I am reading Putting Democracy to Work: ”You have to want to share, and you have be smart. the sharing part is up to you. if this is not an important value for you, don’t even think of starting or joining an employee-owned business” Yes, I want to share. I want to share everything – my work, my emotional experience, my joy, my sorrow, my art, my truth – with everyone. My personal vision is that “I want mine, but I am going to make sure you get yours first.” That is what my spiritual teachers call “enlightened self-interest”. I have never been very good at “getting what I need” for myself – but I am much better when I can help you. This has played out already in my working with Sarah selling stuff on Etsy and Craigslist. I just did NOT do it on my own – but once I realized that my doing it would help her, I became willing to make the effort. ”The successful worker-owned firm also requires worker-owners who have both technical and democratic governance skills needed to work in and manage a business and the political and social skills needed to function as a democratic polity.” Well to be honest with you all – and you may have already observed this – I do not have the best social skills when it comes to confronting problems – I don’t know how everyone else feels about speaking up in the group – or speaking up individually, but for me, I have a really hard time being honest with a group of people if I am having problems with one or more people and need to confront them directly – I hate it. It is really scary and the fear of doing it often makes me seem angry when I am not angry. I make faces and my body language gets weird – and then I just wait, hoping that someone else will do it for me. I have noticed in the group a lot of passive aggressive anger flying back and forth across the group, of which I am surely part of because I do not have much experience with speaking quietly and calmly and directly about things that are bothering me – but I know that I am going to have to learn this somehow if this thing is going to work. What I have noticed that I do generally – is put on a happy face to the group and then grumble the truth behind the scenes. This is totally devicive and does not work and also kills the group eventually. It’s like having a stinky backed up sewer system with a beautiful living room – we are all sitting in the living room saying to ourselves “what’s that smell?” and pretending I don’t smell it until it just becomes too overpowering and then we all just run out of the room and never see each other again. I am guessing that I am going to have to learn this social skill of diplomatically saying LIVE in the group – “what is that smell?” through trial and error. ”The other fundamentals essential to the successful worker ownership of business on a large scale are the mobilization and use of group savings, cooperative entrepreneurship and systematic and continuous education and training of worker owners.” Yesterday, as I was listing these vintage items that Sarah and I picked up the other day, I thought – “Wow I really wish I knew how to sew.” In addition, learning Spanish would be a really good idea. The hispanic population knows a lot about cooperative culture that I do not know – and yet I cannot communicate with them because I don’t know spanish. Arrogant of me to live in America and be too busy with my own affairs to not learn to speak a language that would enable me to communicate better. In addition – Assertiveness Training and Mediation Skills – I don’t know how many of you guys were raised by sane parents but I was not. I did not LEARN how to function well in society from MY parents and I have not learned it formally since – so these classes would surely be helpful. Meditation and physical exercise practice have helped me to calm down a lot so I can be more available but mostly I have picked up communication skills piecemeal. In addition there are going to be lots and lots of other things that we don’t know how to do that we will need to continue to need to be trained in to continue to grow the business. For example, maybe the artsy people need to take a class in book-keeping and the business people could use some art classes in creativity – the list goes on and on. ”We, as workers, regardless of where we work, have had virtually no experience in owning or managing our working lives, much less applying the principles of democracy in the work place.” Yes!!! This is true. Growing up in tiny dictatorships of Parental Rule, and Teacher Rule, and Boss Rule – where were we to learn cooperative leadership skill? We have been living in a police state for a long time as we are seeing in the OWS movement – we pretend it is a democracy but what does that actually mean in practical application? Do we learn it in elementary school on the playground when we get beat up for being too weird? No – basically what we learn is in order to belong I have to conform. That is NOT democracy. - we keep repeating this idea of “One member, one vote.” But what does that MEAN in practical application??? Let’s take a look at it. If there is one member who speaks eloquently and in an orderly fashion, do we not give our one vote over to them and start to depend on them to ‘lead’ us? If we do not read up on the material and show up to group ready to work as informed members, on the task at hand, have we not then given up our vote to those that did? Speaking for myself – I lack these social skills that make it possible for me to speak calmly. I tend to make faces when I am upset. Lately I try not to talk unless I can speak without anger – how many votes have I given up by trying to control my self-expression because I am trying to create unity? Take for example, the last meeting – We as a group decided that we were going to discuss PRINCIPLES – some of us got together and talked about some principles to present. Others brought principles to discuss. Others of us felt left out because they did not know about meetings that were being held – who’s responsibility is it to stay informed? We communicate on Facebook, on email and by phone – Am I not giving up my ONE vote if I do not try to make sure that I have got all the information of what the group is doing if I do not have ready- access to all those mediums? Each person needs to ask themselves what their ONE VOTE means to them – If someone is bothering me in the group – have I been using my ONE vote or have I given it AWAY so that I will look good – or not talk out of turn? Personally for myself, I try to ask myself those questions based on the FIRST principle that I use – “Our common welfare comes first”. I have been struggling with this regarding certain issues that have been coming up lately, and am waiting to get guidance on how to best handle some difficult situations that I see looming – it is a lot easier for me to talk on email than to talk to you face to face. Sometimes my attempts to create Unity can be harmful when I am unwilling to tell the truth and then I end up getting so upset that I have quit rather than risk harming the group – it’s a tightrope. Am I giving up my ONE vote by trying to make sure everyone is comfortable? What is Unity anyway? ”A worker-owned business requires sound organization, skilled management, adequate financing, careful business planning and profitable markets like any successful business. But in a worker-owned business, the worker-owners elect a board of directors who hire the management, then hold them accountable for the corporate success. In turn, the board of directors is accountable to the worker-owners. In some few places, workers have extended democratic practice from the board room to the shop floor itself, directly governing their jobs.” (p. 2) I am interested in the last line of this paragraph – “In some few places, workers have extended democratic practice from the board room to the shop floor itself, directly governing their jobs.” This is what I would like to see happen in this coop. …Well – I am going to continue reading Putting Democracy to Work – it’s a GREAT book! I encourage everyone to read it – and perhaps we can form a study group around it if others would like to…
P. 9 Putting Democracy to Work contains a chart regarding The potential range of workplace democracy: This Chart lists 5 potential areas of employee involvement, three areas of decision-making, the sharing of material rewards, and ownership. This handbook is designed for workers who want to become directly involved in increasing employee rights in all five types of workplace democracy in their places of employment. That is what worker ownership is all about? Extent of Employee Rights None Partial Complete Shop Floor/Work Group Decision Making Management Level Decision Making Board Room Decision Making Profit/Surplus/Gain Sharing Ownership of Equity or Stock Within the worker-owned firm itself, democracy encourages leadership and skill development. Workers- often for the first time in their working lives- have an opportunity to participate in a broad array of economic and managerial responsibilities. From shop floor to the boardroom, workers can be their own bosses. This handbook is organized so that any interested person can learn the basics about worker-ownership, then proceed through the steps required to actually start a worker-owned cooperative. We focus on starting a business from scratch… A sample business plan for The Worker-Owned Cooperative, its articles of incorporation and a set of model by-laws are included.
I give you here a synopsis of Chapter 1 and the first half of Chapter 2 of Putting Democracy to Work. Now what I am going to do next is show how the principles we discussed on Tuesday fit right in to the Principles they list here. Some of you did not like those principles thinking they were to repetative, however, the truth is, in my experience, that those principles help to govern individuals who wish to be self-governing while keeping us aligned and on the page with putting our common welfare first. You will see. Putting Democracy To Work: Chapter 1: gives a nice history of Worker-Cooperatives beginning with Dr. William King in the early 1800′s in Brighton England and Robert Owen of Scotland, moving in to The Rochdale Pioneers and then in the US The Knights of St Crispin shoemakers Union, The Knights of Labor, then they go into the Basques in Spain… Chapter 2: The 2 most fundamental principles of a worker-owned enterprise are: 1 that ownership and control of the enterprise are derived from working in it, not just from capital investment 2 the concepts of labor-entrepreneurship is adopted. Labor-entrepreneurship means that the workforce or a group within it assumes the responsibilities of search for profitable business opportunities, of obtaining productive resources, while engaging in ris0taking and organization building. In worker-owned cooperatives, management control derives from employment and membership. IN consumer cooperatives, control derives from patronage and shareholding in the ownership of the enterprise. In producer and marketing cooperatives ownership and control rest with the members who are independent growers or suppliers of the crops and raw materials produced and made available for processing and/or marketing. In most consumer or producer coops the works are employees, not owners. Producer and consumer cooperatives are owned and controlled by member-patrons. Only industrial and worker cooperatives are owned and controlled by the employees. P. 26 Foundation of Self-Management Over the years, workers have figured out 7 universal applicable cooperative principles, which seem vital to profitable, democratic self-management. When set in policy through company by-laws, they become the principles of governance and decision-making, guides for both organizational and individual behavior, as well as the norms operating in the workplace. Modern social scientists have found imbedded in them the values and essential ingredients for building and sustaining successful worker-owned enterprises. The Democratic Principle: The workforce controls management, policies, and the use of capital on the basis of one-person one vote, or in other words, representational democracy. (but what does this actually LOOK like) The Equity Principle I: After a trial period of employment all workers must become members. Each member pays an equal membership fee. The Equity Principle II: Any surplus, profit, or loss belongs to the members and must be equitably distributed among them so that no member gains at the expense of another. The Voluntary Principle. Within the employment needs of a worker-owned firm, participation in the workforce is voluntary and open to anyone willing to accept the responsibilities of self-management. There should be no restrictions based on sex, religious affiliation, race, national origin or political beliefs. The Openness Principle. All meetings and records are open to all fully vested members. Mutual aid is to be promoted at all levels through education of members, officers, managers, the general public and other cooperatives. The Limited Returns Principle. Where labor employs capital, a clear distinction must be made between reward for labor (wages based upon skill and seniority) , and capital (retained earnings, dividends) which is limited. The Evolution (Dissolution) Principle. The firm cannot be sold or dissolved without the consent of the workforce through a vote, and then its assets must be distributed to the members in accordance with the organizational charter and bylaws. The values underlying worker-ownership are: 1. While labor is of greater value than capital, corporate interest can be balanced with human ones. 2. Democracy can be extended to the work force 3. Workers can and will take responsibility for entrepreneurial decisions. 4. Cooperation and participation yield greater productivity and returns on the investment of both labor and capital than does hierarchy and coercion. 5. Rewards for labor expended can be equitable and just 6. Workers are capable of contributing to enterprise development, and want to, if given the opportunity. 7. Problem-solving can shift profitably from individualism to representational group solutions. These may appear to be abstractions, having little to do with practical matters of day-to-day life and business. However, if rooted in corporate bylaws and evolving traditions and attitudes, the insure each worker a direct say in workplace governance.
p. 36 “In a labor-managed cooperative the determination of pay rates should be guided by principles of proportionality, external and internal solidarity.
