The Worker's Paradise

    One of the more interesting debates among cooperators involving ranking the cooperative principles asking people to choose which principle is the most important principle. It is a great way to start a conversation about the nature of cooperatives, because there isn't a correct answer. Even if one takes the position that all the principles are equally important, it still leads to a discussion: what if a coop has to choose between being environmentally friendly (Concern for the Community) the ability of members to continue to be part of the cooperative (Member Economic Participation). Of course, the real answer is that coop members, directors and managers need to think about the values and principles while they are making their decisions, not after the fact. It is the process that counts--sometimes more than the end result.

    Recently, I found myself in a heated debate with a city political figure. As some of you may know, I sit on a city committee. The idea of the city committees, in Madison at least, is to allow the citizens to participate in the democracy of city government. The Mayor appoints members (including alderpersons) to the committees and the Common Council approves the appointments. The committees have various responsibiities and some, such as the one that I sit on, the Alcohol License Review Committee, have regulatory powers over private enterprise and their workers (the taxi industry is another industry that is regulated in this manner by the Transit and Parking Commission).

    The specific issue isn't important as is the process. How should policies of a cooperative be created? How should the Ordinances of the City be drafted? If we want to live in a democracy that this truly democratic shouldn't that mean that the values of openness be practiced? Can we really have a democracy where Education, Training and Information is restricted or ignored?
   
    My argument with the alder centered on the process being essentially his drafting of the new rules then expecting the committee to "edit". He confuses the process of editing with the process of democracy.

At Union Cab, members wanted to add an envronmental clause to our core values. There was a lot of debate on how to proceed because we have never amended our core values since their creation in 1995! Eventually, the process was settled on to hold several small forums and then poll the membership in an informal poll that had four choices. Three choices were different levels of commitment a "green" core value. The fourth was no core value. The vote was weighted so that people's preference could be guaged. The result is that the board will vote on a new core value that has mass support of the membership.

Compare our process to the city process: the alder drafted the ordinance amendment in secret (not even sharing it with other alders), will try to send it only to committees that he sits on (he called my suggestion to send it to the Equal Opportunities Committee "ridiculous" even though it involves denying work to people based on their conviction record), and he waited to present it until after the committee changed and had three relatively liberal members (on a 7 person committee) replaced with three relatively conservative members.

At the city level, people are expected to "edit" and call it democracy. At the coop level, people are educated about the issues, given the power to shape the process (including on the type of vote--advisory or by-law change), write several options of the proposed language including the status quo, and then allowed a weighted preference vote on the outcome. Granted, Union could have gone further and made this binding.

Democracy does not exist in a vacuum. Without a strong process behind it, it is a farce of itself.

How would you define it? Can you define it?

I began a 12 hour odyssey from Madison, WI to Halifax, Nova Scotia yesterday to discuss that very topic. A good thing to do on May Day!

On the flight, though very tired, I decided that the best way to get myself into the groove of the moment was to begin Robert Putnam seminal work, Bowling Alone. In the book, he begins by detailing the decline of groups and the decline of participation in society in North America. He discusses the differences between social capital and financial capital (and how the political parties have replaced the social capital of volunteers with the financial capital of phone banks and television advertising).

It made me think about the US Worker Cooperatives. We seem to be poor in financial capital but rich in social capital; however, we don't always use our social capital. We have really committed people (although we need to get more people to work on the larger movement). The point of this trip was to work with other worker cooperators to develop a diagnostic tool for worker cooperatives. Ideally, this tool will be used to create a diagnosis and recommendations for action for each worker cooperative and also offer a means to compare a single worker cooperative to all of the other worker cooperatives.

more to follow

Are worker cooperatives better places to work? Are they more effective at customer service? Do they create sustainable economies for communities? Are they more worthy of TIF dollars and government subsidies than investor owned businesses?

Well, of course I think that the answer is a resounding YES!

Worker cooperatives provide good paying jobs and economic control to their workers. They not only keep the money in the local community, they provide superior customer service because the workers interact directly with the consumer. Worker cooperatives create better citizens because the workers learn about more than avoiding the boss and getting a paycheck for minimal work. They learn about community and solidarity which can translate into their role as a citizen.

But, how do we prove it?

That is the question before a group of worker cooperators from Canada and the US and researchers from Canada and Poland. We will be meeting this weekend in Halifax, Nova Scotia to examine these and other issues.

I wonder how we measure happiness and hearken back to a talk last Spring in Saskatoon on the topic. Are workers in worker cooperatives happier people than workers in capitalist companies within their industry?

It interests me that everyone seems to want to study worker coops these days. Perhaps the failure of capitalism under the war economy of the current US is the cause, or perhaps the new generation of academics have run out of things to write about (having been around academics my entire life, I can tell you that scenario is unlikely). In any event, this workshop and conference may be the beginning of a great tool for worker cooperatives to use to justify a shift of government funding from for-profiteers such as the developers in teh Willy St. Coop debacle towards organizations of worker cooperatives (and consumer cooperatives) that can develop sustainable, community-oriented projects.

I will try to blog from the event, but I expect that this will be like most coop get togethers: 12 hours days!

REGISTER NOW for

DEMOCRACY AT WORK:
3rd National Conference of Worker Cooperatives and Democratic Workplaces

June 20-22, 2008
Loyola University in New Orleans

Speakers and skill-building workshops
Panel presentations and discussions
One-one-one consultations with experts
New Orleans Cooperative Showcase event
Party hosted by New Orleans emerging co-op community
Volunteer Work Week with local projects afterward: June 23-26
Membership meeting and elections for the US Federation of Worker Co-ops
And most important: an opportunity to meet and talk with each other and be inspired!

THIS EVENT IS OPEN TO PUBLIC.
Supervised childcare and Spanish translation will be available.

Registration is affordable and scholarships are available. There are discounts for USFWC members and New Orleans residents.

For more information on travel and lodging, a schedule of events, and a listing of workshops and presenters, check out the conference website.

Register online at: www.usworker.coop/conference2008/register or call (415) 379-9201 to request a registration form. Registration deadline is May 20, 2008.

Please let us know by May 1 if you are interested in doing part or all of the Work Week. We will match volunteers with local rebuilding projects and/or startup co-op projects that need experienced cooperators and technical assistance.


See you in New Orleans!

Melissa Hoover, Executive Director
US Federation of Worker Cooperatives
PO Box 170701
San Francisco, CA 94117
www.usworker.coop
info@usworker.coop
(415) 379-9201

In Madison, several of us have been working to create a cooperative network. This process has been in the works since the Conference of Democratic Workplaces in New York City in October of 2006.
After the conference, the Union Cab board of directors instructed its Education Committee to begin reaching out to other area cooperatives. I also participated as I definitely wanted the worker coops to start getting together. Along the way, last year in fact, we (the Ed Committee and myself) met up with a member of Summit Housing Cooperative (who works at Willy St. Coop) who was working on the same issue. We didn't meet him, but a friend at our first Coop social event.

Needless to say, we joined forces and saw the events getting more and more turnout even during the hardest winter that Madison ever experienced (100+ inches of snow).

On May 18th, we will meet en masse to create the organization. In the meantime, we have gotten a web presence on Facebook and on the web proper at madcoops. The web site is a work in progress, but we are using a discussion list and an announce list. I am amazed at how easy it is to set up, i just hope that the discuss list doesn't become a burden.

One of the interesting issues comes from the type of organization that we are. There are regional worker coop networks and national grocery coop networks. There are national and statewide coop networks that represent all coops, but I think that Madison might be the only local network with a big tent. This is a good thing, but I can also see how we might create a sector system (similar to the ICA) in order to work with our national networks.

It will be an interesting meeting as there are many who live in coops and work in coops and bank at credit unions and get their health care at a coop. The cross-pollination of memberships is a very healthy part of the mix and one of the reasons to go with a big tent organization.

The good people from Cooperation Works are in Madison this week. Audrey Malan was kind enough to let me present on Coop History and the Identity Statement. It was a tough go. I get a bit flummoxed in front of a crowd and the entirety of the coop movement is a bit overwhelming. I also felt that I shorted the Federation of Southern Coops which started during the modern civil rights movement but has roots going back to the Reconstruction Era.

In any event, we had a great conversation about the Identity Statement and how it relates to the work of cooperative development. Leslie from the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives bailed me out a few times (Thanks, Leslie!!) as did Audrey and Margaret from the USDA. It was also great to meet a few of the readers of this blog!

Tomorrow I will be presenting a case study on Union Cab, my home cooperative. I love doing these conferences because I learn as much as the attendees. In this case, the group has an experienced coop lawyer (and an accountant). We need to know who these people are. Tonight I ran into someone from the UW Center for Cooperatives and we talked about creating a Cooperative Knowledge Map of US Cooperators in the form of a wiki. Union Cab just did this internally and a national coop wiki seems like an obvious and incredible resource. The UWCC is the perfect organization for this.

If there is ever a reason to consider the importance of cooperatives working together, then the recent travails of the Willy St. Coop in Madison offer as good an argument as any. The coop's attempt to site a second store found them working with a developer and a bank precisely as the sub-prime collapse was underway. Long story, short: the bank that held the original note was bought, the new bank didn't honor the commitments or the relationships of the old bank, the new bank took the developer into foreclosure and made sure that it got its money. Willy St. was the odd-enterprise out.

This isn't to criticize the Coop. They were acting on their members' wishes and doing their best to get a second store in a neighborhood that would benefit the city and the membership. However, it does point out the limited options to cooperatives in the realm of finance. Unlike our cousins to the north and across the pond, US coops tend to be at the mercy of for-profit banks. The US Credit Union movement seems uniquely unable to offer any assistance to the thriving cooperatives in this country. Recently, my cooperative has been looking at creating new options for our customers and finding a better financial situation for our members. It is incredibly frustrating to see how limited the credit unions are.

The coop movement has always been about creating our own solutions. When life gives us lemons, we create a lemonade cooperative. So why do we allow ourselves to get bullied by the banks and settle for a credit union movement that can only offer solutions for individuals, not cooperatives?

What would happen if the coops actually bought a bank? One share, one vote, but a bank, not a credit union? The Cooperative in the United Kingdom has had this for years, so has Mondragon with the Caja Laboral. The US has the NCB, but would they even think about a deal (or be competitive about it) such as the Metropolitan project? I have to think that, even in Dane County, the coops could pull enough assets together to open a fairly functional bank that could offer the owners (cooperatives) better options and create a great option for their members.

To do this the US cooperatives need to start thinking collectively and working together across sectors. Until then, this is a dream that must still be dreamt.

Barack Obama gave an unusual speech the other day. He attempted to have an honest discussion about race in America. This is, of course, unheard of. Not just in a presidential campaign, but even in our own neighborhoods, cooperatives, and circle of friends. At every coop conference, we have the requisite "anti-oppression training" and so many coops, (worker, consumer, housing etc) can't help but notice the lack of diversity among their ranks. (I know that everyone is trying, but it isn't an easy task).

I generally see electoral politics as a spectator sport. We, working folks, generally don't get a participatory role beyond feeling good about send 20 or 50 bucks to our favorite candidate. Generally, even this year, I take the attitude of the woman in the movie, The Take, and say, "My dreams do not fit on your ballots." Despite the honesty of the speech, I am still not sure that Obama is willing to be the change agent that he wants us to believe that he is. I can't help but think that his uneqivocal support for Israel (rght or wrong), his continued funding of a war he is against and his complete lack of understanding about immigration makes him seem like a traditional albeit liberal politician. Nevertheless, I am impressed with this speech in its openess, and its rhetoric on race. Perhaps Obama is our Kirchner.

What brought me to this post was an interesting paragraph in the Obama speech:

"But I have asserted a firm conviction — a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people — that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice is we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances — for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans — the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives — by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American — and yes, conservative — notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright’s sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change."

Self-help. Pull oneself up by one's boot straps! It is the myth of the United States that "by luck and by pluck, every boy can prosper." This is the propaganda of the Ragged Dick tales by Horatio Alger and of George Washington Carver. It is the essence of the recommendation provided for Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man. But, it is something else entirely, and very much foreign to the American experience. It is the bedrock of the Cooperative Identity.

Self-help is what the cooperative movement has always been about. We have never expected the politicians to assist us. We have led to the politicians to make the changes because of our success. This is true for the Rochdale pioneers, the Mondragon Cooperative, the Grange movement in the US, the Credit Union movement in Germany.

We cooperators set the trend. We lead the way. We are the economic Vangaurd.  Obama's speech has eloquent [hrases about a just economy  and educational system. What are the specifics? At his web site, I see the continued commitment for tax breaks and "incentives". Does Obama, I wonder, even know that the cooperative economic model exists and is closer to his words that investor-owned enterprises will ever be?

So, how do we, as worker cooperators, get people like Barack Obama to understand that their public ideology is inconsistent with the economy that they wish to govern? How do we get a Barack Obama to understand that the cooperative movement provides the just economic system that he seeks and that it is thriving. It only needs a nod of recognition, an angel or two, and a prominence among government community activists that goes beyond the USDA Regional Offices.

I have hope. . . . .

In his new Book, Swim Against the Current, Jim Hightower profiles several cooperatives as a way to restore a sane economy in the United States. There is a nice review at Media Mouse. I am quite proud that my cooperative was mentioned, but am glad that another founding member  of the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives were mentioned along with Union Cab, the Lusty Lady of San Francisco provide some of the better lines. While Union's chapter focuses on our distant history, the Lusty section discusses all of the extra work that being a member of a worker cooperative entails. It is not enough to simply show up and grab a paycheck, worker cooperators must also due the planning, policy development, conflict management and all of the other functions that workers traditionally see as the job of the boss.

In addition to the worker cooperatives, Hightower also acknowledge CROPP  and their brand, Organic Valley. As ag coops go, CROPP is as hippie as they get! This is not your grandpa's coop.

Since I am mentioned in the book (my index entry is right above Timothy McVeigh), I don't want to make a "review" of any sort; however, this might be a good introduction to cooperatives for your family members and friends who don't really think of coops as being anything other than the tofu/seitan, bulk-granola source.

The U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives will host its bi-annual meeting in New Orleans. The last meeting took place in New York City as part of a Conference of Democratic Workplaces. This event will focus more on the organization. Instead of a three hour meeting, the meeting will be spread out over the weekend. Saturday will have time for workshops and conferences, but Friday and Sunday will be for the meeting.

Plans are for the meetings to take place on the Tulane campus. For Wisconsin Cooperators, we might have to plan a side trip to Kiln, Mississippi to pay homage to Brett Favre!

It has been a rather crazy month here in Madison. If I was whining about the snow in December, then February made me simply give-up. Despite the inability to see around corners (because of several foot high snow drifts), the constant salt stains on my shoes, and change in walking to avoid slipping on the ever-present ice, February still managed to be the shortest month of the year. It also held some fascinating lessons for me as a cooperative member.

The first came in a two-day 8-hour workshop on Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Effective Managers. This course took us through the habits and sometimes devolved into a training seminar for a Franklin-Covey day planner. I came to the realization that Stephen Covey's ideas aren't really that new. In fact, I think that many of us in the cooperative world already practice them as part of our culture. It felt odd to sit in a room of people who seem to believe in capitalism. One person at my table even referred to her boss as "my owner."

That really creeped me out!

But Coffey urges his would be disciples to eschew the quest for profit and focus on the human, focus on being human, and focus on respecting each other. His vision really seems to be for cooperatives! I imagine that is why so few companies really embrace his class. They may pay for the course to feel good, but then return to the world they know. It also seems that the companies used as examples are companies that were great but now find it a struggle and are looking for a new shot of energy. Why would a company really care about seeing the workers as human as long as they were making enough money? It is only when the profits drop and the benefit of staff turnover reaches the point that it no longer offers easy fixes, that the boss will look to gurus such as Coffey.

The cooperative culture already embraces communication, education , information , transparency and treating people as the individual humans that they are. That said, I think that cooperators should read Coffey's books and implement his habits. They are really our habits anyway and we should be proud to claim them.

The second moment came during the sixth meeting of seven in a 10 hour period yesterday. I listened to someone use the phrase "data driven decision making." Now, this is a term that I use; however, when I use the term, I say "data driven decision making in accordance with our cooperative values and principles." Yes, we need to avoid making decisions based solely on emotion, but we must also remember that making decision based only on efficiency ignores the "human". "Data-driven" is a way to say that people don't matter, only the financial bottom line matters. As long as we are "efficient" we are succeeding. I disagree. I believe in efficiency, but I also know that we aren't machines. Machines need to run efficiently, humans need to be treated differently.

In my critique of the Coffey course, I commented on the oddities of his attempt to save capitalism. At one point, I described it as "Taylorism for Managers". The quest for efficiency through Six Sigma strategies offers its own Tayloristic silliness. Regardless of our vocation, we must always remember that at the heart of our work is a human either as a co-worker, a customer, a vendor, or community. The human must rule our decisions, not the process.

A special leap day: on my coop's website, I posted a news blurb that was headlined: Leap Day is a Free Day!  I then explained that February 29th is an extra day in our lives. It has no obligations or attachments (except perhaps for the 1/1,461 of the population born on that day). I urged people to take this day and do something extraordinary with their special day. Okay, I admit that I basically stole this idea from Roy H. Williams of Wizard of Ads fame (another guru--of advertising--who believes in the human). I had to pull the blurb after 2-3 customers called in and thought that cab rides were free because of the web sire

In September, the Wisconsin Union will be allowing an outside chain, Peet's Coffee, to set up shop. The Union gets $10,000 upfront and 5% of sales for the next 5 years. This is the first time that food service will be provided by an outside vendor at the Union. Amanda Green, vice-president of public relations for the Union, said this to the Badger Herald: “It goes against our values but does not compromise them,” Green said. “By being able to temporarily reevaluate our values … we are going to benefit greatly.”

While Madison is no Seattle, we certainly don't have to import roasters. We have several in town and one, is a worker cooperative (collective).

There are two significant historical events that have allowed this change. The first is the demise of the Memorial Union Labor Organization that folded in 2004 after representing workers for over 30 years and was one of the only student worker unions in the country. The second was the retirement of MULO's arch-nemesis, Michael Hirsch. Hirsch fancied himself the "King of Food Service" often using those intials, KFS ,to brand new products within the Union.  I can't imagine either group would have let an outside chain into the Union.

Peet's will change the dynamic of a building that was built to serve students as a cultural center and as a source of employment. By this first step, the Union begins a change towards becoming a generic food mall such as we see at the countless, faceless malls throughout the midwest and in almost every run-of-the-mill campus.

If the Union feels that they simply don't want to be bothered with operating another food venue, then they have a great option: hire a local worker cooperative coffee roaster to manage and operate the outlet. This would be giving something back to Madison's economy since the profits would stay in the Madison economy and not siphoned off to Peet's home office. It would provide an educational opportunity to the student population to learn about worker cooperatives as a business model. It would provide good jobs for student workers who could actually become part of a dynamic and flourishing economic movement.

Below is the invitation from the US Federation. I really hope that some of you who read this from outside the US will consider attending and maybe presenting a workshop.


The 2008 National Conference of Democratic Workplaces will be held this June 19-22 in New Orleans. Click here for a preliminary schedule and other info. Registration begins in late February.

We are now accepting proposals for conference workshops. Anyone can propose a workshop.  Click here to submit a proposal online. Please review the workshop guidelines and tips for presenters before submitting your proposal.

To get an idea of past workshop topics, themes and formats, check out our 2006 conference archive.

See you in June!
Melissa Hoover
US Federation of Worker Cooperatives

On a ridiculously cold winter night, about 20-25 people drove out to the far south-east side of Madison for pizza, beer, documentaries about cooperatives and comraderie. Our host is the worker cooperative, Isthmus Engineering.

I mentioned the first film, Coffee Comes Alive produced by Just Us! Coffee. We also watched a short documentary on on the Atkinson Housing Cooperative in Toronto, ON. This film discusses how a housing project of "last resort" was taken over by the residents. Unlike most coops, this one consisted of people from around the world and almost all of whom live at the margins of society. The film maker, Jorge Sousa estimates that the complex has 35 different languages. It also differed from most coop documentaries in that it focused on the difficulties of changing a culture of poverty and entitlement to that of solidarity, self-help, and mutual assistance.

It took roughly ten years for the tenant association to gain the unnecessary strength and development to convince the City to allow them to take over the property, but it really makes one wonder why we can't try that in Madison.


The other film was a 1996 documentary on three San Francisco Bay area worker cooperatives: The Cheese Board, Inkworks Press and Rainbow Grocery. It was a pretty interesting film and documents the creation of the Arizmendi Bakery which was started by former Cheese Board members.

It is nice to know that all three (well, four really) cooperatives are still thriving in the Bay Area. One of the highlights of the movie is that Tim Huet appears with a full head of hair!

The next meeting of this fledgling group will be in a few weeks at the Willy St Coop. If you are in the Madison area and would like stop in, please let me know!

This Thursday, January 17th, Isthmus Engineering is hosting a pizza and movie night at their offices on the south-east side of Madison. Union Cab will be providing shuttle service from three locations (Willy St. Cooperative, Union Cab, and Nottingham Coop).

The movies are documentaries about the cooperative movement. The first is a 20 minute feature on the production of Fair Trade Coffee and the differences between it and Free Trade Coffee.

Coffee Comes Alive: How can your purchases make a difference?

It was produced by Just Us! Development and Education Society, the educational wing of Just Us! Coffee, a worker cooperative coffee roaster and coffee house in Nova Scotia. It was originally a high school project by director Evan Warner whose parents are members of Just Us!

The second feature focuses on low-income housing in Toronto.

The Atkinson Housing Cooperative is a 30-60 minute (whether you want the short or long version) documentary of a relatively large public housing complex that was turned into a cooperative through the hard work of its renter's association. This was a "housing of last resort" much like Allied Drive. It had many of the problems associated with this level of poverty and large urban centers such as Toronto. What is different, is that the residents stepped forward to find their own solution. Rather than the traditional model of gentrification and relocation, Atkinson took over the entire project (with the support and assistance from the city) and created a democratic community.


Granted the films aren't action movies, but I think that we could consider them love stories.

The dinner starts at around 6 p.m. If you are in the Madison area, please stop in!