{"id":1558,"date":"2021-01-12T15:16:45","date_gmt":"2021-01-12T21:16:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/?p=1558"},"modified":"2021-01-12T15:16:58","modified_gmt":"2021-01-12T21:16:58","slug":"re-introduction-to-worker-co-ops-you-can-do-this","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/2021\/01\/12\/re-introduction-to-worker-co-ops-you-can-do-this\/","title":{"rendered":"(Re-) Introduction to worker co-ops: you can do this!"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"900\" height=\"698\" src=\"http:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/blog_top-image_CoopHeader.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-1559\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/blog_top-image_CoopHeader.jpeg 900w, https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/blog_top-image_CoopHeader-300x233.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/blog_top-image_CoopHeader-768x596.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/01\/blog_top-image_CoopHeader-16x12.jpeg 16w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 900px) 100vw, 900px\" \/><figcaption><em>Image found on Shareable.net and several other websites; original creator unknown<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>The beginning of a year is always a good time to review the fundamentals. That goes double this year, because it seems quite timely to reaffirm our commitment to democracy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>So, what is a worker co-op, and why would you want one?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A worker co-op is a business in which all the owners are workers, and most or all of the workers are owners. This distinguishes a worker co-op from a consumer co-op, in which the customers are the owners, and a producer co-op, in which small businesses or farms are the owners. Worker co-ops are also distinct from ESOPs (Employee Stock Ownership Plans), in which the employees own stock, but rarely have any input into how the company is run.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Workplace democracy is central to the nature and identity of a worker co-op. In fact, the US Federation of Worker Co-ops recognizes and includes democratically operated workplaces that aren&#8217;t formally cooperatives at all. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now, you might wonder, doesn&#8217;t democratic decision-making take longer than having a boss simply make decisions? And the answer is, yes, it does. But, it&#8217;s worth it, because the decisions are consistently better than if any one person makes them. This is demonstrated by the fact that the large majority of worker co-ops survive their perilous first three years, whereas the large majority of conventional businesses do not. And here are some further benefits of workplace democracy&#8230;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li><strong>Above-median pay.<\/strong> Worker-owners decide their own pay scales, and as you might expect, the difference between the highest-paid and lowest-paid workers is far smaller than in a conventional business. In some worker co-ops, there&#8217;s no difference at all.<\/li><li><strong>High standards for workplace safety.<\/strong> When the workers make the decisions, they naturally decide to value their own safety. <\/li><li><strong>Flexible scheduling.<\/strong> Workers who make decisions together are going to be understanding about each other&#8217;s time.<\/li><li><strong>A healthy work culture.<\/strong> Worker-owners don&#8217;t magically become angels, but with an equitable balance of power among the staff, toxic situations can be addressed quickly.<\/li><li><strong>Low turnover.<\/strong> Once people acclimatize to having a say in the workplace, it&#8217;s very difficult to go back to taking orders. And with the advantages on this list, why would you? <\/li><li><strong>Longevity.<\/strong> Worker co-ops don&#8217;t relocate in search of lower taxes or looser regulations. They are stable, reliable, long-term community members. <\/li><li><strong>Environmental sustainability.<\/strong> As community members, worker-owners are aware of their impact on their surroundings, and show ecological responsibility.<\/li><li><strong>Resilience in hard times.<\/strong> The recent downturn in the economy confirms what previous downturns showed, which is that worker co-ops have the flexibility to adjust their practices at will. This means they have a dramatically lower rate of closure than conventional businesses. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>At this point, you might wonder, if worker co-ops are so great, why aren&#8217;t there more of them? After all, Wisconsin has a great co-op law, compared to a lot of other states. There are several reasons. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>The most obvious (and arguably most important) is that so few people know about worker co-ops in the first place. They are hardly ever mentioned in our education system, at any level. They barely ever get mentioned in the news, and when they are, there&#8217;s no substantive analysis around them.<\/li><li>When people do hear about them, it takes a while to internalize the message that <em><strong>you can do this<\/strong><\/em>. We don&#8217;t practice democracy at school or at any conventional job. We vote for politicians every few years, but that&#8217;s representative democracy, not direct democracy, like a worker co-op has. So, there&#8217;s an adjustment, and a learning curve.<\/li><li>Launching a new business is hard enough under normal circumstances, but when you try to do it democratically, it takes longer, and can be hard to explain to conventional funders. <\/li><li>No one gets rich working at a co-op. You&#8217;ll likely make a decent salary, hopefully with decent benefits (depending on the size of your co-op), but you will never become a millionaire. Salaries and profit distributions are democratically decided. <\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>MCDC exists to address these obstacles (well, not the last one) and reduce the racial and economic disparities in the Madison area. We can provide you with co-op education, resources, and even start-up money, if you qualify for one of our grants. We&#8217;ve helped seven co-ops open their doors already, soon to be nine. Many of the worker-owners in them have told us they never expected to be business owners, and now they are. If they can do this, you can do this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Take some time to look over our website, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/\">http:\/\/mcdcmadison.org<\/a>, and then write to Charity Schmidt at <a href=\"mailto:charity.schmidt@wisc.edu\">charity.schmidt@wisc.edu<\/a> to learn even more about how we can help you. We look forward to meeting you and hearing all about your ideas.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The beginning of a year is always a good time to review the fundamentals. That goes double this year, because it seems quite timely to reaffirm our commitment to democracy. So, what is a worker co-op, and why would you want one? A worker co-op is a business in which all the owners are workers,&hellip;&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/2021\/01\/12\/re-introduction-to-worker-co-ops-you-can-do-this\/\" class=\"\" rel=\"bookmark\">Leer m\u00e1s &raquo;<span class=\"screen-reader-text\">(Re-) Introduction to worker co-ops: you can do this!<\/span><\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1558","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paWzR5-p8","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1558\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcdcmadison.org\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}