may be lifting to reveal a brighter vision. An alternative, grassroots economy may be on the horizon that will create a quality of life to address the needs of people, not corporations.

Bernard Marszalek
April 11, 2010
www.jasecon.org
info@jasecon.org

March 22, 2010

CICOPA: The Basic Characteristics of a Worker Co-operative

Filed under: Movement,World Declaration — Tags: , , , — John McNamara @ 1:47 pm

There are six basic characteristics of worker co-operatives in the CICOPA World Declaration of Worker Co-operatives:

  1. Creating and maintaining sustainable jobs, improving the quality of life for their members, creating dignity in human work, democratic self-management, and promoting community and local development.
  2. Free and voluntary membership
  3. The majority of workers in a worker co-operative should be members of the co-operative and the majority of a co-op’s members should be workers.
  4. The nature of the relationship with the co-operative is different from that of wage-based labor or independent contractors.
  5. The control and management of the enterprise is democratic, agreed upon and accepted by its members.
  6. Worker Co-operatives are autonomous and independent in terms of government and third party control as well as in the control of the means of production.

My co-operative, Union Cab, expresses the first characteristic in its mission statement: “To create jobs at a living wage or better in a safe, humane, and democratic environment by providing quality transportation to the greater Madison area.” I think that is a great summary of the first characteristic. This speaks to the core difference between worker co-operatives and other types of co-operatives. Our worker co-operatives exist to elevate the worker as a human being and to provide them the security and rights that they deserve as human beings. If a worker co-op isn’t engaged with this thought in mind, then it might as well be an US style ESOP or have a traditional ownership with a labor union representation. While we might joke about, there shouldn’t be self-exploitation in any worker co-operative.

The second and third characteristics bring up a serious challenge for modern worker co-operatives. I think that some worker co-ops misinterpret the “voluntary and open” clause. This isn’t to allow people to “choose” whether or not to accept their responsibility as an owner, it is to ensure that the co-operative doesn’t discriminate against visible minorities or create an enclave of “the right type of people”. It urges co-operatives to welcome all people and to create a co-operative that looks like their communities. I think that there is a danger in allowing a class of worker to exist in a worker co-operative who does not (through their choice or that of the co-operative) have a path that will lead to membership. Part of that danger is that the number of worker-owners will fall below 50%. In my mind, at that point, the worker co-operative ceases to be a “worker” co-operative and becomes an “employer” co-operative. This may create two classes of workers—those who are owners and those who are employees. Ultimately, I think that this will create different expectations for the groups. In addition, the workers need a controlling voice even if they allow other stakeholders.

The fourth characteristic brings up another point that I think is vital. Those of us engaged in a worker co-operative are a unique type of worker. We aren’t (and shouldn’t be) independent contractors and we aren’t wage workers. We need to quit thinking in that dichotomy even if the law doesn’t recognize us. If I had unlimited money and time, I would make the creation of a third worker, the worker-owner are legal reality. We need our own set of labor laws that recognize our control over the means of production.  This has many applications from labor standards to taxation. The US government’s rule show how bizarre the discussion is. They recognize a “partnership” of owners as long as each owner owns at least 2% equity. This means that the government recognizes a “partnership” of 50 people, but not 51. That is ridiculous. They need to recognize that organizations wherein the workers have “one person, one vote” are partners—are owners. This doesn’t mean that worker co-operatives should be free to self-exploit, but they should have more latitude to set their own rules and the tax laws should recognize that equity and profits work differently in a worker co-operative.

The last two characteristics speak to ensuring that worker co-operatives are not false fronts put up for other means. The membership must agree to the governance structure. If there is hierarchy, it needs to have control by the workers. Workers must have the ability to change their structure whenever they agree to do so. Lastly, just as all co-operatives must be independent, worker co-operative must work even harder at this. As a movement, we cannot tolerate pseudo-co-operatives masquerading as democracies when they are really controlled by government organization and politicians or as a means to defeat labor movements in emerging countries. Worker co-operatives should only be subsidiaries of a larger worker co-operative—and then, in a federated style similar to what Mondragon or the Italians follow.

The Basic Characteristics seem simple enough. However, there are many self-described “worker co-operatives” that do not meet them. These characteristics prevent the worker co-operative movement from being co-opted by multinationals seeking to enjoy good public relations while undercutting labor movements in emerging nations (or in developed nations for that matter. It instructs new worker co-op models such as The Cleveland Model in the way that a worker co-operative needs to be developed to ensure that the workers don’t become the well kept pets of social workers. It provides a check on existing worker co-operatives who need to grow and worry about the effect of difference types of workers entering their co-operative. There is no international or federal law defining worker co-ops in the US, Canada or the UK (although there should be), so it is up to those of us in the movement to hold each other up to these standards.

Next Week: Internal Functioning Rules of Worker Co-operatives

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

March 8, 2010

Why Do Worker Co-operatives Need a World Declaration?

Filed under: Movement,World Declaration — Tags: , , — John McNamara @ 3:27 pm

In 2007, during Congress in Saskatoon, Canada, which included the joint meeting of ACE, CASC and the ICA Research Committee, April Bourgeois presented a paper by that same name.

Unfortunately, I misplaced my notes from that discussion. However, the upshot is that the concept of what constitutes worker ownership varies greatly based on location and political motive. Even in countries with national laws regarding co-operatives, the specific definition of a worker co-op often gets ignored.

This allows people to create “worker co-operatives” for marketing and tax purposes that are really traditional partnerships. This waters down the co-operative brand as a whole and the worker co-operative brand in particular. For instance, a cab co-operative might only have 3-4 members who each own and lease out 40 vehicles. Because they drive, they are “workers” but they also exploit the work of 40-60 other workers who do not get the benefits or protections of membership.

This scam plays out across the globe. It can (and does) happen in South America and North America. In addition, in the United States (and to some extent the UK and Canada), the concept of worker ownership has been further diluted through schemes such as the Employee Stock Ownership Program (ESOP) in which workers often invest in the company that employs them. These may be truly worker owned company, but often the majority of the shares (and the voting power that goes with that ownership) rests in the hands of senior management.

Finally, there is a movement to shore up the image of companies in the mind of the consumer. Groups such as World Blu Democratic Workplaces exist to help companies improve the worker experience by creating participatory management models. While this work is exemplary, it creates the false idea that “democracy” is the same as participatory management. While participatory management may be a key part of a democratic workplace, without the actual control afforded through the universal suffrage of “one member, one vote” the workplaces of Wolrd Blu exist through the benevolence of the majority stockholder.

Outside of the US, Canada and Western Europe, governments may interfere with worker co-operatives and even try to control them. This was certainly true in the Soviet Union as well as central African nations. It is part of the debate in Venezuela between the two separate worker co-operative movements. One is aligned with the Chavez government and one maintains a political independence. While the Chavez linked co-ops tend to run government work, I want to be clear that I do not think that President Chavez controls them either personally or through his political apparatus–the point is that people make assumptions on the independence of these types of co-operatives.

In 2005, the ICA approved the World Declaration on Worker Co-operatives at its General Assembly in Cartegena, Colombia. It was developed through the sectoral organization CICOPA and finalized at CICOPA’s meeting in Oslo, Norway. Because of this, it is often called the Oslo Declaration; however, this (in my mind) gets too confused with the Oslo Accords which is an agreement between the Palestinians and the Israelis for how they would negotiate peace. Given the failure of those Accords, it seems that it would be better for us to simply refer to the CICOPA Declaration. Not only is it simpler, but everytime that I say CICOPA out load, I think Copacabana and the song that goes with it).

In any event, the importance of this declaration comes from it defining a worker co-operative across international boundaries.  It has eight parts: General Considerations, Basic Characters, Internal Functioning Rules, Relationship within the Co-operative Movement, Relations with the State and with Regional and Intergovernmental Institutions, Relations with Employers’ Organizations, and Relations with Workers’ Organizations. Over the next eight weeks, I will present each part with my take on it.

Now, I was not part of the drafting of this document (a bit before my time in the Co-op World). Of course, I do know people who were part of the drafting. I want to encourage them to pop in and correct me when I am wrong, expand on things that I miss, and generally help to illuminate this important document that may be almost entirely unknown in the United States.

Next Week: General Considerations

March 1, 2010

#25: The Internationalist Nature of Co-operatives

Filed under: Identity Statement Series,Movement — Tags: , , , , — John McNamara @ 2:00 pm

Over the last 6 months,  I have been working my way through the Statement on the Co-operative Identity that the International Co-operative Alliance adopted at the 1995 meeting which also commemorated its first century of service. This statement solidified the Rochdale Principles as well as adding a list of values and ethics. In part, this was done to assure countries emerging into the world after decades of the Cold War, that co-operatives were not co-opted. That co-operatives that they experienced behind the Iron Curtain or as part of an attempt to shore up a rulers power in an emerging nation were not a true representative of the co-operative model. The Identity Statement also was a challenge to the western co-operatives as well. It was, and remains, a challenge to not rest of the laurels of the past, but to constantly struggle to improve our co-operatives and credit unions. The ICA created a true touchstone by which every co-operative and credit union in the world could be measured. That 1995 meeting may be the most significant moment in the movement’s 167 year history.

Dr. Ian MacPherson made these salient points in his background paper to the Identity Statement:

“It was a task much more difficult than the delegates of a hundred years ago knew. Overcoming the differences created by national perspectives and histories, coping with the ideological cleavages that swept the world in the Twentieth Century, recognising the biases each of us possesses, understanding empathetically the nature of co-operative experiences in non-European societies has not been easily accomplished. In the important book she prepared for Congress, Rita Rhodes has explained the deep tensions that made progress in creating a strong international Movement for most of the Twentieth Century difficult to achieve. It is a story worth pondering as we seek to understand how we can forge even stronger links among co-operative organisations spread around the world.”

In my days college days, we often challenged ourselves to “think globally, act locally”. We needed to recognize that the struggle of people is an international struggle but that we also aren’t saviors for those in other countries. To fix the world, we need to fix our local communities and share our story with the world. The Identity Statement embodies that ethos. As MacPherson notes, the co-operative movement exists as an international movement. The creation of the International Co-operative Alliance in 1895 was to help co-operatives world-wide and to share their stories. When workers in the Argentine factories succeed as running their own plants, they create a better environment for cab drivers in Madison, WI (and vice versa) by showing that workers can manage themselves. When Equal Exchange workers broke the Reagan Quarantine on Nicaragua with Café Nica. they helped farmer/workers the world over know that cold war politics could be defeated by workers and farmers uniting in a common cause.

The Identity Statement is our touchstone as a co-operative and credit union. It is an international document that makes our individual membership in our co-operatives and credit unions an international act of solidarity. Our membership in our organizations and our support for the ICA and the Identity Statement force us to “think globally”. By striving within our co-operatives to bring the Identity Statement to life, to “operationalize” the statement, we act locally. One of my projects over the last couple of years has been assisting in the development of something called the “Co-op Index.” It is a diagnostic tool to measure an individual worker co-operative against the Identity Statement (and the Mondragon principles). Ultimately, it will create a maturity index for worker co-operatives world-wide but in the short run, it will provide worker co-operatives with the information and tools that they need to become stronger co-operatives and create “best practices” for worker co-operatives in particular. It will be a means of improving our workplaces and the world at the same time.

The Identity Statement cannot just hang on the wall. We need to teach it in our co-operatives. We need to connect our actions to it. At my co-operative, we attach a “policy note” to each measure before the board that connects the proposed action to the co-operative’s vision, mission, core values and the Co-op Identity. It is a useful exercise that I think all co-operatives should adopt. The basic premise is that if we cannot explain why the proposal works from the vantage point of the Co-op Identity, then maybe it isn’t a proposal worth adopting.

On a final note, the Identity Statement is not a final document. It is, like the Rochdale Principles that it replaced, a living document. Each generation since 1843 has re-visited the co-operative identity and made adjustments appropriate to their time and place. In 1995, a strong movement existed (but eventually lost) to include a principle of co-operative management that would instruct co-operatives to manage in a different way and to create co-operative management schools. That effort didn’t fail, but continued and my imminent graduation as part of the 4th Cohort in St. Mary’s MMCCU program shows the power of that principle. It may be that the next incarnation of the statement will include management as stronger educational efforts on co-operative management have sprung up throughout the US and Canada to join existing programs at the UK’s Open University, Cooperative College and Spain’s Mondragon Univeristy. (These include the recent creation of an undergraduate degree at the University of Toronto, the CooperationWorks! Program, the Southern New Hampshire University program and the USFWC’s Peer Assistant Network).**   In addition to educating ourselves to manage from a co-operative framework, there is also a growing effort to expand the ‘concern for community” principle by adding a new principle specific to the protection of the environment.

The Identity Statement will celebrate its 15th anniversary this year. It has changed the dynamics of co-operation; it has given us an international touchstone that tells us that a co-operative in Sapporo, Buenos Aires, Winnipeg, Manchester, Madison, Bilbao, Bologna, Gdansk, Tel Aviv, Kiev, Dar es Salaam and Sydney all act under the same set of principles and values. The co-operative label is a label of trust, honor, and dignity for working men and women.

Next Week: This ends the series on the Identity Statement. I hope that people enjoyed it. I appreciated the comments on this site (and on Facebook where it mirrors). Feel free, as always, to use or redistibute my posts. I intend to keep the Monday entries going. The next series will be on a document that is just as important but little known: CICOPA’s World Declaration on Worker Co-operatives. Thanks for reading.

***Sadly, I have heard a rumor that there is some sectarian attacks on the Canadian programs coming from south of the border. The attack is jingoistic in nature (that the Canadian programs aren’t “american” and therefore not appropriate for US co-operatives. I haven’t had anybody say that to me directly (most likely because I would correct their opinion). It is a shame. Each program offers a means to manage our co-operatives according to the principles. I personally, would love to see the day when a co-operative undergraduate degree and the MMCCU are as ubiquitous in our universities and colleges as the business degree and MBA. We shouldn’t be fighting each other over our turfs, but co-operating to expand the educational opportunities for co-operative managers, directors and members. I chose MMCCU because it fit my life at this moment. In a different scenario, I might have elected for Mondragon, the UK, or SHNU. Had any of these programs been available to me when I was in college (1982), the path that my life took would be amazingly similar and different at the same time! It is my hope that in my lifetime learning of a young co-ed can earning their undergraduate degree in co-operative administration while working at a co-operative becomes a normal expectation and doesn’t require moving to specific part of the world.

February 23, 2010

Capital? We Don’t Need No Stinkin’ Capital

Filed under: Movement,The Cleveland Model — Tags: , , — Fred Schepartz @ 12:17 pm

Publisher’s Note: this is the second of hopefully several articles about the Cleveland Model Fred Schpartz. Fred publishes Mobius: A Journal of Social Change publisher is a member of Union Cab of Madison Co-operative and authored Vampire Cabbie.

Labor, properly organized, accompanied by sufficient community support equals capital. That is the lesson of the Cleveland Model.

Cleveland, like many Rust Belt cities, is an economic disaster area. Its population has dropped to less than half of what it was in 1950. Glenville, the Cleveland neighborhood where worker-owned Evergreen Cooperative Laundry is based, has a median annual income of roughly $18,000. Yet, in the depths of the worst economic downturn since the Great Depression, something amazing has happened.

Last year, Evergreen Cooperatives was born. Spearheaded by the private, non-profit Cleveland Foundation, grants and loans were secured allowing for the creation of the Evergreen Cooperative Development Fund with the purpose of creating worker-owned cooperatives, starting in the Glenville neighborhood, thus taking advantage of the presence of a university, a hospital and a large medical clinic in the neighborhood and the subsequent demand for a variety of services that previously had been provided by non-local businesses.

Last year, Evergreen Cooperative Laundry and Ohio Cooperative Solar were born. Aside from being worker cooperatives, both businesses are significantly green. Green City Growers, an urban hydroponics greenhouse and Neighborhood Voice, a community newspaper will open their doors later this year.

Taking a cue from Mondragon Cooperative Corporation in the Basque region of Spain, each Evergreen cooperative is obligated to pay 10 percent of pre-tax profits into a cooperative development fund.

The Cleveland Model is a significant development given the devastation wrought by capital abandonment, not just in Cleveland, but all throughout the Rust Belt. Capital abandoned the inner city in favor of the suburbs. Capital abandoned the north in favor of the Right To Work south and west. And when the imposition of neo liberalism in developing nations allowed capital to sidestep local labor and environmental laws and regulations, capital abandoned the United States.

During the current recession, we’ve seen a different variety of capital abandonment. Fearful of financial instability, capital hoards its resources. The financial sector won’t loan money to businesses. The Obama Administration is desperate to launch a new green economy, but capital is unwilling to risk their resources on a new, unproven economic sector.

This points out a significant advantage of the sustainability model versus the profit model. The reluctance of capital to venture into untested waters is understandable, given the financial risk. Obviously, a cooperative wants to turn a profit, but the cooperative is not out to maximize profits. Its board of directors does not demand tribute. There is no CEO demanding an eight or nine figure salary. In addition, risk is spread among more people in a cooperative, so cooperatives are willing to go where capital fears to tread.

Obviously, it takes money to start a worker-owned cooperative business. In the case of the Cleveland Model, this was accomplished through community support, with funding coming from area foundations, locally owned banks and municipal government, along with some federal grants.

When capital abandons a place, the solution is that labor can become capital, if properly organized and with sufficient community support. And given that capital has abandoned a great deal of this country, the Cleveland Model is a solution for Anywhere, USA. We as a nation need not be held hostage by capital.

Workers need to march back to the shuttered factories where they used to work and decide they will resume building goods in those darkened plants. And that effort needs to be supported by the community and by local, state and federal government. The Obama Administration must lead the way by allocating economic stimulus money for the formation of worker-owned cooperatives. Imagine the impact of one billion dollars provided as seed money for worker cooperatives. That’s a little more than one tenth of one percent of the total amount of money allocated for the stimulus. This would be money well spent. Not only would it get people back to work relatively quickly, but it would provide a conduit for long-term economic growth.

Lest I paint too rosy a picture, I should mention that I have heard a critique of the Cleveland Model that it is top down and thus paternalistic. I believe that criticism is fair. I have not visited any of the Evergreen Cooperatives, so I cannot say this with utmost certainty, but it appears that the management and leadership structure is superimposed upon these cooperatives rather than grown organically from the membership. My sense is that the Cleveland Foundation et al probably believes professional leadership is necessary, at least in the beginning, for these cooperatives to survive, that it was absolutely necessary for hired-gun technocrats to be brought in to run things.

While The Nation absolutely gushed about the effort it took to organize these cooperatives and how green these businesses are, there was not a word about what it’s actually like to work in any of these places.

Are these workplaces democratic? Is it a humane work environment? Are workers paid a living wage?

A worker’s cooperative that does not have these things is not much of a cooperative. At Evergreen Cooperative Laundry, there is the hope that workers can accumulate upwards of $65,000 in retained equity within 10 years. This is an admirable goal, but is it realistic or is it pie in the sky? And to achieve that goal, are worker’s paid a substandard wage? I don’t know.

For the Cleveland Model to succeed in a meaningful way, each worker’s cooperative must have self-rule and self-determination. It is imperative that management provides training opportunities so the workers can learn how to run their own business because when it’s all said and done, it’s their business, and no one will know how to run it better than them.

I do sincerely hope a form of the Cleveland Model can be implemented on a national scale. Capital has abdicated its responsibility to the citizens of this country. The Cleveland Model teaches us that together, we can live without capital by essentially generating it ourselves.

A tsunami of new cooperatives could create thousands upon thousands of new jobs and could get America back in the business of building good that the rest of the world wants to buy.

But to make this a truly worthwhile endeavor, the cooperative movement has to be proactive in its efforts to train and organize those who might form these future cooperatives, so these future cooperative members can be best equipped to organize themselves.

December 19, 2009

Neo-Syndicalism: A Path Toward Reimagining Socialism

Filed under: Movement — Tags: , , , , , , — Fred Schepartz @ 6:27 pm

In Barbara Ehrenreich’s groundbreaking essay, “Reimagining Socialism,” which appeared recently in The Nation, she states that we on the Left need a plan, but we don’t have a plan.

Well, I have a plan, albeit a small one.

My plan is something I like to call Neo-Syndicalism. This may sound familiar to longtime Mobius readers; I have written about this before.

Just to quickly review, Neo-Syndicalism, like Classical Syndicalism, is the notion that we can change society through economic means rather than political means. In terms of Classical Syndicalism, this is most elegantly expressed in the old IWW slogan, “one big union, one big strike.”

Neo-Syndicalism takes an updated, more pragmatic, and perhaps more cynical approach in that we acknowledge that perhaps we can’t overthrow the Capitalist system. However, within the Capitalist system we can create liberated zones through organisms like worker cooperatives, collectives, and other forms of worker-owned businesses, along with economic alternatives such as fair trade, community supported agriculture, and, in general, sustainability.

Essentially, this is about building our own economy brick by brick.

The movement, the plan, is out there. It just doesn’t know it, at least not yet. That is why I have given it a name. Giving a movement a name pulls together diffusive elements and helps provide a conduit for people with different interests to work together toward a common goal.

Or to put it another way, if you are involved in an activity that falls under my heading of Neo-Syndicalism, you are doing something greater and more significant than you realize. You should take this understanding, talk to the other members of your group, and discuss your work in this greater context. You should network with other groups that do the same thing your group does. And then you should network with groups you may not have much in common with if these groups share the strategy of Neo-Syndicalism.

It’s about building our own economy brick by brick.

In these desperate times, there’s interesting and radical things going on. Last year in Chicago, workers at Republic Windows and Doors staged a sit-in after the company was forced to close when the bank, which had received TARP funds, refused to extend a line of credit to allow the company to continue production. The worker’s refusal to let the plant close was rewarded. Another company came and in bought the plant thus saving a few hundred jobs.

In Latin America, there have been numerous instances where factories abandoned by the companies that owned them have been taken over by the workers. As one worker commented, the company came into our community, took our subsidies, took our tax breaks and then left. We are claiming ownership.

My favorite story is in France, there have been instances of boss-napping. Of course, the French being the French were rather civilized about the whole thing. While holding bosses as they waited for corporations to consider their demands, they stuffed the bosses with moules et frites.

I remember way back in 1979, when I first moved here to Madison, Wisconsin, to attend the University of Wisconsin. Somebody handed me a copy of the very last issue of the radical newspaper Takeover. I remember the slogan: “Are you going to take orders or are you going to take over?”

Granted, I’ve always found the sentiment a bit simplistic, but in this case, I think it’s quite apt. I look at the shuttered GM plant in Janesville, and all I can think is “are you going to take orders or are you going to take over?”

These corporations are afforded the same rights as individual human beings. We give them tax breaks. We give them tax subsidies. We give them tons and tons of public money so they can come into our communities to provide jobs. In these harsh economic times, we give them stimulus money so they can stay in business and continue to provide jobs.

And then they close. They either simply shut their doors or they move to other countries.

As far as I’m concerned, the GM plant in Janesville belongs to the people of Janesville. They should take over the plant and run it as a worker-owned cooperative or perhaps as a community-owned cooperative of some sort. They could produce anything they want, though perhaps it might make the most sense if they produced cars. Perhaps they could contract with one of the surviving auto companies. Or maybe they could actually start their own auto manufacturing company. Or maybe they could take over Saturn once GM officially discontinues that line.

One might think, automakers designing cars? Ridiculous?

Well, of course they’d hire design engineers and whatever brain power they need, but just imagine what kind of cars such a plant would produce when the workers who produce the vehicles and drive the vehicles actually have a say in the design of the vehicles. Gee, they might actually be vehicles people want to drive!

And yes, I do understand this is a pipe dream without a massive infusion of cash. After all, as a character in The Right Stuff says, “No bucks, no Buck Rogers.”

If the government can bail out the banks and the auto companies, they can provide money to facilitate the formation of worker-owned-and-operated cooperatives at abandoned manufacturing plants. This would comprise a real economic stimulus package. It would save and create jobs. It would be great for the communities that die long, slow, painful deaths when a manufacturing plant closes.

And it would help get us back into the business of building stuff the world wants to buy.

The Obama Administration should call for an initiative to provide grants and low interest loans to abandoned workers who want to form worker cooperatives. In fact, the Obama Administration should encourage abandoned workers to take over shuttered manufacturing plants.

Of course, there’s a chicken/egg aspect to this. Workers should view this tactic strategically, that if more and more workers take over abandoned manufacturing plants, it could be a way to force the Obama Administration to take positive action. We saw this during the FDR Administration, and it’s equally true now: radical change comes from the bottom up. Remember, FDR himself said, “Make me.” Obama has pretty much implied the same thing, urging people to organize, to basically give him political cover to be able to move in stronger directions.

But let’s make one thing perfectly clear: Neo-Syndicalism is not merely a tactic to push government into a more radical direction. It’s a strategy. Again, it’s about rebuilding our economy, brick by brick. It’s about telling the corporatocracy that we will no longer play their little reindeer games, that we can find a path toward a real and lasting prosperity without them.
Neo-Syndicalism is just a term I came up with, but as I’ve said time and time again, words have great power. What we’re talking about is defining a movement that’s out there, working hard and doing good work. By identifying this as a movement, we create a synergy that will make it stronger through greater numbers and more comprehensive exchanges of information and, in general, people power.

November 11, 2009

No More Social Clubs–Thoughts on the Steelworkers

Filed under: Movement,Uncategorized — Tags: , , , , — John McNamara @ 8:59 pm

It’s been a couple of weeks now since the groundbreaking announcement of potential collaboration between Mondragon and the US Steelworker’s Union. The press conference occurred just as, Bernard, an author on this blog and the host of Jasecon posted some thoughts about the role of Mondragon in US Development on this site. The announcement set a lot of us into action. Andrew McLeod posted some follow-up work while he was in the Land of Steel. I waited to write about this because I just wasn’t sure what to make of the whole thing.

During the press conference my thoughts drifted back to my first experience with unionized industrial workers. I spent a lot of my high school time in a group called the Toledo Sub-Mariners. It was a group of scuba divers dominated by autoworkers and other factory folks. It was an odd spot for the son of a doctor and nurse from the suburb of Ottawa Hills. Yet there I was. They told me stories of factory life. How scabs tended to be “accident prone”, the importance of solidarity and labor unions. One told me of the time that the managers at Davis-Besse, a nuclear power plant, found out that he dove and asked him to do some underwater electrical repair. He asked what was in the water. They said it was safe, but wouldn’t tell him. He refused the job and if he hadn’t had a union, he would have lost his job. The early ’80′s were a rough time in Toledo (as they are today). Don showed up at a meeting and announced his retirement. He was 57 and had 30 years in with American Motors (now Chrysler). He showed up to work and was given a broom. With 30 years seniority, he was back to doing the first job he was hired to do. Such is the life of the industrial worker in the United States.

My next experience was just a few years later. I had left Toledo and was a reporter for The Daily Cardinal--the older student newspaper of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I was also a steward for the Memorial Union Labor Organization–an independent industrial union representing student workers at the UW’s student union. I reported and participated. I have never had as an electrifying moment as when we all stood and sang the anthem of Labor: Solidarity Forever! It was a great conference. Nurses from Buffalo, NY spoke of their successful union drive. There were workshops on organizing, grievances, and collective bargaining. The Teamsters for a Democratic Union were present.I forget the name of the keynote speaker, but during his talk, he spoke to those of us from the academic world. He said that the workers in the factories need to make common cause with the students. He then said that the students need to realize that there role is to support the unions from outside (put pressure on the politicians and the owners). “We don’t need you in the factories like what happened in the sixties.” I wasn’t quite sure of the history, but I got the message. They were perfectly capable of organizing themselves and wanted our support, but really didn’t want us telling them how to do it.

Ah, back to the present day. The press conference seemed quite devoid of “press” except for the people from Dollars and Sense and bloggers such as Andrew and myself. The questioning came from the federations, academics, and NCBA. It kind of felt like an alien spacecraft had landed and we curious humans (who knew a lot about aliens) were trying to figure out what was going on and how we might get to be a part of it.

I was happy when Leo Gerrard, the President of the International Steelworkers’ Union stated that he wasn’t interested in creating another “social club.” It was clear from his presentation that the Steelworkers were in this to create a future for themselves, their members, and their country. I know that Mondragon doesn’t mess around. They wouldn’t be here if they weren’t serious about investment. Gerrard made the statement that caused my little flashback. One of the participants asked how they (we) could help. Gerrard simply said that the USW and Mondragon would need several months to talk to each other and then would call a meeting for “allies and friends.” I don’t know if anyone else got the message, but it was “Thanks for the offer, but we know what we are doing and when we want your help, we’ll give you a call.”

So that is where I sit. I think that the Mondragon Co-op knows how to start worker co-operatives. They create about 30 a year and have been doing this for over 50 years. The Steelworkers know how to organize workers–they organized in 1937 and fought the “goons and ginks, the company finks and the deputy sheriffs who made the raids” (as the great Woody Gutherie sang). I don’t know if they need a bunch of middle-class over-educated kids from the ‘burbs telling them how to run their show.

I would love nothing more than to be a part of this historic movement, but I figure that I already am a part of it. The critical mass that makes worker ownership a viable option today (not the ESOP scam) has happened because of the work that we have all put into our co-ops to make them successful. While I would love to get a call from President Gerrard, there are plenty of things for worker co-operators to be doing. We need to build our Peer Technical Assistance Network. We need to continue to beef up our infrastructure. We need to continue to raise our profile. We need to build the US Federation.

The Steelworkers and “the Mondragon”* may be the sexy new kids on the block, but after 20 years in the worker co-operative movement, I’ve come to realize that it worth staying focused on the projects before me instead of veering off to the newest thing. Mondragon and the Steelworkers have both been around, organizing industrial workers, since before I was born. They will likely be doing it long after I am gone.

I welcome Mondragon to the US. I welcome the Steelworkers to the worker co-operative movement. It is a great moment to see the worker co-operative movement and the industrial labor movement join forces. I hope that they know about this great property in Janesville, WI that they can probably get for a song! I hope that they also know that an accessible, alternative fuel hybrid taxicab could be a great investment. But I’ll keep the voice in my head from that Labor Notes Conference. I’ll focus on supporting them and do my best to avoid instructing them.

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