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HUMANIZING THE WORKPLACE: An Ethnographic Exploration in Worker Cooperative Development
Megan Meo Hampshire College May 2013
Committee Co-chair: Megan Lyster Committee Co-chair: Helen Scharber Honorary Member: Colin Twitchell
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TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... 5 PROLOGUE ...... 7 INTRODUCTION ...... 11 MY COOPERATIVE BEGINNING ...... 11 THE PAPER ...... 13 WHAT IS A COOPERATIVE? ...... 15 THE IMPORTANCE ...... 17 CASE STUDY: CENTER POINT COUNSELING SERVICES ...... 21 INTRODUCTION ...... 21 THE TRANSITION ...... 22 Why Co-op? ...... 23 THE NEW MODEL ...... 24 Pay Structure ...... 25 Decision Making ...... 26 Accountability ...... 26 ABILITY TO ADHERE TO VALUES ...... 27 Caring for the Community ...... 27 Caring for Each Other ...... 28 CASE STUDY: THE TOOLBOX FOR EDUCATION AND SOCIAL ACTION (TESA) .... 31 INTRODUCTION ...... 31 HISTORY ...... 33 OWNERSHIP ...... 37 OVERCOMING STRUGGLES THROUGH INTER-COOPERATION ...... 38 CASE STUDY: VALLEY GREEN FEAST ...... 41 HISTORY ...... 42 Becoming an Owner ...... 44 STRUGGLES and BENEFITS of a MISSION DRIVEN ORGANIZATION ...... 44 WORKPLACE CULTURE ...... 47 CASE STUDY: NATURE’S BAKERY ...... 49 INTRODUCTION ...... 49 NATE AND DAVE ...... 50 STRUCTURE ...... 50 OWNERSHIP ...... 51 STEWARDS OF THE BUSINESS ...... 53 CASE STUDY: THE CHEESE BOARD COLLECTIVE ...... 59 INTRODUCTION ...... 59 HISTORY ...... 60 Decision Making ...... 62 Pay Structure ...... 62 ADAPTING AND CHANGING ...... 65 MOTIVATION ...... 66 SPREADING THE MODEL ...... 67 SYNTHESIS ...... 71 INTRINSIC MOTIVATION ...... 72 Autonomy ...... 75 Intrinsic Motivation within Cooperatives ...... 76
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DEMOCRATIZATION OF POWER ...... 78 User-Benefitting ...... 78 User-Owned ...... 79 User-Controlled ...... 80 MUTUALITY ...... 82 Cooperatives’ Roles in Strengthening Community ...... 85 Cooperation among Cooperatives: Building Cooperatively Based Economies ...... 88 CONCLUSION ...... 90 APPENDIX ...... 93 LETTER OF INFORMED CONSENT ...... 93 INTERVIEW QUESTIONS ...... 95 WORKS CITED ...... 97 INTERVIEWS CITED ...... 100
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ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I would like to thank the many people who made this project possible. First and foremost I would like to thank my Mom, Dad, and brother for their constant support and encouragement no matter what I do. To my co-chair Helen Scharber, for her patience, advice, and positivity as I developed my research process and turned my many scattered thoughts into a paper. To my co-chair Megan Lyster, for the creative solutions and brilliant ideas that she has shared with me over the past three years. To Colin Twitchell, for his support as I first started to explore the cooperative model and his many words of wisdom. To the countless cooperatives and cooperators who took the time to share their stories. To the 2012 Co-cycle team, for being with me as we all learned firsthand the power of cooperatives. To D-Com, for never giving up no matter how long our meetings run. To Mixed Nuts and the many dedicated “Nutters” I worked with over the years, for the constant supply of pizza, chocolate covered pretzels and enthusiasm to keep the hole- in-the-wall store chugging along. And lastly, I would like to thank Katie, Sarah, Riko, RJ, and Cuy (and the other members of Kiki Kastle) for reminding me that there will always be a sunny day no matter how cloudy and cold the future sometime seems, for the hand- delivered meals, and for almost always understanding what it is I am trying to say.
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PROLOGUE When reflecting on the process of researching and writing this paper, I feel guilty.
I realize that my motivation for carrying out this project was rooted in my desire to identify why I love talking about, visiting, and participating in worker-cooperatives.
When thinking about how to conduct this research, I knew I did not want to spend a semester behind a computer or book. I wanted to talk with others who were intoxicated by their passion for worker-cooperatives. I blame Kevin Schmidt from Center Point and the beautiful story he shared on that hot, sunny day in Viroqua, WI for helping me realize this.
Kevin is one with words, and after he shared his poem, “The Worker-cooperative, A
Business Model,” I knew I had to continue listening to what others had to say. I spent over 30 hours listening to people share stories about their own businesses. I collected an abundance of rich and insightful material. Some of these stories have been disclosed, many are still just in my head and captured in recordings. It is my hope that this paper begins to divulge these bits of wisdom.
“The Worker-cooperative, A Business Model” by Kevin Schmidt:
A worker-cooperative is a business model that grows hope out of conflict, crisis and chaos.
A business model that incorporates personal dignity, self concept and cultural capital into economic stability.
A business model that provides social organization after communities are ravaged by natural disasters, economic failure or political oppression.
A business model that creates wealth where it wasn’t before, growing economic prosperity out of economic pain.
A business model that builds abundance from scarcity and fragmentation, yielding incorporation and inclusion from alienation.
A business model of creative cohesion, as opposed to competition and so- called limited resources.
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A business model of transparency instead of glass ceilings; of accountability instead of hierarchy.
A business model of local inter-dependence, resourcefulness and reinvestment; instead of exploiting workers, extracting resources and exporting wealth.
A business model for financial conservatives who resent fiscal folly and bloated inefficiency; who simply want to work together and make money.
A business model of active participation and involvement— growing the food, cooking the meal, and eating together.
A business model freed from broken bureaucracy and legislation that accumulates capital at the expense of the country.
A business model of careers and ownership, instead of right-sizing and little white lies on the resume.
A business model whose workers contribute whatever is necessary, instead of as little as possible.
A business model less vulnerable to volatility because it is based on unflinching principle, instead of the emotional whim of a jealous market.
A business model that balances humility with pride; we know we’re strong, as long as we all stick together.
A business model that generates political power based on values, labor and passion; instead of bully-pulpits, truthiness, and simplistic stickers.
A business model that returns us to democratic decision-making, which teaches us to slow down and pay attention, assess the value in thoughtful dissent and give careful consideration to complex alternatives, prior to the all-important vote. (Instead of yielding to ill-informed, heavy-handed memos from The Boss.)
A business model for cab drivers, bread bakers, home builders and house cleaners. For midwives, pickle-pickers and psychotherapists. For dentists, recyclers, landscapers, interpreters and big-city dog walkers. For barristers and baristas. For bus-boys, sous-chefs and brew-masters. For coffee pickers, coffee roasters and coffee drinkers (!) For prescribing nurses, addiction counselors and wildlife ecologists. For engineers building the robots that build machines. For case managers, legal guardians, bike mechanics and personal trainers. For MBA’s, PhD’s, MSW’s, GED’s, MD’s, RN’s and OTR CDL’s.
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For CPA’s and CSA’s. For PT, OT and IT. For poets, painters and music makers. For recovering CEO’s visioning a legacy much richer than mountains of marble and gold. For anyone open to working together, contributing usefully to the community, and willing to get paid.
A business model of principles that resonate with disenfranchised groups, and is therefore uniquely suited to build responsive, democratic workplaces which are available to all who are able to stand up, dust themselves off, and get back to work.
A business model that capitalizes on respect for the human relationship; instead of commodifying fear, persuasion, and blind compliance.
A business model that rolls with irreverence, tolerates teasing, enjoys its share of mischief and sometimes stays up way too late discussing itself.
Oh, and dance. Definitely. A business model that can dance. And goof around. (But only when the day’s work is done.)
A business model that can be tedious, frustrating, threatening, counter- intuitive, maddening, sometimes messy… and always human.
And it is a business model that is effective. It works when we learn it, and live it. It works because we trust in each other, our labor, and our principles. So, yes. It is a business model: The Worker-cooperative.
© Kevin Schmidt, LCSW Center Point Counseling Services Cooperative
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INTRODUCTION
MY COOPERATIVE BEGINNING During the summer of 2012, I cycled across the country as part of the Co-cycle
Team on a tour of cooperatives to celebrate the UN-declared International Year of
Cooperatives. We traveled over 4000 miles from San Francisco, CA to Amherst, MA visiting a range of cooperatives from cab driver co-ops to bookstores to credit unions and housing co-ops. The Co-cycle Tour operated as its own collective and provided the cyclists with an intimate and hands-on experience of the cooperative model. It was in
Viroqua, WI at the country’s only worker-owned mental health cooperative that I clearly identified my deep passion for worker-owned and controlled businesses. We listened to their story of empowerment, of transitioning from a top-down agency where upper management called the shots to a business where everyone was making decisions, where people weren’t just employees, managers and bosses, but where everyone was a worker, owner, and manager all at once. Then in Madison we visited more worker-cooperatives and I knew that I wanted to capture and share these inspiring stories with more than just my fellow Co-cyclists. Although Co-cycle helped clarify the purpose of my Division III research, my cooperative background extends back to my first day at Hampshire College when I stumbled upon Mixed Nuts, Hampshire’s volunteer-run, collectively-managed food store. Mixed Nuts has given students the opportunity to experiment with and learn about the cooperative model for the past 40 years.
When I started working at Mixed Nuts, the business was struggling and fairly disorganized. After my first year of being involved and witnessing how the shop was not living up to its full potential of being a collectively managed space, another student and I decided to research potential solutions to our ineffective structure. A semester later and
Meo, 12 we had a proposed new structure that we brought to the group. For the past three and a half years, the group has been discussing, implementing, and experimenting with all of these ideas. The structural changes, along with many discussions, changed Mixed Nuts dramatically, and have positively affected member participation and customer engagement. They have also created systems to help “Mixed Nutters” of the future deal with the obstacles and challenges that never fail to present themselves.
The power of collaboration inspired me. The collective structure allowed a few people the freedom to develop a strong proposal for a stronger organizational structure and then, collectively, grow these ideas and create a structure that empowered the workers and furthered our mission. Now, approaching the end of my eighth and last semester at Mixed
Nuts, I have passed on many of my responsibilities and am seeing other members having similar, empowering experiences as I had time and time again. They are identifying challenges, working together, and creating solutions. Nothing will ever be perfect at
Mixed Nuts, and that is what I learned to love about it; almost every Mixed Nuts moment
I have experienced has been lastingly educational.
My experience at Mixed Nuts prompted me to academically explore cooperatives. By participating in an Economics of Cooperative Enterprises course, I learned more about cooperative structures. The class was a mixture of theory and practice, and as I learned more about cooperatives economics, I was able to understand more clearly the business structure that I was working to promote and develop. I realized the importance of supplementing experiential work with the study of theory in order to fully learn about the cooperative model.
As a way of sharing what I was learning and connecting with the broader cooperative movement, I worked as the New England Regional Organizer with the
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(CoFED). CoFED works with students starting or operating food cooperatives on college campuses across the country. When I started working, CoFED was a young organization with a lot to figure out. I was fortunate enough to go along for the ride and learn how to overcome many organizational challenges.
I recently learned that a current first-year student involved with Mixed Nuts wants to study worker-cooperatives while at Hampshire. Their next three years flashed in front of my eyes—hours of meetings, turning to spreadsheets as a solution to any organizational issue, overcoming temptations to become a CEO of Wal-Mart after a seven-hour consensus decision making process, countless experiences of being in total awe of how gracious, smart and kind co-workers/organizers/people are. These visions are, of course, projections; their experiences may be nothing like mine. However, my response made me realize how beautiful this co-op immersion of the past three years has been. These experiences, along with other collective projects in which I participated, impassioned me to further explore the cooperative model. From this grew both the Co-cycle project and subsequently the desire to write this paper.
THE PAPER My preliminary research for this paper began during the Co-cycle Tour. I gathered initial information on the cooperatives from visits, tours, and group discussions. After the tour, I compiled all the data I gathered from the worker co-op visits and developed my research process. From this data, I developed interview questions and re-visited organizations that I first connected with while on Co-cycle. My questions focused on a number of things: member participation, core values and mission of the business, governance and decision-making structures, worker motivation, training and education of
Meo, 14 members, connection with other cooperatives, and impact of worker ownership. These topics were frequently mentioned in conversations on the Co-cycle trip and are the essential components of what makes up a cooperative. They are also resonant of the cooperative principles listed below. For these reasons, the topics were appropriate to use in framing questions for the second round of interviews.
Unique characteristics of these cooperatives are captured in the following five case studies of worker-cooperatives based in Western Massachusetts; Madison, WI; and the
San Francisco bay area. Each of these locations has a rich cooperative history and strong network of worker co-ops. Much of my education on cooperatives has come directly from working with and studying individual organizations. This is one of the best ways to study the cooperative business model because each organization is different from the next. There is not just one recipe that works; instead, organizations develop their own unique structure based on the values of cooperation and democracy. The purpose of my paper is to use these case studies to share the diverse stories and recipes I have learned.
It is important to note that I am not trying to make sweeping claims about all cooperatives. It will become quite obvious that I am not unbiased—I have had many positive experiences participating in the worker-cooperative business model, and these experiences influence the way I write about cooperatives. Further, the case studies are based on what the cooperators I interviewed shared. It seemed easiest for people to talk about the positive aspects of their cooperatives, instead of the obstacles and challenges, and the questions I asked may not have pushed interviewees to share much about the negative aspects of their work. For these reasons, the case studies tend to be cheerfully optimistic.
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Following the case studies, I present a synthesis chapter in which I try to identify how cooperatives create healthy and happy workplaces through intrinsic motivation, democratization of power, and mutuality. I explain different methods and structures worker-co-ops employ to humanize the workplace such as shared decision making, flat pay structures, and diffusion of responsibilities. In doing this, I reference the five co-ops profiled as well as some of the other co-ops that I interviewed. This final section uses outside research to support many of the claims made by the cooperators throughout the case studies.
WHAT IS A COOPERATIVE? A cooperative is comprised of a group of individuals who are the joint owners of a democratically controlled organization. The International Cooperative Alliance (ICA) defines a cooperative as, “an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social and cultural needs, and aspirations through a jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprise” (Curl 8). Cooperatives come in many shapes and forms but all follow a set of seven principles identified by the ICA to create a unified cooperative identity. These principles are:
1. Voluntary and open membership
2. Democratic member control
3. Member economic participation
4. Autonomy and independence
5. Education, training, and information
6. Cooperation among cooperatives
7. Concern for community (ICA).
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Cooperatives can be categorized in different sectors and types. The different types of co- ops include worker-owned co-ops, like the five cooperatives profiled in this paper; consumer-owned co-ops, such as REI or food co-ops like River Valley Market in
Northampton, MA; purchasing co-ops, such as True Value, Ace, and Do it Best which are owned by over 13,000 independent hardware stores; producer co-ops like Organic Valley which is a national cooperative of dairy farmers; and multi-stakeholder co-ops, such as
Weaver Street Market in North Carolina which has both consumer and worker members. Industrial sectors with prominent cooperatives include agriculture, food, financial services, credit unions, childcare and preschool, funeral and memorial societies, healthcare, housing, insurance, marketing, manufacturing, technology, and utility.
Worker-cooperatives are owned and controlled by the worker-owners, and only the workers can own shares or become members. Worker co-ops have similarities to conventional businesses—many are for-profit organizations offering products or services for customers to sustain their business. The main difference is that the workers own the business and have a direct stake and control over its operations, unlike more conventional businesses that are owned by outside shareholders, founders, or partners. As my paper argues in the final section, worker-cooperatives create more humane workplaces due to the investment of ownership.
Similar to the broader cooperative economy, worker co-ops come in many different types. They range in size from three people to several hundred. All members have one vote as well as the opportunity to sit on the board. They make decisions democratically, sometimes using the consensus decision-making model. Worker- cooperatives work towards limiting the difference between the highest and lowest compensations by democratically controlling the pay structure (Curl 461). The worker-
Meo, 17 owners also determine use of profits. According to the third cooperative principle, member economic participation, profits can be used in the following ways: to develop the cooperative, benefit members based on use and other activities approved by members.
Some worker-cooperatives have a flat, collective management structure and others have a more hierarchical management system where some workers have more responsibility than others but everyone has the same share in the business. Worker-cooperatives are for- profit businesses.1
THE IMPORTANCE I was not exposed to worker-cooperatives for the first 19 years of my life. Besides attending a parent-participation cooperative preschool, I did not encounter an opportunity to educate myself about the cooperative model until college. It was not until that first day at Mixed Nuts food co-op at Hampshire College when I signed up for the consignment committee that I began to realize the important implications of participating in the cooperative model. It is unfortunate, but not surprising, that it was so easy for me to not understand or interact with the cooperative model for so long. According to John Curl in his book For All the People, “120 million people in the United States are members of
48,000 cooperatives, about 40 percent of the population.” However, people are undereducated about the importance of the model in which they are participating. Cooperatives do not play a large role, if any at all, in American media and are “universally absent from history classes,” says Curl.
Of the 48,000 cooperatives that exist within the United States, in 2008 only about
300 were worker owned (Curl 1). This is a surprising statistic when in 2011, CICOPA
1 Non-profits can organize themselves as a cooperative, although cannot be owned by the workers. A Democratically Managed Non-Profit Business is a non-profit organization governed and/or managed democratically (People’s Food Co-op).
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(International Organization of Industrial, Artisanal and Service Producers’ Cooperatives), state that “the unemployment and enterprise survival rate for worker and social cooperatives is better compared to conventional enterprises... despite some job losses and a small number of closures, worker and social cooperatives seem to be more resilient in weathering the crisis than conventional enterprises active in the same sector...” (Curl vii).
The worker-cooperative business model creates businesses that sustain, and as it will become apparent throughout this paper, human collaboration and cooperation provide opportunities to improve our current economic system, create jobs, utilize existing resources, and create a society of compassionate individuals.
In 2002, a UN report claims “...cooperatives, in their various forms, promote the fullest possible participation in the economic and social development of all people, including women, youth, older persons and people with disabilities, and are becoming a major factor of economic and social development” (Curl 458). In 2009, the UN declared
2012 the International Year of Cooperatives in order to encourage stakeholders to raise awareness about the positive social and economic contributions of cooperatives worldwide. They urged governments to provide cooperatives equal opportunities by creating supportive environments that encourage the development and success of cooperatives (UN Declaration of 2012). “Cooperative enterprises build a better world” was the theme guiding the International Year of Cooperatives attempting to raise public awareness and initiatives to strengthen the cooperative movement (United Nations
International Year of Cooperatives). Initiatives all over the world were created to celebrate the International Year of Cooperatives. Co-cycle, the cross-country bike tour of cooperatives that I helped organize, is one example. Another project was the Cooperative
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Teach-In, a nationwide initiative engaging campuses with the cooperative movement through events, programs, and project support.
I wrote these case studies for anyone looking to have collaborative ownership over their workplace, anyone who wants to celebrate their cooperative’s success, and anyone who is skeptical of a business model without a boss that encourages equal participation. There are many challenges and struggles of working within this model, but for every challenge there is a story of workers banding together to create a solution. This paper captures stories of cooperators who are creating impact. I hope to honor those worker cooperators, and the many others not represented, by educating the general public about the countless benefits of this business model and inspiring generations of future cooperators. This research reveals the power of cooperatives by demonstrating the impact of having a voice in your workplace.
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CASE STUDY: CENTER POINT COUNSELING SERVICES Name of Co-op: Center Point Counseling Services Location: Viroqua, WI Number of Members: 12 Age of Co-op: 1 Year Nature of Business: Mental Health Clinic INTRODUCTION On the Co-cycle Tour during the summer of 2012, the visit to Center Point
Counseling Services was a turning point for many of the riders. After a long day of cycling and visiting many co-ops in the hilly Driftless Region in rural southwestern
Wisconsin, the cyclists wanted nothing more than a shower, dinner, and some sleep.
Instead we made one last stop at Center Point, and the moment Kevin Schmidt, one of the owners of the cooperative, began sharing the story of their business, we were captivated and wide awake.
This first visit to Center Point Counseling Services was so inspiring and impressive that I returned the following fall to conduct more in-depth interviews. During my first visit, I spoke only with worker-owner Kevin Schmidt. When I returned in the fall
I had the opportunity to speak with 8 of the 12 worker-owners during a group interview.
The information shared in this case study is based on interviews from both the fall and summer. This profile does not do justice to the beautiful stories shared by the worker- owners, but I hope to provide readers with a look into what Center Point is all about.
Center Point Counseling offers a full range of counseling services including therapy; group counseling; Ayurvedic medicine; and consultation for people dealing with depression, anxiety, substance abuse, family problems and a range of other mental health needs that exist in their community. Center Point was founded in 2011 by a group of 12 therapists that had previously worked together at another agency. When the other agency began struggling, a number of employees, who are now the worker-owners at Center
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Point, took a proactive approach to protect their livelihood— their solution was to organize to open a worker-cooperative. Less than a year after the conception of the idea,
12 employees from the struggling agency submitted their resignation and opened the doors to their new clinic, Center Point Counseling Services.
THE TRANSITION The old agency was having trouble breaking even and upper management struggled to find solutions. They began cutting employees’ salaries and benefits and closing programs. At the same time, stricter insurance regulations created obstacles for providing treatment to patients. Certain employees at the old agency became frustrated with their observation that not everyone was facing the repercussions of a struggling business; upper management did not seem to be subject to salary cuts. The agency was raising barriers to caring for the community while still being top-heavy, which created mistrust in the workplace.
During this time, many employees were displeased with the workplace environment. One employee, Megan, was particularly discontented when put in an uncomfortable position after receiving a promotion. Not knowing what her full responsibilities would be, she accepted a position to close programs and fire co-workers— many of whom she had spent the past ten years working alongside. A number of people shared that the old agency had been a great place to work when the employees were involved in discussions and decision making with upper management. However, as the agency grew and off-site managers began to oversee employees, the camaraderie among employees and the strong desire to help people were compromised.
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Why Co-op? A group of employees knew something had to change and their solution was to grow their own worker-cooperative. A group began covertly meeting outside of work and getting excited about starting a co-op. For nine months they planned in secret. Eventually they bought a building together, resigned, all on the same day, and opened Center Point
Counseling Services.
As the group began identifying the values they had for a business and a workplace, they realized they wanted to have the ability to adhere to a set of principles—such as meeting the needs of their community and creating sustainable jobs. As Kevin stated, “We are going to be doing things based on principle and not some short-sighted blindness to the bottom line” (Schmidt). Early in the organizing process, they realized their two biggest desires—to have a principle-based practice and the ability to work collaboratively—were values associated with the worker-cooperative business model. Kevin believes that people start co-ops when times are hard; when there are pressures on the systems, economic tension and no available work, people begin organizing. “That is what we experienced. When times got hard and we did not know what to do; we realized we got each other” (Schmidt). It was in this context that they decided to become a worker-owned cooperative.
This group of employees made significant sacrifices when deciding to leave the old agency and be part of this transition. Megan, one of the members of Center Point, explained that she took a demotion by becoming a part of Center Point, as she previously managed many of the employees who are now her co-owners. Everyone also invested financial resources in buying Center Point’s building, among other business necessities.
The group was willing to make those sacrifices because they believed that the new
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They were right, although not all the changes were easy. As they left the old agency and opened Center Point, each person abandoned their role of either manager or laborer and became the combination of an owner, manager, and laborer. At first it was a challenge to make this transition; however, as they developed and became confident with the systems and structures established to democratize their workplace, the co-owners of
Center Point started to thrive.
THE NEW MODEL
The group made many changes to their structure when transitioning from the old agency to Center Point. Although they do have a general manager, there is no chief executive officer. The members all share management responsibilities by being on at least two of seven committees. Some committees are closely related to running the businesses, such as the policy creation and public relations committees. There are also committees for the more creative aspects of the business such as the ‘fun’ committee, which organizes parties and fundraisers, and the “co-op” committee, which works on Center Point’s cooperative development and relationships with other co-ops.
By distributing these responsibilities to everyone at the cooperative, the members can develop skills they could not explore at the old agency. People began taking on new roles and tasks that they found interesting. For example, co-owner Katie Getz organized a community fundraising event that brought in over $6000. Kevin researched electronic medical record software that Center Point could use and continues to devote time to cultivating cooperative development beyond Center Point. Katie shared a story about how
Kevin, the incredible storyteller that captivated the Co-cycle team at the end of a long day,
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Center Point, she has seen him “blossom into himself,” constantly sharing ideas and passion for his co-op with his fellow owners.
All the co-op members are part of a larger effort of developing their cooperative that has nothing to do with counseling, which, as Kevin puts it, “adds texture and dimension to my experience everyday” (Schmidt). By giving everyone the opportunity to take the time to understand certain tasks and ask questions about how the business runs, they encourage a feeling of ownership. As Center Point continuously develops, its members grow as well.
Some management roles proved more difficult to adjust to than others. Sheri
Hammond had been a manager as the old agency, and as part of this job, was the one who wrote reviews for everyone. When deciding how to review people’s work at Center Point, the members initially thought that Sheri should continue doing so, as she had done it for the past 18 years. Several months later, the members began discussing this again and expressed concern about that power being concentrated in one place. Now all the members consult with and supervise each other, and they all feel capable of reviewing one another. At the time of my interview, though, they were still working out the details of what this type of review system would look like. In Center Point’s experience adjustment from a hierarchical workplace to a collectively based model is not immediate and requires conscious efforts.
Pay Structure Over the first 11 months of operation, Center Point’s co-owners have experimented with a variety of different pay structures. Each therapist brings in different amounts of income based on the reimbursement rate of their patients’ insurance providers;
Meo, 26 however the workers have developed a formula in which everyone receives the same hourly wage. Currently the workers do not get compensated for “co-op hours” or the committee work described above. They mentioned that at some point in the future they might get paid for co-op hours but that it’s not their priority right now, instead they see
“co-op hours” as way to “do what they love to do” (Schmidt).
Decision Making Center Point uses an informal type of consensus decision-making in which they strive to have full support for certain decisions from the entire cooperative. Some decisions are made within committees or by individuals to allow the business to operate efficiently. For example, there is a protocol for hiring that the general manager oversees. However, this is not an exclusive process; any worker has the opportunity to be involved and updated on this process. The collective values transparency and believes that all members need to have access to information about all aspects of the business. The ability to educate oneself ensures that all members can make informed decisions that will best benefit the co-op.
One co-owner sees the consensus process as a faster and more efficient way to find solutions compared to at the old agency. She used the example of the co-op deciding to allow a clinician to practice integrative medicine. In just a short time, the co-op decided that it would benefit the patients and the co-op as a whole to be offering this service, whereas she estimates that making this decision at the old agency would have taken countless meetings and several years.
Accountability At Center Point, the democratization of the workplace has brought more cohesion to the group, since all the members have a clear understanding of the different aspects of
Meo, 27 the cooperative. Individuals are unlikely to make ownership decisions that undermine management or management decisions that undermine labor because everyone falls under both categories. They do not have a boss that is dictating what they do; instead, they have a group of co-owners who are holding them responsible. Katie Getz explains that everyone’s expectations for themselves and others are much greater than in the other agency— she is not only accountable to her co-owners but to the business as a whole. She sees the level of responsibility as one of the biggest challenges of being part of a worker- cooperative.
Kevin feels more accountable to his clients, himself, and his co-workers than before. He defined accountability as finding ways to support each other’s greatest self.
He knows he can reach out to his co-workers when he needs help and will do the same for them. This sense of accountability towards oneself and one’s co-workers helps build community at Center Point and encourages everyone to work in a way that benefits the business as a whole.
ABILITY TO ADHERE TO VALUES
Caring for the Community Throughout my interviews with Center Point, two main values were identified: meeting the needs of their community and clients and ensuring a healthy and caring work environment. The first value, serving the needs of their community and clients, turns out to be a lofty goal. Not all people who need mental health treatment have access to the appropriate type of insurance coverage. Center Point has identified a solution to accommodate patients who have barriers to receiving care by creating a Community Cares
Fund to raise money to cover the costs of those patients. Through fundraisers and philanthropic support, Center Point raises enough money to not have to turn away clients.
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At the old agency, the long waiting lists for patients were frustrating for many of the employees and patients. When opening Center Point, the owners were able to identify this issue they wanted to avoid, and together, identify the Community Cares Fund as a creative and innovative solution to overcome this challenge.
Caring for Each Other Throughout my group interview, it became more apparent how the workers at
Center Point are truly like a family in the ways they create a caring and supportive workplace environment. They made fun of each other, laughed almost constantly, and kept saying, “We pulled this off together.” Many of them have worked together for sixteen or more years, and they believe that the trust that comes from their shared history has made operating the cooperative possible. They reiterated that at the other agency they were all very connected and supportive of each other; however, now that they are intentionally structuring themselves as a democracy, it has helped that internal support network thrive.
The aesthetics of the office even encourages a healthy workplace as workers have the freedom to decorate their individual offices. Walking through the building and peering into the different rooms, I could see each individual’s personality come alive.
Warm colors, fish tanks, beautiful paintings, soothing lighting, I felt like I was walking into someone’s house instead of walking through a mental health clinic.
The members are continuously consulting with each other. Every day—during lunch, in the hallway, after a session—the members will seek out advice from their fellow workers to ensure that what they are doing is right. They support and work with each other and as Kevin put it, “that is democracy at work” (Schmidt). Kevin credits workplace democracy for the degree to which they are now more focused on consultation and
Meo, 29 collaboration: “I am never alone in my office with a client. I’m never like, ‘Oh shoot.
What do I do? I’m stumped.’ Ok, I got six other brains right now” (Schmidt). The skills they have had to learn while developing a more democratic business have helped them to be self-aware and pay more attention to each other, strengthening their ability to work with patients. As Sheri now jokes, “I’m a little scared about what we can pull off… like taking over the world” (Hammond). This business model based in cohesion and community has made the members of Center Point feel capable of anything.
Center Point is radicalizing the worker-cooperative movement and is helping provide impetus for a broader movement for the democratization of health care. Their support for each other and their community, along with their ability to make decisions swiftly and creatively while managing and organizing themselves, is creating what promises to be a sustainable and successful worker-owned business.
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CASE STUDY: THE TOOLBOX FOR EDUCATION AND SOCIAL ACTION (TESA)
Name of Co-op: Toolbox for Education and Social Action Location: Northampton, MA Number of Members: 4 Age of Co-op: 4 Years Nature of Business: Education INTRODUCTION “Learn together, work together, struggle together” captures the essence of the
Toolbox for Education and Social Action (TESA) in their concise yet revealing motto. As an organization, they have a mission to democratize power by making education accessible to all. While speaking with Brian and Andrew, two of the four worker-owners of TESA, it became obvious that TESA is accomplishing this goal. TESA’s unique programming takes education to a level beyond classroom teaching. This case study is an attempt to share why and how this is possible and the impact it has on the larger cooperative movement.
They create curricula, workshops, units, games, zines, and more. They work with individuals and organizations to develop these resources for classes, ongoing programs, or events. TESA has a broad customer base, ranging from professors at universities and cooperative development organizations to individual cooperatives working on educating or training their members. TESA works with these educators and organizations to incorporate resources they create into existing programs. For example, they developed an
“academy to train the trainers” of the South Bronx Green Workers Cooperatives, by working with them to build a curriculum and handbook for their business.
I have had the opportunity to use a number of TESA’s resources through my work with cooperatives, one being Co-opoly, the cooperative board game that simulates the
Meo, 32 experience of working in a cooperative. When Co-opoly was being developed, I participated in many “test plays” of the game and saw as it transformed from prototype to finished product. Depending on whom I was playing with, it was a completely new experience every time. Just like a cooperative organization, the people involved have a huge impact on the way the game is played. Together everyone wins or loses, working together to figure out how to make decisions and discuss opportunities for growth to overcome challenges prompted by the game.
Co-opoly is just one of several products in their cooperative line. Other products include the poster “Ten Reasons Co-ops Rock”, t-shirts, books, and other tools for social activist organizing. They are developing a Hidden History series of books exploring the history of the United States in a way that gives voice to disenfranchised groups and common people who have created impact. As the co-op grows, TESA continues to explore new projects to further their mission, such as developing a graphic novel. Their products reflect the dynamic nature of their organization as they are at the intersection of a couple different fields: co-op education, economics, and radical history.
TESA aims to make their products as accessible as possible. They find creative ways of fundraising and using sliding scale pricing to offer consumers a say in how much they value and want to pay for a resource (TESA). When looking to purchase a copy of
Co-opoly, a customer has the choice of seven different prices ranging from $28-$55, with a standard rate of $40. This allows their product to be available to a wider audience where those who can pay $55 will subsidize the games that are purchased at $28. When fundraising for their second print of Co-opoly, TESA partnered with The Cooperative
Development Institute as their fiscal sponsor and were able to use the institute’s 501c3
Meo, 33 non-profit status. This allowed them to apply for a $5000 grant from the Cooperative
Foundation, making it possible for them to complete the second printing.
HISTORY Brian Van Slyke founded TESA in 2009. While a student at Hampshire College,
Brian was given the opportunity to explore and find connections among many different interests including radical progressive education, people’s history, social movements, and cooperatives. Putting into practice his interest in progressive education, Brian spent his final year as an entrepreneur, working to lay the groundwork for TESA, a project that merged his many passions. He wrote the business plan, built prototype resources, found clients, and networked. I listened as Brian explained the history of TESA, with a stack of
Co-opoly games in view, it was very apparent that his final year’s work had been successful.
Brian explained how TESA became his full-time job in the end of 2010, just a little over a year after beginning the project. Brian started TESA as a sole proprietorship with the intention of developing it into a cooperative once stable enough to sustain multiple workers. In 2011, Andrew Stachiw, a fellow Hampshire Alum, joined the organization and soon after, TESA incorporated as a cooperative. Brian explained how he slowly learned how to delegate power and realize that other people’s ideas are integral to TESA’s growth as an organization. Although TESA has grown from one to four members, it is still going through that process, ensuring that everyone is equally involved without defaulting to Brian as the founder of the organization.
As a developing business, TESA takes a cautious, yet ambitious approach to further expansion. Although very young, TESA has incurred no debt. As Brian explains, it was a process of “starting slowly and then building up”. Last year, 2012, was a
Meo, 34 transformative year for the young co-op as it was the UN Declared International Year of the Cooperatives; TESA spearheaded the Cooperative Teach-In Initiative to engage students and young people with the cooperative movement. They also doubled in size during the summer adding on two new owners.
STRUCTURE
TESA is comprised of four dedicated and hard-working owners who control specific parts of the organization’s operations. Together they oversee the management, product development, marketing, teaching, and all other aspects of TESA. While interviewing Brian and Andrew, I was able to learn a bit more about their specific roles and responsibilities. In the past year, TESA grew from two to four worker owners which pushed them to formalize individuals’ roles but as they both describe, everyone still does a little bit of everything. Brian works alongside Andrew in content development and communications with clients through building educational programs and resources. They also work towards developing and implementing existing products, such as a new Co- opoly and the creation of their Hidden Histories series. The other two worker-owners oversee marketing, sales and partnership developments
In contrast to more conventional businesses where an individual’s work is overseen by a boss or manager, many worker-owned cooperatives have systems in place to oversee worker accountability. These systems can be vastly different depending on the cooperative: some do peer review evaluations while others use systems of checks and balances. As a small cooperative with a friendly environment, TESA currently is able to be more flexible with systems; however, as Andrew explains, they are working on identifying a system that would work best for their cooperative. He believes they need an accountability system that would not be used to suppress or over structure the
Meo, 35 organization, but instead would act to prevent internal workplace issues by outlining clear ways to deal with or avert conflict.
TESA’s decision-making structure is also flexible because of their size and closeness. All decisions are made by consensus either formally at meetings or informally while working. As Andrew explains, “Consensus is a process, not an event. We live in a world where things just happen, so when you have to take time, sometimes you can feel frustrated but sometimes it’s just what needs to happen.” By going through this process, they allow and encourage all of the owners to take the necessary time to come to a decision in which they all support.
MISSION, VALUES AND MOTIVATION
One of the biggest strengths of TESA is how interconnected their motivation to do this work is with the mission of the organization. TESA values education, working to spread knowledge among those interested in using their products and resources while continuing to further their own education; they believe that the internal environment is as important as the external impact. When hiring and training their two newest members,
Brian and Andrew were very intentional about the way that the new members were integrated into the organization by making the hiring process an educational process.
Brian and Andrew gave the candidates detailed explanations of TESA’s projects and asked them how they would address certain issues or questions related to those projects. The candidates were able to get a hands-on experience of what working with them would be like. Once hired, they had a clear idea of the goals, mission and operations of the organization. After a couple short weeks of intentional training, the new hires were given the freedom to begin work as full owners of the business.
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As described above, collective works to facilitate skill development for its members. Although individuals take on specific tasks, each member is encouraged to know how to work within every part of the business. They believe this creates a stronger, more sustainable organization and allows the members to build skills that otherwise they would not. Brian recounted how he has gained many skills, simple and immense by being able to participate and experiment with the many different aspects of starting and running an organization, “You know, I learned how to wrap boxes of Co-opoly. I was the worst wrapper ever and now I learned to do that. That’s small but it goes way beyond that”
(Van Slyke 2). Andrew explains that he has learned many practical skills, including communication skills, running social media campaigns, publicity, basic accounting, fundraising, and understanding of group dynamics. For example, Brian and Andrew recreated a chain of production by sourcing production from cooperatives and other mission-oriented organizations. While learning and experimenting with a chain of production of the Co-opoly game, they were able to break away from set procedures and create new strategies in a way that was ethical and aligned with their values.
The members of TESA practice transparency when discussing finances. “Being a worker, when you join an office or you work for a company or any other type of organization, unless you are an owner or in upper management, you have no idea what the books look like. When you are in a co-op and you’re an owner, you have to know. You can’t make a decision unless you know those things” (Stachiw 20). They break down the stigma of talking about money and discuss how much each other’s salaries. When necessary, they talk about skipping paychecks and have open and honest conversations to make sure that is something everyone can afford. Both Brian and Andrew commented
Meo, 37 that this type of situation is one they hope is simulated when people play Co-opoly, the board game they created.
TESA encourages an open and compassionate workplace, placing value on taking care of the members of the collective. One of their worker-owners is currently on maternity leave, and although TESA has limited financial resources, they are doing all that they can to ensure they are supporting the co-owner while she is on leave. They are motivated to create this type of workplace by an appreciation for many different aspects of the organization, “I like the people I work with and I like what we’re doing— I think it is meaningful and important; i’m very lucky that I think what we’re doing is important”
(Van Slyke 3). By encouraging a respectful workplace culture, TESA has thrived.
OWNERSHIP How does TESA encourage a feeling of ownership among the members? They share knowledge and discuss issues with each other to ensure that everyone is properly equipped to make a decision. They are honest and do not hide any aspect of their organization. They are undefended and open to hearing criticisms about ways to improve their business and are honest when they are not sure how to do something. They treat each other equally. They trust each member to have a level of autonomy. As Andrew explained, their equal investment in the business makes this possible, “I trust you because you are in this as much as I am” (Stachiw 19).
The members of TESA place value on accountability. Instead of having a single boss or manager that they report to, everyone is accountable not only to the other people they work with but also themselves and the customers they serve. This allows everyone to do their work in a self-directed way enabling TESA to become a team of individuals doing work that they enjoy.
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Although there are many benefits of not having one boss, there are also challenges the collective faces. Compromises need to be made and the members need to check-in with each other before making any major decision. With four people making decisions, certain topics or projects will more easily be put on the backburner. Andrew illustrated some frustration about this process in stating, “There are times when it can be laborious or feel frustrating, but on the whole I feel that when you flesh things out... and you do a good job at talking through these things, it can actually make your goals much more well defined” (Stachiw 17). These tedious tasks in the end can benefit both the individual and the cooperative.
OVERCOMING STRUGGLES THROUGH INTER-COOPERATION As a small business, TESA is continuously encountering different obstacles. As they continue to grow, they have the support of the larger cooperative movement. One of the main challenges TESA faces is publicizing themselves. The variety of products and services they offer can make it difficult to concisely explain the purpose of their organization. When fundraising or working to promote projects or services, they have to find ways to paint a clear picture of what they do in order for the general public to support their work. Partnering with organizations, such as the Cooperative Development Institute, allows them to more easily promote themselves by having the ability to reach a broader audience. As a small business with only four worker-owners who do not own property,
TESA does not have assets to receive loans from banks. In order to overcome this, they are working to partner with The Cooperative Fund of New England (CFNE) to receive loan funding. CFNE is a community development loan fund that facilitates socially responsible investing in cooperative and other community-oriented organizations in New
England and works to support and fund organizations that struggle to receive funding from
Meo, 39 commercial lenders.
TESA depends on and utilizes cooperatives as a way to sustain their business and promote the cooperative movement. They take part in the amazing support network of the cooperative movement. Andrew explained the impact of inter-cooperation, “If we were not in a co-op community there are many things we would not have received or been able to afford” (Stachiw 24). When writing their articles of incorporation, they were able to use the articles of another worker-cooperative, Pioneer Valley Photovoltaic, as a foundation and avoided having to pay lawyer fees. When training their new hires, they were able to talk with a worker-owner from Equal Exchange about how to work with customers while trying to sell products. As an indirect exchange, this training helped them contribute to the cooperative economy through their resources and trainings. They use cooperative printing presses, such as Red Sun Press in Boston, to print Co-opoly and have been a part of over seventy co-op events around the country, such as organizing a
“training for trainers and mentors” of the Cooperative Development Institute. They have been involved with the creation of twelve cooperatives by offering advice, resources, and trainings. They also broaden the reach of cooperatives by educating the general public about cooperatives in accessible ways. Co-opoly has helped, and continues to help, many people understand what a cooperative is by breaking down the stereotypes of cooperatives.
TESA exists because of its passionate and driven worker owners. They are doing work they love with people they care about. They humanize the workplace. As Andrew concluded the interview, “Co-ops are awesome. On a base level, it is about human interactions and human elements of business instead of just numbers” (Stachiw 26).
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CASE STUDY: VALLEY GREEN FEAST Name of Co-op: Valley Green Feast Location: Hadley, MA Number of Members: 4 Age of Co-op: 3 Years Nature of Business: Food Service
INTRODUCTION
Located in Hadley, Massachusetts— an area with a strong culture surrounding local agriculture, Valley Green Feast takes an innovative approach to making local foods more accessible. With a mission to, “support local farms and producers, help their products reach consumers, and make local, healthy, delicious food as accessible as possible to a wide range of consumers” (VGF), Valley Green Feast has created their own interpretation of a local foods market by delivering local vegetable boxes and other locally produced food directly to people’s doorsteps.
Throughout the year while researching for and writing this paper, I had the opportunity to work with Valley Green Feast as a substitute member for several months getting to know the worker-owners and being witness to their innovative, flexible, and efficient collective processes. This case study is an attempt to share what I learned through that experience as well as from interviews with two of the four worker-owners,
Molly Merritt and Rebekah Hanlon.
Valley Green is Feast is owned and operated by four “hardworking ladies” as they so accurately describe on their website. They manage the finances, do marketing, order the products, pack the boxes, make all the deliveries, and oversee all other aspects of the business. Every week, Valley Green Feast delivers these products to around 60 customers a week throughout the Connecticut River Valley. Customers can order a mini, small, medium, large, or gathering sized box of a variety of local produce that will be delivered
Meo, 42 straight to their door. Valley Green Feast also offers a range of other local, regional, and co-op products from Equal Exchange coffee and chocolate to TESA’s Co-oply: a game of cooperatives, fermented foods, cider, nut butters, seaweed, beauty products and bread.
HISTORY As a young organization, Valley Green Feast has an exciting and transformative history. In 2007, Jessica Harwood started Valley Green Feast, “a farmer’s market at your door,” working to connect consumers to the abundance of local produce in the
Connecticut River Valley. Jessica operated the business as a sole proprietorship until, in
2009, she took a job with another company. No longer having the ability to oversee the operations of Valley Green Feast, she was faced with the challenge of figuring out how the business could continue. Interested in learning more about the worker-cooperative model, Jessica approached a founder of Pedal People, a worker-owned, bike delivery and hauling service located in Northampton, MA. Working with three others, including
Molly, one of the worker-owners I interviewed, the group began to discuss the potential of transitioning Valley Green Feast to a worker-owned cooperative. However, as Molly explained, Jessica decided it would be better to have an individual from a local farm operate the business instead of transitioning it to a cooperative.
Two months later, the business was suffering, customers were leaving, and Valley
Green Feast was on its way to failure. As a last resort, Jessica, decided to support transitioning Valley Green Feast into a worker-owned business. Molly, Jessica, and one other person worked together to revive the business and soon after began operating it as a collective. Now, over two and a half years later, Valley Green Feast is a thriving collective.
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STRUCTURE
Valley Green Feast is a complex organization. To have the business be managed by a single person who was not the founder proved to be unsuccessful; however, when given to a collective group, they were able to distribute the specific tasks necessary to operate the collective among several people by developing specific roles for each member. This collective model has proven to be a successful model for the past two and a half years and has allowed the business to continue to practice its intended mission of supporting local agriculture by making local foods more accessible to a broader consumer base
As mentioned, the four members of Valley Green Feast are all the owners, managers, and laborers of the business. Together they make decisions, set policies, oversee the day-to-day operations, and take on all of the necessary administrative work. Each individual takes on a specific role. Bekki does the bookkeeping; Molly, the purchasing; Rebekah, the marketing and outreach; and Ally, the customer service and logistics coordinating. Most of the week, the members work independently on their specific tasks, and every Friday, rain or shine, they work together picking up produce and products and bringing them to their headquarters, where they spend the day packing up the individual boxes and delivering them to their customers.
Each week the four members meet to discuss business matters, the individual tasks they all completed and other issues. Rebekah described that the collective is constantly finding ways to create a more nourishing workplace, a topic expanded on later, and one way to do so is by sharing a meal together while meeting. They use consensus decision- making, ensuring that all members are in support of whatever decisions are made that
Meo, 44 affect the collective. Everyone works part-time and is paid the same wage, $9 an hour; wage raises happen collectively.
Becoming an Owner New hirers are required to participate in a 100 hour paid apprenticeship before being able to be voted into the collective as an owner. After the 100 hours, the voting members and the prospective member will have a discussion to see if they will accept a new collective member. When a new member is voted in, there is a $500 buy-in to become an owner. This buy-in, something that is typical of many worker-cooperatives and is discussed in more detail in the synthesis, helps to encourage a feeling of investment and ownership in the collective. Members can pay this immediately or deduct it from their weekly paycheck.
STRUGGLES and BENEFITS of a MISSION DRIVEN ORGANIZATION Valley Green Feast’s mission extends beyond the impact of connecting consumers with fresh products while supporting local farmers. While working to strengthen the local economy and local food system of the Connecticut River Valley, they also educate their customers on food systems issues, gardening, cooking, and cooperatives. They do so in simple ways, such as distributing a newsletter to their customers with recipes incorporating the vegetables in the box and information about local events focused on food systems or cooperatives.
As a collective, they work to connect with a market that does not have the ability to travel to a farmers market or farm but still desires access to local produce. Once when I was helping to pack boxes, a member shared a story about a call she received from a seeing-impaired customer who was incredibly excited and grateful to be able to have fresh produce delivered directly to their home by Valley Green Feast. They also strive to
Meo, 45 provide those on food assistance with a 20 percent discount so that customers can have better access to the collective’s higher quality products. Rebekah explained that Valley
Green Feast also provides a service to those that are too busy to stop at a farmer’s market or pick up a CSA share. At the same time, they recognize that their products are expensive and that they also attract a customer base with disposable incomes.
Valley Green Feast is constantly finding a balance between supporting their mission and supporting themselves. Their focus is not on generating profit, but creating a more sustainable community that provides people with an opportunity to access high quality products that may otherwise be too expensive or inaccessible for a variety of reasons. But at what cost to their wellbeing? As Molly explains, “The biggest challenge for us… is just trying to navigate the tension between wanting to have our products be affordable, our services be affordable, wanting to pay farmers what they deserve and attempting to pay ourselves a decent amount of money” (Merritt). They are constantly discussing and navigating tension that surfaces around the discrepancy between their goal of increasing the wellbeing of others and the inability to pay themselves a living wage.
The high quality products they purchase come with a high price that reflects the sustainable business practices of the farms and food producers from which they buy their products. Valley Green Feast does what they can to keep their prices as low as possible and because of that sacrifice what could potentially be higher pay.
Molly explained that one of the biggest challenges of working at Valley Green
Feast is the tension caused by a low hourly wage of just $9 an hour. Valley Green Feast is a part-time job and most of the other members work side jobs to subsidize their work.
Molly says she is lucky to be working with Pedal People as well, the collective mentioned above, but at times still questions how much longer she can work for Valley Green Feasts
Meo, 46 low wage, especially when the idea of starting a family comes to mind. However, Molly tries to maintain a positive perspective regarding Valley Green Feast’s low pay. She is one of the original owners from when the business transitioned into a collective and compares her experience to that of many new business owners who may not break even for the first several years. The members of Valley Green Feast have been able to pay themselves since the beginning. She also described that there are many other benefits to working at Valley Green Feast such as the access to wholesale prices for fresh produce.
This financial struggle highlights the motives behind being a part of Valley Green Feast.
The focus is not on profit but furthering the mission of the organization. Although they constantly strive to support a sustainable business model and take care of themselves as workers, the members of Valley Green Feast have to be motivated by more than just financial gain.
The members are working for Valley Green Feast because they support the mission and vision of the business and want to ensure its continuous success; however, this enthusiasm has the potential of leading to burnout. There is a balance one has to find between their enthusiasm and excitement for the work they are doing while recognizing what may become too much. They are constantly challenged to be aware of what creates a sustainable business. Sometimes the business cannot pay the workers for as much work as they do. Each person needs to know when to step back and when not to do work for which they will not be able to pay themselves. Overworking themselves could lead to burnout, an unhealthy workplace environment, higher turnover among workers, and an unsustainable business.
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WORKPLACE CULTURE The individuals who currently own and operate Valley Green Feast have a strong commitment to the success of the business, while subsequently upholding their value for a healthy work environment. They humanize the workplace in simple ways. As mentioned, the collective members do most work remotely, however, one day a week they get together to organize the produce boxes and prepare for making deliveries. Throughout the winter, Valley Green Feast rents a greenhouse on a local farm in Hadley. Every Friday, even when it is below freezing outside, the members will be in the green house in tank tops, listening to music, chatting, sharing pastries or other treats all the while packing boxes.
When working with the collective on Fridays, it became obvious that they do not create a separation of work life and personal life and acknowledge that everyone is an emotional and fragile person. If someone is struggling in anyway, the members of Valley
Green Feast will do what is necessary to provide support. They respect the individual and believe that work does not need to provide additional stress. By creating this supportive community and having a more in-depth understanding of everyone’s emotional state, they are better equipped to have more productive and efficient discussions. A member of
Valley Green Feast explained that throughout a challenging time outside of work, her co- owners were extremely supportive and were willing to put in extra work time themselves to ensure that she would be able to the time she needed to focus on her personal life.
The members of Valley Green Feast acknowledge that the collective’s success is due in part to the people who worked before them and will be sustained by new members once they leave. This mindset encourages the members to continue to support and value past members of the collective and know that when they leave, they will receive that same care. When owners leave Valley Green Feast the collective continues to provide Valley
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Green Feast alumni with wholesale prices for as long as they had worked there. When looking into the future, they make decisions that will not just benefit the current owners, but the many owners who will one day be part of Valley Green Feast.
Molly explained that in order to encourage this community based workplace the individuals have to let go of their personal agenda at the same time as advocating for oneself— another delicate balance to find. By using a consensus based decision making process, each person is challenged to let go of their personal ego and be open to other’s suggestions, always keeping in mind what is best for the collective as a whole.
Concurrently, Molly believes it is important to also advocate for oneself and recognize what skills and assets they contribute to the group. Rebekah described these same concepts as ‘stepping up or stepping back’, where each person has to continuously be aware how the are communicating and working with their co-owners. I believe that it is this respect for both the individual and their co-owners that supports their ability to be sensitive to group needs and place emphasis on creating a healthy workplace.
Valley Green Feast operates very intentionally and is always working to be aware of ways they can improve the business while ensuring that they do not overburden the individual members. The hardworking owners know how and when to take care of themselves and each other by developing a supportive workplace.
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CASE STUDY: NATURE’S BAKERY Name of co-op: Nature’s Bakery Cooperative Location: Madison, WI Number of Members: 9 Age of Co-op: 40+ Years Nature of Business: Food Service
INTRODUCTION Located in a historic building in Madison’s popular Williamson-Marquette neighborhood, Nature’s Bakery fits in with the neighborhood’s small-town and funky feel. Nature’s Bakery grew out of the co-op movement in the 1960s, first planting its roots in Madison in the late 1960s. At any one time, eight worker-owners have helped this co-op thrive by providing vegetarian and vegan baked goods and other products to drop-in customers and other regionally based co-ops, markets, and cafes. Nature’s Bakery sells mainly wholesale, but they also have a small storefront connected to their workspace. Their products include cookies, bread, granola, calzones, vegetarian burgers, and essene breads, unleavened bread made from sprouted wheat berries, all made with the same recipes they were using 40 years ago when the co-op first opened.
With eight worker-owners operating the business, the bakery has seen many different co-owners over the past 40 plus years, all considering themselves ‘stewards of the business’ working toward the betterment of the collective and not their own individual gain. On one of the first cold winter days in Madison, I went to meet Nate Olson and
Dave Zoesck, two of the eight worker-owners, to learn more about the bakery. The smell of calzones cooking and the heat of the ovens quickly warmed me up as I entered their bakery.
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NATE AND DAVE Dave has been a part of Nature’s Bakery for almost 20 years. He tells the story of how he was “replaced by a computer” while working for the state. He decided that he wanted to seek out a workplace where he would not be at risk of that happening again; living a block away from Nature’s Bakery, he decided to apply. Since being hired and becoming an owner, he has taken on a variety of management and production jobs. He now works as the operations manager, ordering all of the ingredients for the bakery and doing production work that requires a good deal of experience, like mixing and baking bread. Although he has been operations manager for over five years, he makes sure to not let the job become second nature. Always looking three or four bakes ahead, Dave ensures that all the ingredients are in place for when he and his co-workers need them.
Though Nate has been with Nature’s Bakery for two and a half years, he is as invested as the owners who have worked there much longer. While working with
AmeriCorps Vista in Madison, he had his first experience with a worker-cooperative while volunteering with Just Coffee, a worker-owned coffee roaster; at the time, he also was living in a housing cooperative. After finishing his Americorps position, he worked several different jobs before coming to Nature’s Bakery, most recently as a personal home care assistant. Nate explained that his work as a care assistant was not sitting well with him, which led him to apply to Nature’s Bakery. By a stroke of luck, as Nate described,
Nature’s Bakery was hiring and chose him as the best candidate for the position. Nate now works as the marketing coordinator, acting as a liaison between the co-op and the customers.
STRUCTURE While sharing with me their perspectives on being owners of Nature’s Bakery, both Nate and Dave were passionate and intentional about the stories and experiences they
Meo, 51 related. They explained how everyone shares both the production and management responsibilities necessary to keep the bakery in operation. The eight full-time worker- owners spend a majority of their time on the production floor. Certain tasks require extensive training, such as mixing the bread, and are completed by more veteran owners. Every member also takes on a management role, such as finances, ordering or marketing. Most roles will be overseen by a specific individual, but at weekly meetings, everyone reports on the work they have been doing to encourage transparency within the cooperative.
Workers at Nature’s Bakery make decisions using consensus and have weekly meetings to facilitate discussions about the collective. They collaboratively make the meeting agendas and use an informal consensus process to make sure that all collective members support decisions that are being made.
Although all the owners have an equal stake in the business, some owners will work fewer hours than others. People are able to set their own schedules, and with the understanding that individuals will not burden their co-workers or take on too many shifts, they are able to determine how many hours they want to work. All the owners make an equal hourly wage.
OWNERSHIP Nature’s Bakery has an extensive set of hiring and training requirements that workers must fulfill before they are voted in as an owner. Before hiring a new member, all eight collective members read through applications, interview and approve the candidate. One of the key values for having a healthy workplace at Nature’s Bakery, according to the workers with whom I spoke, is ensuring everyone is comfortable with their coworkers. If any one member does not approve of a particular person, that person
Meo, 52 will not be hired; this is an example of consensus decision making in action. When first hired, the new member will go through a six-month apprenticeship. During that time, the new hire will have three reviews in which the collective members evaluate their participation in the co-op. At the end of the six-month period, the members vote, and if everyone approves, the apprentice will become a full owner of the business. Dave explains, “After six months they have the same say in running the business as I do... their voice is as powerful as mine” (Zoesck). This process helps the new owners become fully integrated into the business by learning more about the day-to-day operations and seeing how everyone works together. Once brought on as an owner, a $200 “buy-in” is required as a way to demonstrate one’s commitment for the cooperative by investing in the business.
The workers I interviewed emphasized that, even after becoming owners of
Nature’s Bakery, there is much to learn. Nate has worked at Nature’s Bakery for two years but just recently started baking. The commitment to the bakery can be intimidating for some. Not only is there an extensive hiring process and a six-month apprenticeship with three evaluations, and there continues to be a slow and intentional learning period upon becoming an owner. This comprehensive training and learning process enables the bakery to uphold the consistency of their products. Instead of having one person take on a single task, all the owners learn about all aspects of the co-op’s operations. This allows everyone to see the importance of every task. Dave uses the example of the combination of packaging and then delivering products to illustrate the point. When delivering the products, and seeing the packaged goods on the shelf at a store, they realize why it is important to make the packages aesthetically pleasing more so than if they were always just doing the packaging.
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Dave also explained the significance of shared responsibility in what he calls the
“nobody is indispensable model.” After working with Nature’s Bakery for 20 years, Dave has many insights and theories surrounding the importance of collective processes. This particular theory states that a sustainable business is one in which every task can be completed by at least two people. If a person leaves and the co-op can still operate smoothly, then it is a healthy co-op.
Dave illustrated the importance of having some redundancy in work tasks by relating an anecdote about the time his band traveled to the east coast for a performance. After completing his ordering responsibilities for the days he would be away, he was able to leave knowing and trusting that his co-workers would be able to run the co-op in his absence without any issue. To illustrate the value of the “nobody is indispensable” model, Dave told me that one of his band mates owned a business, and the entire time he was traveling, he was running his business. He was not able to let go because the business was dependent on him. Dave explains how letting go of that feeling of being in control was an obstacle that he learned to overcome while working at Nature’s
Bakery.
STEWARDS OF THE BUSINESS The owners of Nature’s Bakery consider themselves stewards of the business.
They are caretakers of the co-op and are just one small piece contributing to and benefitting from the greater good of the business. This mentality allows the individuals do not just focus on making decisions that make the business a lot of money but instead ones that support its sustainability and longevity. Nate explained, “It’s just a different type of investment…There have been a lot of people who have worked here over time and I think everyone feels a very strong connection to the place and continues to want to see it thrive”
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(Olson). Nate compared this investment to what it felt like while working as a manager at a cafe. At the cafe, he worked efficiently but realized that only his boss was benefitting from his labor.
Nature’s Bakery’s process for distributing equity shares, or a share in the profits of the business, further encourages this sense of stewardship among workers. Past and present owners of Nature’s Bakery acquire an equity share for every two years they work, up to a total of five shares. If the current owners were to ever decide to sell the co-op, the proceeds of the profits would have to be equally distributed to the holders of the equity shares. This is to prevent people from saying, as Dave put it, “Let’s sell the business and go to Brazil!” (Zoesck). This prevents the co-op from selling out and further promotes making decisions based on enabling the longevity of the bakery.
Nature’s Bakery’s success can, in part, be measured by the sustainability of their business. In the past 20 years that Dave has been a part of Nature’s Bakery, there have been very few changes made to the structure of the collective. He said “Whoever came up with the recipes and put the system in place were pretty sharp people” (Zoesck). When asked who those “sharp people” are, Dave responded that there are no names connected to the start of the co-op, just Nature’s Bakery. Even the founding members of the business believed that no one member is more important than the next; everyone is working towards creating a thriving and enduring business that benefits themselves as well as the co-op’s many future owners.
MISSION
Nate and Dave explained that Nature’s Bakery is intentional about the economy that their business creates by identifying and subsequently promoting certain values that are aligned with their mission. The bakery’s mission is multifaceted; they are committed
Meo, 55 to sourcing organic, whole grain ingredients as locally as possible. Further, they attempt to educate their customers and themselves about the politics of producing and distributing food. They value making high-quality products at affordable prices to make them available to as many people as possible. As the person who orders the ingredients, Dave attempts to never compromise the quality of the ingredients he purchases just to cut costs.
The collective is always working to find the balance between keeping prices low, continuing to make high-quality products and ensuring they are taking care of themselves. Without explaining many details, Nate shared that in the past, the collective has reduced wages to keep prices low. Although Nate viewed the wage reduction as an honorable decision, he believes that to have a healthy business, the people working for it need to be healthy as well; to retain people, they need to pay well.
Nature’s Bakery also supports the worker-cooperative movement and attempts to educate others by spreading their knowledge of this business model. The collective fosters a healthy workplace in a multitude of ways. Not only do they have a workplace free of chemicals that is bright, airy and open, they create a nourishing workplace by encouraging a feeling of community and respect. To Nate, the creation of community is dependent on having wholesome and real relationships. The members of Nature’s Bakery transcend the distinction between a professional or uptight work environment and a more relaxed social atmosphere. They encourage “goofing around and having really silly conversation”
(Olson). However, not every moment is so lighthearted; there are difficult conversations that the group needs to have and disagreements that arise, usually around decisions that require spending a lot of money. Something they “grumble” about often is whether or not to repair versus replace a piece of equipment, such as their old but reliable dough hoist.
The consensus decision-making process is used to facilitate difficult decisions and
Meo, 56 conversations, such as those pertaining to money, to ensure that all voices are heard. Nate explained that because there are so few collective members, there is not much room to create dramatic pockets within the business: “We are all pretty closely linked with each other because of how much we see each other and how much direct communication we have” (Olson).
At times that closeness can be more of a curse than a blessing. However, as a collective, they respect the fact that arguments will happen and take the time to process the root of the disagreement. In the end, this helps build community. “We have an argument and eventually we figure it out. I’m going to feel much closer to that person instead of just sweeping it under the table” (Olson). However, there are times when people abuse the systems in place to use them for personal gain. This was the case when one apprentice was not voted in as an owner and in turn pressed charges with the Equal
Employment Opportunities commission2. Nature’s Bakery won the case, however, their business and resources were strained because of someone’s intimate understanding of their business operations. The collective was stronger than the individual, which is often the case at Nature’s Bakery.
Community builds trust, and trust is essential in a business where everyone is the boss. The members are all accountable to and dependent on one another to ensure the success of the bakery. Everyone benefits equally when the business does well and, likewise, suffers equally when the business struggles. Because of this direct responsibility, they are motivated to be efficient and create the best possible product they can. Dave calls this the “shining the doorknob syndrome.” Dave theorizes that people tend to take better care of things that are their own. For example, you might be more likely
2 Further details about specific charges were not disclosed.
Meo, 57 to keep the doorknob of your own house shiny, while you would not shine the doorknob at a house that is not your own.
The community feeling at Nature’s Bakery stretches beyond the collective and into the neighborhood in which they reside. Down the street is the Willy Street Food
Cooperative, Nature’s Bakery’s biggest customer. These two businesses have been working together for the past 40 years, supporting each other’s businesses, and providing neighborly support when it is needed. They also are connected with the residents in the community. Dave related the story of one older couple that stops by every six months with a $500 check for the co-op, for no other reason than wanting to support the bakery and see it continue to be successful.
The collective’s mission encourages a workplace environment that motivates its members even during trying workdays. Working at this organic, whole-grain bakery cooperative is not “all sunshine and rainbows,” as Dave explained. It is really hard work. He recounted the experience of having to wake up at 4:30am on a cold January morning to do a delivery. When asked what keeps him motivated, he continued to speak about that Midwest wintry morning, “You’re doing a delivery and say you baked the bread the day before that you are putting on the shelf. You can be like, ‘I made this!’”
(Zoesck). Dave finds it empowering to have been involved in all stages of the product being created, from first ordering the ingredients to delivering the bread and putting it on the shelf. He also admitted that he is not sure if he could work anywhere else after having the opportunity to work as his own boss alongside his co-owners. “I think I’m wrecked from working here because I’m used to having a say. I do not think that would happen any other place for a long time” (Zoesck). Nate reacted similarly to the question of motivation. He explained that, even though it is a physically demanding job, he leaves
Meo, 58 work feeling good. He enjoys what he does and feels good about how he’s doing it.
Both Nate and Dave spoke about the skills they have gained while being part of the collective. By working so intimately with a variety of personalities, Nate explained that it is necessary to communicate well, which includes being assertive and setting boundaries, as well as being flexible and open. Dave thinks of Nature’s Bakery as better than any
MBA program because of all the management responsibilities that the collective owners have to uphold. Many people who leave Nature’s Bakery end up starting their own business. The bakery gives its members the opportunity to identify skills that they may have otherwise not have discovered.
Nature’s Bakery places value on sustaining not expanding. They create a wholesome business by selling high-quality products at affordable prices, while maintaining high workplace standards and democratic practices. The collective has sustained for the past 40 years and continues to offer delicious baked goods to its customers and good jobs to its owners.
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CASE STUDY: THE CHEESE BOARD COLLECTIVE Name of Co-op: The Cheese Board Collective Location: Berkeley, CA Number of Members: 50+ Age of Co-op: 42 Years Nature of Business: Food Service
INTRODUCTION The Cheese Board is one of my favorite restaurants to visit when in the San
Francisco Bay Area. No matter what day it is, if the Cheese Board is open, there is a line out the door of the pizzeria with many hungry customers ready to order the “pizza of the day”. Their menu is simple— every day they sell just one type of pizza, and the only decision people need to make is whether they want a whole pie, half pie, or slice. Next door to the pizzeria is the cheese shop and bakery, which is also bustling with customers eager to get their favorite sourdough cheese roll or “Berkeley bun”. With over 400 different cheeses, a large variety of pastries and baked goods, and an espresso bar, customers have seemingly endless choices. It’s a lively scene as the customers sit at the inside and outside tables, on the median in the middle of the street, or on the benches lining the sidewalk, listening to live music coming from the pizzeria.
STEVE S. AND STEVE M.
In the middle of December, I visited the Cheese Board to interview Steve Sutcher from the cheese shop and bakery and Steve Manning from the pizzeria. Steve Sutcher’s interest in cooperatives developed in a way very similar to my own. Steve is an alum from Hampshire College who worked at Mixed Nuts, the student-run food co-op on campus, in the 70s. His Division III project was on a worker participation movement in the 1920s. Steve is one of the few people who came to the Cheese Board having studied worker-cooperatives academically. He has now been at the Cheese Board for 32 years.
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Steve Manning has had an eclectic past. From gold mining in the Sierra and working in a laboratory for the State, to making photographs, both commercially and as a hobby, Steve has had his fair share of careers. His most recent work previous to the
Cheese Board was working as a naturalist and environmental officer for the Nature
Company. When the Discovery Channel became an owner and eliminated his job, he was pushed to look for a job that was “more than just a paycheck”. He found the Cheese
Board, as he described, “Where the pleasure and satisfaction of a democratic workplace has been immense and fulfilling.”
HISTORY Elizabeth and Sahag Avedisian initially operated the Cheeseboard as a privately owned cheese shop after it first opened the shop in 1967. In 1971, no longer wanting to be sole-owners of the shop, they sold their business to their 12 employees to transition to a worker-owned collective, of which they remained part. Since then, the small cheese shop has expanded into a cheese shop/bakery, and pizzeria with over 50 worker-owners.
Sitting on a bench in front of the pizzeria watching people indulge in kale and squash pizza, I listened to Steve Manning share his stories about the Cheese Board. Steve told me the history of the Cheese Board from its humble beginnings in the late 1960s and the story of the food revolution that started in the Cheese Board’s neighborhood. The food revolution began when Alfred Pete started roasting coffee beans in a little shop on the corner of Walnut and Vine in North Berkeley; the first Pete’s Coffee and Tea was born, prompting the beginnings of the what is now known as the Gourmet Ghetto. The
Gourmet Ghetto refers to the North Shattuck area of Berkeley, CA that is laden with fine foods, bakeries, flower stands, and cafes. As Alfred’s shop started filling the air with the smell of roasting coffee, Steve says that the sleepy neighborhood began to wake up and
Meo, 61 attract a younger and more vibrant crowd. A year after Alfred Pete opened his first storefront, Elizabeth and Sahag decided to open the cheese store in a small storefront on the same block. Soon the cheese shop grew too large for the small store and moved to a larger location down the street on Shattuck Avenue where they began selling bread and other baked goods in addition to cheese. In 1985, the Cheese Board began selling pizzas on Friday evenings, at the insistence of the customers. Eventually a full-fledged pizzeria was established and became its own unit of the collective. The pizzeria is now open 5 days a week for lunch and dinner and comprises 50 percent of their revenue. On average they sell 700 pizzas a day and upwards of 1300 on a good day. Their biggest day of the season is the day before Thanksgiving when they will sell over 1800 wild mushroom and
French goat cheese pizzas. Of the 50 worker owners, 18 work at the pizzeria.
STRUCTURE
The cheese shop/ bakery and the pizzeria operate as different units, however, they are financially integrated under the same collective umbrella of the Cheese Board. The two businesses complement each other well; they receive the benefits of being a larger operation with the ease of a smaller establishment.
Both units have flat structures meaning there are no managers but, instead, everyone takes on both management and production responsibilities. Most of the time the collective members are doing production work, baking bread, making pizza, or working behind the counter. Everyone has a role beyond production including tasks like cheese ordering, payroll, balancing checkbooks, and paying accounts payable. Ideally, the roles rotate, allowing people to volunteer for specific tasks that they want to take on. Steve
Sutcher clarified what this looks like by describing his typical workweek,
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Tuesday morning I come in at 4am and make scone dough, set up front, and then work at the front line while making espresso drinks for a couple of hours. Then I will wait on cheese customers. Wednesday I come in and roll baguettes and do baking and then I will go up front and wait on cheese customers. Saturday, I come in at 3am and I do the bread baking. Thursday Afternoon I just work at the cheese counter. And some other day of the week I do my bookkeeping tasks whenever I feel like it. It’s kind of like that; it’s a variety. Each day you do a variety of things so it does not get boring. It’s fun (Sutcher).
This type of role rotation and division of responsibilities strengthens the cooperative by allowing all the worker-owners to learn, experience, and therefore understand the many different aspects of the business.
Decision Making The separate units operate autonomously to a degree with certain procedures and decision-making happening at the all-group level. The two units have meetings together quarterly and individual meetings monthly. At the all-group meetings, the Cheese Board makes decisions that affect the entire collective, such as approving and discussing new policies. To make decisions, the collective informally uses consensus, ensuring that everyone is comfortable with the decisions that are being made that impact the business.
The separate units can make decisions autonomously that mainly impact their unit. For example, they have the freedom to hire and terminate individuals. Individuals are empowered to make smaller decisions while on the shift.
Pay Structure The collective has a flat pay structure. Regardless of whether someone has been at the collective for 40 years or 7 months, once they become an owner, they receive the same wage and benefits as everyone else; everyone currently makes $21 per hour. At the end of each year, owners receive “patronage dividends,” a return on the profits earned, based on how many hours they work. At the end of the year, the average yearly salary, including
Meo, 63 hourly pay and patronage dividend is approximately $50,000. By having a flat pay scale, the Cheese Board works to encourage ownership among all the owners. This encourages people to pull their own weight and work as hard as they can, even when first starting at the Cheese Board, because immediately upon becoming an owner, relative newcomers are treated as equals3. Subsequently, Steve Sutcher explained that this relieves the tension that can occur when people are working equally as hard but one is making an hourly wage higher than the other. However, equal collectivism is difficult to attain, and tensions can develop when some people are less involved in contributing to important collective processes, as I will discuss later.
Becoming an Owner
When hiring new members, the collective wants to be sure that the new members will fit in well with the collective. Steve Manning used the phrase “extraordinarily difficult” to describe the process of becoming a member. When Steve applied, he was competing with 83 other people for 2 spots, and he was one of 18 that got selected to come in for an interview. The entire pizzeria unit, which was 12 people at the time, interviewed him at once, “There was no possible way to anticipate the questions that were coming out”
(Manning), Steve stated. After passing the interview round, he had to do two four-hour shift work interviews before he finally was selected to be an apprentice for six months. At the end of the six months he would either be asked to leave the collective or would be voted in, unanimously, as a member. He was voted in and has been a worker-owner for over 10 years.
3 This idea, that people are motivated to work hard not because of financial incentives but because of equality of workers, is discussed in detail in the final section.
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CULTURE of the COLLECTIVE
Steve M. and Steve S. explained that the pizzeria and the bakery/ cheese shop have very different cultures. The pizzeria is much faster paced and more physically demanding because of the rate at which they make and sell pizzas. The cheese shop and bakery has a more relaxed environment and focuses more on creating a pleasant and healthy workplace. Steve M. from the pizza shop said that this fast-paced culture has enabled a male-dominant workplace. He explained that the pizzeria has historically focused on hiring strong men, which led to a bad reputation for hiring women and an even worse reputation for retaining them.
A recent incident that occurred demonstrates the negative repercussions of this culture; there was an incident of sexual harassment at the collective that led many people to question the type of workplace they were enabling. The collective members were
“shocked and horrified” that this situation occurred within their own collective and were prompted to seek out professional help to examine whatever systems were in place that were encouraging this negative work environment.
It is possible that this conflict was influenced by strain from the changes and expansions the Cheese Board has experienced in recent years. The Cheese Board is over
45 years old and although it has grown and changed in different ways, its structure has adapted very little. The collective has always had a loose structure in the way they make decisions and share responsibilities. They have never had formal job descriptions, mission statements, or policies, which, as demonstrated by the success of their business, has, for the most part, worked just fine. Steve Sutcher explained that their lack of systems is, just recently, beginning to impact the business, as this structure does not work so well with
Meo, 65 over 50 worker-owners. As the pizzeria and the cheese shop/ bakery expand, the two entities are also growing apart and disrupting the cohesion of the collective.
ADAPTING AND CHANGING The collective has sought outside help in navigating the issues mentioned above.
They have reached out to the AORTA (Anti-Oppression Resource and Training Alliance) collective to go through a self-evaluation. AORTA is a collective of educators, “devoted to strengthening movements for social justice and a solidarity economy” working as consultants and facilitators for cooperatives, collectives, and community-based projects
(AORTA). AORTA is working with the collective to identify and resolve problems, such as the issue surrounding gender, and working to create tools for action and change to create a more stable and enjoyable work environment.
One realization that emerged in reaction to these self-evaluations is the need to re- emphasize that the Cheese Board is a single collective. They have been experimenting with how to become more unified, which may mean adapting their meeting structure so that the whole collective is meeting more regularly. They are now forming committees to work on tackling these different issues by writing a mission statement and setting policies for sexual harassment and race and gender issues and other issues the collective faces. Steve Sutcher acknowledges that this is difficult to do when already established as a business and is much easier to do when first starting.
AORTA is also working with the Cheese Board to develop policies for accountability, which is another challenge that the collective faces. Steve M. explains that the collective currently lacks specific systems that discourage people from shirking responsibilities, skipping meetings, and not engaging with other collective processes.
When the pizzeria had a “macho-driven” theme, they were mainly hiring men based on
Meo, 66 strength without emphasizing the importance of the collective culture. As Steve M. shared, this also created a tension in the collective where some owners would prefer to not participate in certain collective functions— for example, opting to watch Monday night football instead of attending collective meetings. Steve S. believes that these types of conversations, and working to integrate different cultures into the collective workplace, is what creates an interesting and dynamic environment. These struggles challenge them to evolve and create a work environment that is cohesive and united.
MOTIVATION Despite all of these challenges, there are many reasons why Steve M. and Steve S. and the other collective owners love being part of the Cheese Board collective. The
Cheese Board has a great reputation for having very little turnover, where the median number of years, as Steve S. described, “is 10 years at the cheese shop and bakery… maybe 20” (Sutcher); it seemed like a challenge to pin point the number. Steve S. said that he loves the routine and monotony of rolling out one hundred baguettes for a couple of hours. He considers the Cheese Board members his family and explained that he has worked with many of the members for 20 or 30 years; although the family can sometimes be complex, it is very satisfying for Steve to have that type of connection. He also appreciates that the Cheese Board supports his lifestyle choices. As his children were growing up, the collective allowed him to have flexible hours so he could spend a lot of time raising them. Steve S. also shared that the collective bought 27 acres of land in
Mendocino several years ago, on which they built a vacation house for Cheese Board members to visit and stay at whenever they would like. This is something many of them could not afford on their own, but now, as a collective, they have access to this property.
Together they decided to use their excess profits to invest in a vacation home instead of
Meo, 67 using the profits to increase their wages or patronage dividends. This home is now part of the Cheese Board family and benefits many more individuals than those who took a financial cut to make this investment; this was made possible because of the member’s collective control of their profits.
Steve S. is also empowered by the autonomy to apply his own interests and skills to the job. When he was first starting, he was able to write a computer program to use as the store’s accounting program. He stated, “It is amazing how in a business like this there are so many ways to be fulfilled and use your talents and interests. When you own it you can do that. This business, fortunately, has been very generous to let people run with their ideas and passions” (Sutcher). Artists make signs for the store, a blacksmith makes all the handles for shelves and doors, people have made cookbooks or designed the website. There are endless options for exploring one’s creative outlet within the business.
SPREADING THE MODEL The Cheese Board’s values of cooperation and collaboration stretch beyond worker-ownership. Steve Sutcher got the opportunity to use his skills and knowledge of cooperatives to help start a worker-cooperative association. After working at the Cheese
Board for many years, Steve began questioning what led to the Cheese Board’s success. Was it the neighborhood, the “Gourmet Ghetto”, that allowed this collective to thrive or was it a model that could be successful in other areas as well? With the support of the Cheese Board, Steve helped start the first Arizmendi Bakery Cooperative. They shared their recipes, their structure and other lessons that the Cheese Board had learned in its many years of operation. The Cheese Board did not want to franchise and did not want a financial connection; however, they knew that this model was a decent way to earn a living and saw benefit in providing the necessary support to help start Arizmendi. Since
Meo, 6 8 the first Arizmendi Bakery Cooperative started in 1997, four sister bakeries have opened prompting the formation of the Arizmendi Association— a formal network that the five
Arizmendi bakeries and the Cheese Board utilize to continue to support each other. This association is an example of the sixth cooperative principle, cooperation among cooperatives, in practice. The member bakeries of the association share accounting, legal, educational and other support services as well as a common mission (Arizmendi). They formalized a similar process to support cooperative development similar to what Steve S. implemented when helping to start the first Arizmendi Bakery. Steve M. believes that there is enough demand to help start these bakery cooperatives all over the world, based on the amount of people that reach out to them asking for questions and soliciting information about how their cooperative functions.
Steve S. highlighted other ways in which San Francisco Bay Area cooperatives put in to action the sixth cooperative principle. The Cheese Board loaned $20,000 to the
Other Avenues Cooperative grocery store in San Francisco. The Rainbow Grocery
Cooperative, also located in San Francisco, provides trainings on conflict resolution with the Arizmendi Association. The Network of Bay Area Cooperatives (NoBAWC) serves as a more informal network similar to the Arizmendi Association. This inter-cooperation strengthens the cooperative movement and allows these smaller, autonomous organizations to develop a support network to be used for sharing knowledge and skills, as well as build impact for the cooperative movement.
The Cheese Board is connected with more of their community than just their customers and surrounding cooperatives. The Cheese Board has a program where they hire at-risk teens to work as employees at the cooperative. These youth make half the normal hourly wage, reserving the other half to be stored in a college fund that can be
Meo, 69 accessed to pay college tuition if and when that student decides to start college. They also donate pizzas to local programs and organizations such as Food Not Bombs, an organization that collects leftover food and serves it to hungry people. They also strengthen their local artist culture by having live music ten times a week, every time the pizzeria is open. In 2012, they put around $120,000 into the pockets of local musicians.
Not only does the Cheese Board have some of the most delicious pizza and baked goods around, they also are a living example of why I think co-ops are so powerful. They have a business based of democracy, autonomy, and creativity. As the gender inequity story illustrates, they have not been immune to the kinds of problems that arise in every workplace, but because of the flat structure, they are better able to identify these challenges and take action to overcome them. By having collective meetings and an open space for people to address concerns and proposals, their structure encourages worker- owners to speak up when necessary and then collectively identify a solution. They are sustaining and flexible. They are highly successful and can support their local community and the ever-expanding cooperative movement.
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SYNTHESIS My experience of studying cooperatives has been greatly informed through listening to the stories of the owners at the many co-ops I visited. It is my hope that these case studies helped share the lessons, successes, challenges and experiences of what it means to be part of a worker-owned business. Although the profiles do not fully encapsulate the structure of every worker-owned business and are not indicative of every cooperator’s experience, they are representative of a diversity of sizes, ages, and types of worker-cooperatives. Center Point Counseling Services, Valley Green Feast, Nature’s
Bakery, TESA, and the Cheese Board are just five out of thirteen co-ops I studied and a small portion of the over 300 worker co-ops in the United States (USFWC).
Throughout my interviews and in the case studies, many of the same themes appeared, most prominently about how intrinsic motivation, democratization of power, and feelings of mutuality are encouraged in cooperatives and subsequently create healthy work environments and happy workers. It may seem evident that jobs with these characteristics would be better for an individual’s overall well being than jobs in which workers feel unsupported, disempowered, or work only for external reward. Still, relatively little attention has been paid to the effect of the nature of employment on workers— in this chapter I will explore why these characteristics are important and desirable. In turn, I will show how co-ops employ systems and structures that promote this humanization of the workplace. As I have shown in the case studies, these methods include shared decision making, flat pay structures, accountability to oneself as well as co- workers, inter-cooperation, diffusion of management, diversification of responsibilities, emphasis on community support, and encouragement of a sense of autonomy. In the sections that follow, I will also discuss the commonalities these co-ops have, how they can
Meo, 72 learn from each other, and the ways in which they are representative of the greater worker- cooperative movement.
INTRINSIC MOTIVATION At the Cheese Board Collective, the worker-owners are not motivated to work solely through financial incentives. Instead of using pay increases to motivate individual workers, the Cheese Board pays all the owners an equal wage, regardless of whether they have been an owner for 20 years or 3 months. What keeps the members motivated to work? Daniel Pink, an author with a focus on changing the workplace, would argue that they are driven to work hard because of intrinsic, not extrinsic, motivations. He believes that intrinsic motivation, versus extrinsic motivation, promotes productivity in organizations by creating healthier workplace environments. In his 2009 book Drive, Pink discusses “the hidden costs of rewards” and argues that “if-then” rewards, such as raises and bonuses based on performance, inhibit efficiency in the workplace (Pink 37). As Pink states, many businesses use “carrot and stick” motivation, where the bad is punished and the good is rewarded, instead of focusing on intrinsic motivation such as “interest, involvement, curiosity, satisfaction, or positive challenge” from the enjoyment of an activity (Amabile 115).
Pink illustrates his argument by comparing two encyclopedias: Wikipedia and
Encarta. Encarta is part of Microsoft, a large and profitable company, and is written by paid professionals overseen by “well-compensated” managers (Pink 16). The other is written and organized by tens of thousands of unpaid individuals who write articles for fun. Which one is more successful? Wikipedia, the volunteer-led online encyclopedia, now boasts over 13 million articles; Encarta is no longer in existence. Wikipedia’s success is accompanied by other open-source accomplishments, such as Firefox and
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Linux, where software is created by volunteers and typically offered free of charge for users (Pink 22). Pink contributes open-source success to intrinsic motivation. The intrinsic motivation promotes creativity while “if-then” rewards stifle it.
“If-then” rewards discourage autonomy and creativity because people are not doing work for their own personal satisfaction. Pink argues that this, then, inhibits individuals’ productivity and provides an illustrative example using the “candle problem” exercise (Pink 42). During this exercise, a candle, a book of matches and some tacks are placed on a table. A person is then given the task to attach the candle to the wall so that the wax does not drip on the table. After about five to ten minutes most people realize that the box holding the tacks can be used as a platform for the candle to use, preventing it from dripping on the table. Pink describes this as overcoming “functional fixedness” by realizing that the tack box plays more than just one function.
Sam Glucksberg, a psychologist at Princeton University, used the candle problem exercise to study how rewards affect efficiency. One group was timed and tested with no incentive or reward for how well they did. The other group was told that a participant would receive $5 if they were in the fastest 25% and $20 if they were the fastest participant over all. It took the incentivized group over three and a half minutes longer
(Glucksberg 39). The rewards caused the participants to have a narrowed focus, thinking about the reward, and caused them to be less efficient when finishing a task.
Rewards can be beneficial when doing work that has a clear solution, such as algorithmic tasks; however, when creative thinking is involved, rewards are stifling. This is not to say that creative work is not possible when influenced by extrinsic motivators. Teresa
Amabile clearly outlines a way in which extrinsic motivators are beneficial to the creative process in her 1996 book, Creativity in Context. Amabile proposes that “synergistic
Meo, 74 extrinsic motivators,” extrinsic motivations appropriately combined with intrinsic motivators, can promote creativity (Amabile 118). Amabile states that synergistic extrinsic motivators can enhance creativity during certain stages of the process. She outlines five stages of the process – problem identification, preparation, response generation, response validation and communication, and outcome. It is important during the first and third stages, problem identification and response generation, that there is a high level of intrinsic motivation because of the innovation required in creating outcomes.
During the other stages, synergistic extrinsic motivators can be useful in energizing and focusing individuals to help overcome challenges in the process, and will also not undermine intrinsic motivations (Amabile 119). Amabile proposes a new definition of the
Intrinsic Motivation Principle of Creativity:
Intrinsic motivation is conducive to creativity; controlling extrinsic motivation is detrimental to creativity, but informational or enabling extrinsic motivation can be conducive, particularly if initial levels of intrinsic motivation are high. (Amabile 119).
This definition offers a clear depiction of how extrinsic motivations, “if-then” rewards, can support and enhance the creative process when properly combined with intrinsic motivation.
Oftentimes, “if-then” rewards take the form of wage increases or bonuses based on their performance, however research has shown that these financial incentives do not increase life satisfaction. In Helliwell and Huang’s 2005 article, “How’s the Job? Well-
Being and Social Capital in the Workplace,” the authors argue that increased income does not correspond with increased well-being. Their research was based on three Canadian studies on how job characteristics impact life satisfaction. The results demonstrate that increases in non-monetary indicators of job quality—including ability to make decisions, trust in management, tasks variety, time availability to accomplish tasks, and skill level
Meo, 75 required—increased job satisfaction equivalent to a very large salary increase (in some cases, equivalent to half the current income). These results, along with other conclusions from this research shows that increased life satisfaction is determined more by workplace enjoyment rather than financial gain.
Autonomy Intrinsic motivation promotes feelings of autonomy within a workplace, and social scientists have found that autonomy encourages overall happiness. Edward L. Deci and
Richard M. Ryan at the University of Rochester developed self-determination theory, a theory of motivation that discusses the value of intrinsic tendencies versus extrinsic motivations (Deci and Ryan, 2008, 15). In trying to further define differences in motivation, Deci and Ryan use the term “controlled” to describe extrinsic motivation and
“autonomous” to describe intrinsic motivation (Deci and Ryan, 2008, 14). They describe the difference between controlled and autonomous motivation: “Autonomous motivation involves behaving with a full sense of volition and choice... whereas controlled motivation involves behaving with the experience of pressure and demand toward specific outcomes that comes from focus perceived to be external to the self” (Deci and Ryan, 2008, 14).
This controlled behavior is influenced when one is working with the idea of an extrinsic reward in mind and uses pressure or stress to reach a goal. In contrast, autonomous motivation, where one is given more freedom, increases one’s sense of wellbeing.
Deci and Ryan have shown that a sense of autonomy has improved performance and attitude, which may explain why many of the cooperators I interviewed have such a positive view of their work life. Through analysis of many studies and experiments, Deci and Ryan conclude that when people are extrinsically motivated, through imposed deadlines, threats, or working for a reward, their sense of autonomy is diminished (Deci
Meo, 76 and Ryan, 2008, 15). They state that through intrinsic motivations people’s basic sense of autonomy is satisfied:
For example, autonomous motivation has been found to promote greater conceptual understanding; better grades; more creativity; enhanced persistence at school and sporting activities; more control over prejudice; better productivity and less burnout at work; healthier lifestyles and behaviours; greater involvement and better outcomes from; and higher levels of psychological well-being, among other positive outcomes (Deci and Ryan, 2008, 17).
Autonomy is encouraged by intrinsic motivation and, in turn, autonomy increases overall well being.
Google is a company that illustrates how autonomy can lead to these positive outcomes. Google offers employees “20 percent time” where they spend one day a week, or 20 percent of their time, working on a side project, for Google, under their own self- direction. According to Google engineer Paul Bucheit, “Just about all good ideas here at
Google have bubbled up from 20 percent time” (Pink 96). Some examples of what has been created during 20 percent time include popular products such as Gmail, Google
News, and Google Talk. Other successful companies such as Atlassian, a software development company, and Zappos.com, an online shoe and apparel shop have seen benefits from practicing “20 percent time” and allowing employees to be more autonomous.
Intrinsic Motivation within Cooperatives The cooperatives I profiled do not offer many extrinsic motivators, such as raises or bonuses, beyond the regular wages and patronage dividends; instead, any monetary rewards benefit everyone equally. All five cooperatives profiled pay equal salaries or wages to all members and have developed policies to redistribute surplus in relation to individuals’ number of hours worked. These policies exemplify the third cooperative
Meo, 77 principle, “member economic participation”, which states that members contribute equitably and control the capital of the business, which includes determining how to distribute the surplus. Principle three states that the surplus can be allocated through reinvestment in the cooperative, setting up of reserves, benefiting members in proportion with their transactions, and supporting activities approved by membership (Zeuli and
Cropp 45). Steve Sutcher from the Cheese Board believes that by everyone receiving equal pay, regardless of whether they have been part of the collective for seven months or twenty years, people are encouraged to pull their own weight. The focus of these cooperators is not purely profit maximization, and through this, they are encouraged to continue to be creative and independent with the work that they do; they are intrinsically motivated through the enjoyment of their work.
Not all cooperatives have equal wages or salaries for the worker owners, but they do all have democratic processes for determining wages. For example, Isthmus
Engineering4—a full-service engineering cooperative in Madison, WI—gathers its 30 worker owners once each year to determine everyone’s salaries. Every person identifies the salary they believe each employee should receive, and all these salaries are averaged to find the salary for each work-owner. Their pay structure is not flat, but it is determined democratically, which—as described in the following section—also increases happiness.
Almost all of cooperators I interviewed emphasized that they found enjoyment and pleasure in their work tasks. Brian and Andrew from TESA shared their appreciation for being able to do work for which they are passionate. Not only the mission driving their work motivates them but also the workplace community they have developed. Rebekah from Valley Green Feast shared the same sentiment when she explained what motivates
4 Although not profiled in this paper, I conducted two interviews at Isthmus Engineering.
Meo, 78 her to do the work. She believes that she is able to do good work because of her passion and love for her cooperative and the people with whom she works. The members of
Center Point continuously emphasized that the reason they were able to successfully open their own cooperative was through their motivation and enjoyment of working together.
When workers have autonomy—that is, influence over what they do and how they do it—they are more likely to be intrinsically motivated to do their job. As described above, intrinsic motivation and a sense of autonomy increase workplace satisfaction. In the following section, I will outline the methods in which autonomy is promoted in cooperatives through the democratization of power.
DEMOCRATIZATION OF POWER Cooperatives place value on empowering the individual to act autonomously while working towards the betterment of the entire business. With a focus on democratizing power, certain processes, principles, and values, which will be outlined below, support the development of both the individual and the collective. Worker-cooperatives democratize power by following the values of being user-owned, user-controlled, and user-benefitting
(Zeuli and Cropp 1). Worker-cooperatives carry out these values in a diversity of ways.
User-Benefitting As mentioned above, one way the value of being user-benefitting is carried out is through democratic pay structures. In his 1974 article “On the Legal Structure of
Workers’ Cooperatives” David Ellerman describes the two basic principles of worker- cooperatives, the principle of democracy and the “fruits of their labor” principle (Ellerman
3). The democracy principle states that the workers have voting rights over the business of which they are a part, both politically and economically. The “fruits of their labor” principle says that the worker owns the rights to the net earnings of the outputs they
Meo, 79 produced and the inputs they used up. Instead of having outside investors contribute to the capital of the company like a traditional business, worker owners typically make an initial financial investment upon becoming an owner that will be returned to them upon leaving the cooperative. In return, the owners are also the ones who decide together how to distribute the funds, which includes how to pay themselves for their work. They receive both capital payments of surplus distribution and labor payments, including salaries, wages and commissions.
In capitalist firms, the labor payments are made to the employees while capital payments are made to the shareholders and owners, whereas in a co-op, the members are both the shareholders and the employees (Ellerman 8). To become an owner of a cooperative, one cannot simply buy their membership rights; instead the basic owner criterion is to work at the cooperative. This is not true for capitalist firms, where ownership of a company can be purchased by anyone who has the capital to own the business. Ownership within cooperatives is determined by those directly involved with the businesses’ daily activities.
User-Owned The ability to be user-owned, merging labor, management, and ownership, makes possible the ability to determine equal pay structures; cooperative members become owners typically by making a time or monetary investment in the business. All of the cooperatives I profiled require that worker owners “buy in” to the cooperative as one part of becoming an owner. This amount differs depending on the cooperative; the buy-in for
Centerpoint is $25 while it is $500 for Valley Green Feast.
How does worker-ownership impact the cooperatives? In capitalist firms, the employees can collectively bargain with the owners, through management, to increase
Meo, 80 their wages; this is not possible in worker-owned businesses. There is no need to bargain; instead, worker-owners determine payments together. In Henry Hansmanns’s 1990 article
“When Does Ownership Work: ESOPs, Law firms, Codetermination, and Economic
Democracy,” he explains that this lack of desire to collectively bargain through strikes, etc. is abated by the shared knowledge that comes with a merging of labor and management (Hansmanns 1762). Both laborers and managers hold information that is useful for the other to know. Management would benefit from knowing worker’s preferences, ideal minimum wages, and changes in workplace organization that would increase productivity, while workers would benefit from a shared understanding of knowledge of management such as profitability and future employment needs. When there are asymmetries in the information, it is more likely that conflict will arise, and when there is a shared understanding, there is less of a conflict of interest (Hansmanns
1766).
User-Controlled Cooperatives maintain the value of being user-controlled by having the members of the co-op govern the business directly (Zeuli and Cropp 1). The principle of
“democratic member control” means that all active members have one vote in significant and long-term business decisions (Zeuli and Cropp 45). The ability to have say in the decision making process improves workplace conditions by enhancing the loyalty of the workers to the business. Hansamms states, “Individuals gain psychological satisfaction simply from the sense of being in control, and this may be enhanced by permitting workers to participate in firm decision-making” (Hansmanns 1770). Elizabeth Hoffman explores this concept in depth in her 2006 article, “Exit and Voice- Organizational Loyalty and Dispute Resolution Strategies,” by comparing the loyalty of worker cooperators to
Meo, 81 workers in a more conventional business setting on their interactions with the business.
Hoffman interviewed two taxicab businesses, one worker-owned, one privately owned.
Those interviewed at the worker-owned cooperative were more likely to “use voice” or speak up when they witnessed conflict, whereas at the privately owned taxicab company, people were more likely to tolerate problematic situations (Hoffman 2323). Hoffman explains that because of the cooperative members higher loyalty to the business they are more empowered to use voice and speak up for themselves because of the increased comfort levels at work. They are able to remain autonomous and share their opinions.
All of the co-ops I profiled encourage voice by making big decisions unanimously.
Many of these cooperatives use different forms of consensus decision-making, which, as demonstrated in Schweiger’s (1986) article, improves overall satisfaction of those using the process. Schweiger studied the effectiveness of three different decision making strategies: dialectical inquiry, a debate over two different recommendations; devil’s advocacy, critiques on singles sets of recommendations; and consensus, a group process that requires everyone to be in support of the final decision (Schweiger 52). Schweiger identified that these processes were effective in varying ways. The article concludes that consensus decision-making is inferior to the other processes in that it promotes “uncritical acceptance” of weak recommendations throughout discussion; however, the consensus process preserves harmony and leads to an overall sense of satisfaction with the group and more mutual support for the final decision (Schweiger 67). Schweiger concludes that processes that involve conflict may lead to better quality decisions, while processes that are more harmonious lead to better quality experiences. In cooperatives, the latter is very important for encouraging a healthier and happier workplace.
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Nevertheless, in my experience, having an extremely agreeable workplace can prevent individuals from feeling comfortable sharing their opinion, for fear of offending co-workers or instigating conflict. This hesitation can negatively impact the workplace because valuable ideas and opinions will be stifled along with fear of disrupting an otherwise congruous environment. To mediate this issue, cooperatives often employ systems of decision-making that create space for sharing concerns and criticisms of an idea— such as the consensus process, which has specific steps for voicing reservations and another for proposing amendments
The democratic values of being user-benefitting, user-owned, and user-controlled encourage individual autonomy and enhance satisfaction in the workplace. Equality in pay, consensus decision-making, and shared responsibilities give power to the individual to act with choice while being part of a thriving workplace community. The stories that were shared throughout the case studies demonstrate these processes and the impact that they have on the members of those cooperatives.
MUTUALITY As mentioned, cooperatives encourage individual autonomy and promote an enhanced sense of “personal power and personal worth” (Restakis 237). However, in doing so, they also create strong communities of individuals working together towards a common goal. As John Restakis says in his 2012 book Humanizing the Economy: Co- operatives in the Age of Capitalism, “Cooperatives socialize individuals without extinguishing their individualism” (Restakis 237). Restakis explains that by empowering the individual, a community forms through the relationships of strong individuals, enabled by collective processes and personal fulfillment.
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While it may sound contradictory, I believe that autonomy encourages individuals to help and work with each other. Westein and Ryan’s 2010 article, “When Helping
Helps,” summarizes the results of multiple studies they conducted on how controlled and autonomous motivation impact the desires for and outcomes of helping others. One study uses the dictator game, an economics game where an individual is in charge of distributing funds among themselves and a partner and the partner can accept or reject the money given, to test how autonomous motivation impacts one’s desire to help others and in turn impacts the individuals well-being (Weinstein and Ryan 230). This study concludes that when helping is autonomous, helping others elicits higher well-being, whereas controlled helping decreases it. They conclude, “Additionally this study showed that autonomous motivation for helping results in higher levels of helping” (Westein and Ryan 233). The study also demonstrates that autonomous helpers increase feelings of vitality and self- esteem relative to those who are encouraged through extrinsic rewards (Westein and Ryan
235). This supports the idea that the encouragement of individual autonomy in cooperatives promotes the development of a workplace that relies on helping each other.
Robert Putnam’s 2000 book Bowling Alone discusses the decline of community in
America and the subsequent personal and financial costs that has had on society. As John
Restaskis states in reference to Putnam’s findings, “On every measure of civic engagement, from voter participation to involvement in religious organizations… America has experienced a catastrophic decline in the willingness of individuals to become active members of their communities” (Restakis 223). In a 1975 survey looking at the elements of a good life, 38% of all adults selected “a lot of money,” but 38% also selected “a job that contributes to the welfare of society” (Putman 273). In 1996 those results took a turn, for what one may argue, the worse. In response to the same question, only 32% wanted to
Meo, 84 contribute to society and 63% aspired to have a lot of money (Putman 273). Less and less people, among all sectors of American society, are engaging in community activities
(Putman 185).
Putman argues that time and financial pressures play a large role in the decrease of community involvement; other causes include generational changes, television, and economic mobility (Putman 284). According to Putnam, “…the proportion of us who say we ‘always feel rushed’ jumped by more than half between the mid-1960s and the mid-
1990s” (Putnam 189). Putnam writes that average free time during the years 1975-2000 was between 19-20 hours per week. But in more recent years, people have begun feeling more and more pressure to work and feel busy, which is therefore causing a reduction in community involvement.
Putnam argues that social capital is being depleted and it is negatively impacting the health and happiness of American society. Social relationships are integral to the creation of healthy lifestyles. Although more evidence is necessary to demonstrate how lack of social relationships affects health, the evidence that does exist approximates the evidence that established smoking as harmful for health in the 1964 Surgeons General
Report. (House, Landis, Umberson 543). This demonstrates how the potential health impacts attributed to lack of social relationships can be as serious as those caused by smoking. Therefore, this issues merits more attention and suggests social relationships are inherent in creating healthy lifestyles. The push for productivity is causing a decline in community involvement and pressuring individuals to focus on filling waking hours working for personal gain instead of joining a bowling league, volunteering, or other community based activities.
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Cooperatives’ Roles in Strengthening Community Cooperatives inherently place an emphasis on community, building it within their membership, the broader community, and, as will be expanded on in the next section, other cooperatives. The cooperators I interviewed all emphasized their appreciation and efforts for making their workplace environment more familiar and community-based.
They believe that first they need to strengthen the internal environment in order to have greater external impact.
When there is no single person or set of managers in charge, co-op worker-owners are accountable to everyone with whom they work. The worker-cooperative model breaks down power structures that exist in many traditional businesses and creates a sense of community among the workers. Many co-ops have systems of accountability, both formal and informal, that help ensure that individuals adhere to their responsibilities and participate accordingly within the cooperative. Some co-ops such as Nature’s Bakery and
Valley Green Feast do reviews bi-annually that allow individuals and co-workers to evaluate their level of participation and commitment to the cooperative. Union Cab, a worker-owned taxicab cooperative with over 200 worker-owners, has a complex peer review system, which took two years to develop (Conowall). The system is overseen by a number of councils of co-workers and allows individuals, both customers and worker- owners, to issue complaints about co-workers. These issues are then worked out through a mediated discussion of the parties involved in the complaint, and then, if the issue is not resolved, through some form of disciplinary action identified by a behavioral review council.
John Conowall from Union Cab explained that since the implementation of this peer review system, customer complaints dropped by 60% and he suspects internal complaints will do the same. John believes that conflict is one of the biggest stumbling
Meo, 86 blocks for cooperatives and believes that this type of system is necessary to overcome that.
Instead of having rigid systems, or nothing at all, for determining punishments, Union Cab created a more human process that promotes communication and group problem solving.
By strengthening internal communication, these systems of accountability help to create a supportive environment that boosts a sense of community.
Working together is another integral part of cooperatives. Most cooperatives have committees and full group meetings for overseeing many of the functions of the business.
Instead of workers being isolated and working on independent projects or tasks, many co- ops ensure that individuals are working with others on at least a portion of work place responsibilities. Most of the co-ops profiled have weekly meetings, where the entire collective gets together to make important decisions, talk about issues, and discuss other aspects of the business. These interactions allow members to get to know each other and learn how their co-workers communicate, process, and participate in discussions. These meetings normally encourage individuals to share personal information that is interfering with their work. For Valley Green Feast and TESA, these meetings created the space to talk about maternity leave plans for pregnant worker-owners. For the Cheese Board, these meetings allowed the cooperative to identify that they had issues around race, class, and gender, and seek to find support and solutions to create a safer workspace.
I noticed that cooperators always have an eye toward the future and do not support the cooperative merely for their own personal benefit. Many cooperatives are guided by the idea of being “stewards of the business” or “a cooperative donor.” Rebekah Hanlon from Valley Green Feast shared how at the People’s Market at the University of
Massachusetts Amherst, the first cooperative at which she worked, the co-managers would call themselves “market donors” and talk about how they were temporary life forces
Meo, 87 sustaining the business, knowing that one day they would step out and someone else would take their place. They put energy into the cooperative for a period of time, knowing that one day they will leave and the business will still have to be sustained. This is a sentiment that is shared among many cooperators. Nate at Nature’s Bakery shared how the co-workers there are sometimes challenged to make large investments that may have short-term consequences but long-term benefits, such as buying new, higher quality, long lasting equipment instead of just finding a cheaper quick fix. They realize the co-op is bigger than themselves, that the community expands farther then they could ever know; it is their job to keep it going sometimes at their own expense. Systems of accountability, emphasis on working together, and the value placed on enhancing the longevity of the cooperatives foster supportive communities that make work more enjoyable.
Their focus on sustaining the internal workplace is contagious to the co-ops’ surrounding communities. A number of the cooperators I interviewed talked about unique projects they started that have huge impacts on their customers and what they define as their community. Center Point’s Community Cares Fund is an excellent example. They have established a fund supported by philanthropists and other fundraising initiatives that is used to cover costs of patients who are not adequately covered by insurance. With this fund, they are able to hold true to their mission of meeting the needs of the community.
Union Cab has started their Democracy in Motion project, which unofficially started during the 2004 elections. Through the Democracy in Motion project, Union Cab offers free taxi rides to the polls on election days to community members within Union
Cab’s area of service. During the 2012 election they provided over 420 rides to the polls free of charge (Brackeen). They believe in helping their community exercise their right to vote and are willing to do what they can to see that through.
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The Cheese Board hires at-risk youth as employees at the cooperative, paying them half of the hourly wage of worker-owners and saving the other half in a fund to be used to cover college tuition. They are not only creating jobs for at-risk individuals, but they are providing incentives and support for them to attend college. The Cheese Board attempts to interact with their outside community and utilizes their success as a business to benefit others.
Cooperation among Cooperatives: Building Cooperatively Based Economies Individual cooperatives band together to create strong cooperative communities.
Just as the above section demonstrates the importance of individuals working together, cooperative members place value on building a community among their autonomous businesses. Almost every cooperator mentions Principle Six, “cooperation among cooperatives,” as an integral contribution to the success of their organization. All the cooperatives I interviewed are part of regional and national cooperative networks. The
San Francisco Bay area, Madison, WI, and western Massachusetts have strong worker- cooperative communities: the Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives (VAWC) located in western Massachusetts has nine worker-cooperative members; Madison Worker
Cooperatives (MadworC) located in Madison, WI has eight; and the Network of Bay Area
Cooperatives (NoBAWC) is home to over 40 worker-owned businesses. The US
Federation of Worker Cooperatives is a national network of over 100 worker-cooperative members. These networks allow cooperatives to broaden their reach and strengthen their impact while remaining autonomous businesses.
The concept of sharing services among businesses of the same or different sectors allows small businesses, including cooperatives, to stay independent while creating a powerful concentration of those businesses that allows cooperators to stay competitive
Meo, 89 within a capitalist market (Olson 42). Inter-cooperation, or cooperation among cooperatives, has the potential to create major changes in our current economy by creating a solidarity economy comprised of cooperatives who support each other, reduce costs, and broaden the customer base while improving sales (Kuratomi).
While staying autonomous, cooperatives are able to connect and share resources with other cooperatives by creating shared service cooperatives (SSCs) (Ravensburg,
2007, 24). Ravensburg describes SSCs as, “a group of private businesses or public entities that join to form an organization which provides one or more services to enhance or increase the competitiveness of members’ operations” (Ravensburg, 2007, 6). In order to enhance their ability to meet member needs, cooperatives cluster together to share resources, pool purchasing power, and provide support for their partner cooperatives in a variety of ways. SSCs may work together to create economies of scale by buying products in bulk, broadening market reach through widened advertising and joint market analysis, increase expanse of distribution, reduce costs increase resources for improving management and training services, and increase access to technological (Ravensburg,
2007, 3, 9).
When cooperatives cluster together to form SSCs they are required to cooperate and potentially forfeit specific aspects of their organization in order to receive the benefits of the relationship. (Ravensburg, 2007, 1-2). Globalization is creating more of a struggle for local businesses to be successful as “mega mergers” are taking over the market with their large economies of scale and global networks (Ravensburg, 2007, 1). These push factors are forcing cooperatives to collaborate. Through collaboration, cooperatives benefit by being able to compete in the globalizing market while staying autonomous, allowing consumers to continue to support local businesses. The above benefits allow
Meo, 90 these co-ops to be more dynamic, increase their economic productivity and therefore generate more support for local businesses and transition the power of large corporations to more localized economies.
Mondragon Cooperative Complex is one of the most well known cooperative communities. Since 1956, The Mondragon Corporation, located in the Basque region of
Spain, has helped form over 260 worker-cooperatives and currently employs 100,000 worker-cooperative members with annual sales over $24billion in 2009 (Mondragon).
From Orbea, a worker-owned bicycle producer, to Mondragon University, a young university focusing on humanities, business, engineering, and gastronomic sciences, to
Eroski, a worker-consumer owned supermarket chain, Mondragon is evidence that cooperation at a large-scale and in all business sectors is possible. Mondragon has similar power to large corporations in the United States, but allows that power to be held in the hands of local, democratically managed businesses instead of under the control of absentee shareholders.
Shared service cooperatives have proven to successfully strengthen the cooperative movement by increasing the ability of cooperatives to compete with other traditional businesses and large corporations. Providing numerous benefits for individual cooperatives, developing SSCs have the potential to transition our capitalist economy to a more cooperatively and democratically based economic market.
CONCLUSION Previous to this research, I experienced the humanizing and empowering impact of working in the cooperative model; however the process of researching and writing this paper provided me with the opportunity to engage more analytically with worker- cooperatives— both ethnographically through the case studies and academically in the
Meo, 91 final synthesis. In this paper, I provided a synopsis of five different worker-cooperatives of varying sizes and types based off of interviews I conducted with at least two owners of each business. The case studies are not representative of all worker-cooperatives; however, they provide insight into the different challenges and benefits that these types of businesses encounter. The most prominent themes discussed include how intrinsic motivation, democratization of power, and feelings of mutuality are encouraged in cooperatives and subsequently create healthy work environments and happy workers. The final synthesis section proves how and why this is true.
Writing this paper validated the importance of supporting ethnographic research with academic backing and has helped identify opportunities for further research. As demonstrated in this paper, worker-cooperatives are not only successful in creating financially sustainable businesses, but they create different forms of wealth, such as their ability to improve well-being, that is more difficult to clearly define. My paper begins to discuss, qualitatively, ways in which worker-cooperatives build social and human capital.
I believe an important next step is to begin quantifying these claims to make this information more digestible. Identifying metrics to measure the positive characteristics of cooperatives, such as those defined in my paper, can strengthen the arguments for how and why the cooperative business model is effective, thus encouraging more people to support worker-owned businesses.
This paper made me curious to see the path the worker-cooperative movement takes. Worker-cooperatives are resilient and have proven their ability to weather the storm and their capacity to be the solution in times of crisis. A third of the cooperatives I interviewed are under five years old. The USFWC, VAWC, and MadWorC are all under
10 years old. Universities across the country are beginning to develop courses and
Meo, 92 certifications in cooperative economics or development. Interest in this business model is growing. It is necessary to continue to identify why this is so and how to create infrastructure to support this growth.
Cooperatives build community. They allow autonomous individuals to work together in empowering workplaces by creating strong, thriving businesses. These organizations support each other to broaden their reach and build the cooperative movement. Cooperatives create healthy and happy workplaces through intrinsic motivation, democratization or power, and mutuality. The stories of Center Point
Counseling Services, Valley Green Feast, Nature’s Bakery, the Tool Box for Education and Social Action, and the Cheese Board, share challenges, successes, and realities of the power of cooperatives to humanize the workplace.
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APPENDIX
LETTER OF INFORMED CONSENT
We invite you to take part in a research study being conducted by Megan Meo who is a student at Hampshire College, Amherst, MA, as part of Megan's Division III thesis “The Motivation and Success of Worker Owned Enterprises.” The study, as well as your rights as a participant, are described below.
Description: I am exploring the idea of worker motivation in worker-owned cooperative workplaces and the effect that has on the success of the business. Through research, I will attempt to define what “success” means to cooperators and aim to create a contrast to the idea of success being generated solely through monetary gain. I will look at success through the lense of leadership development, increase of involvement in community, increase of community involvement, and skill and education development. It is my hope that this information will help raise awareness of the benefits of being a member of a cooperative and the positive effects cooperatives can have on the their communities.
Confidentiality: It would be best if the interview would be done in person; however, if the interview cannot take in person, an email or online interview would also work. If done in person, the only recording of the interview will be done in writing on the computer or on paper or recorded using a GoPro camera. The information gained in this interview will be used for the purpose of writing my required thesis paper to complete graduation requirements for Hampshire College. Upon approval this information may also be used in a weekly planner to be distributed to co-ops nationally. Your name and the name or the organization will only be referenced if you grant permission to do so. If permission is not granted pseudonyms will be used and the only people who will know that you participated in the interview will be the interviewer, Megan Meo, and the two Hampshire based advisors of the project. Please sign here to grant permission:
I give my permission for my name to be referenced in the case study.
X______
I give permission for the name of my organization to be referenced in the case study.
X______
Risks and Benefits: This is a low risk interview. The purpose is to raise awareness about the cooperative movement. This interview may prove to be beneficial for both members involved. The interviewer will be able to gain a better understanding of the organization, and the participants will be able to share whatever information they find important and spread news about the positive aspects of what they do as a cooperative enterprise.
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Freedom to Withdraw or Refuse Participation: The subject has complete freedom to not take part in the interview or change their mind about taking part without prejudice from the investigator. Alternative methods for interviewing are also available. A interview via email or over the phone is possible. I understand that I have the right to request to read the final draft of the thesis and withdraw participation up until the final draft is submitted for review.
Grievance Procedures: If the participant has concerns of how the interview was held, you have the freedom to report concerns to Human Subjects Institutional Review Board, c/o Dean of Faculty Office, Hampshire College, Amherst, MA 01002, 413-559-5479.
Faculty Adviser: Helen Scharber, Professor of Economics Hampshire College, [email protected]
Questions: Please feel free to ask any questions before, during, or after the interview process.
Principal Investigator: Megan Meo, student at Hampshire College, 925 383 3168 or [email protected]
I, ______agree to participate in the research project entitled, “Motivation and Success of Cooperative Enterprises”. The study has been explained to me and my questions answered to my satisfaction. I understand my rights to withdraw from participating or refuse to participate will be respected and that my responses and identity will be kept confidential unless indicated otherwise above. I give this consent voluntarily.
Participant Signature: Date
______
Investigator Signature: Date
______
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INTERVIEW QUESTIONS 1. Background: How you found yourself working here, how long, what’s your current role?
2. Please explain the co-op’s governance structure.
3. Please explain the co-op’s decision-making process.
4. Please explain the process of becoming an owner of the cooperative.
5. How are members trained to be owners of the co-op.
6. Are there any cores values or a mission statement that drives the co-op? If so, explain.
7. Can you speak about the workplace culture?
8. To whom do you feel accountable?
9. What motivates you to do this work?
10. How does the co-op encourage a feeling of ownership among the members?
11. Does the co-op utilize systems of accountability? If so, please explain.
12. Is there a range in member participation?
13. Is there high turnover at the cooperative?
14. Have you developed skills that are transferable to work beyond this co-op?
15. Please explain the pay structure for members of the co-op.
16. How does the co-op serve the needs of its community?
17. How does the co-op connect with the broader co-op community?
18. How do you see your co-op growing and developing in the future?
19. What are some of the bigger challenges your co-op faces?
20. What makes your co-op successful?
Meo, 96
Meo, 97
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