The lipstick doesn't help.

If you haven’t heard of worker cooperatives, you’re in the company of a lot of people. If you talk about this corporate structure at some cocktail parties, you might be labeled a socialist. Fear not what others might call you. At least you will not have to feel sorry for yourself for being called a capitalist pig. What is socialism? Is it Stalinism? What does this have to do with worker cooperatives?

By definition socialism is a political and economic theory of social organization that advocates that the means of production, distribution, and exchange should be owned or regulated by the community as a whole. Encouraging worker cooperatives does not make one a socialist. By contrast capitalism is an economic and political system in which a country's trade and industry are controlled by private owners for profit, rather than by the state. Living by this doctrine does not necessarily a pig make (of course when I think of the Koch brothers, pigs definitely pop into my mind). Worker cooperatives are business entities that are owned and controlled by their members, the people who work in them. Workers own the business, and they share the profits and decision making. In conventional business this would be considered profits but in a cooperative this is “surplus”, in other words money left over after expenses.

This coming week I will be attending the Worker Cooperative National Conference. I expect to learn a lot and hopefully to share it with you. Like so many Americans I’m looking for answers to some perplexing questions. Our environment is suffering from an overdose of carbon. Our pocketbooks are suffering from diminishing incomes, except that teeny minority at the top. Unemployment is too high and even though we have the Affordable Care Act it didn’t go far enough in my humble opinion (oh oh, I’m sounding like a socialist). Any way I want to learn more about worker cooperatives.

This is not a new phenomenon. According to John Curl in his book, History of Work Cooperation in America, WORKER COOPERATIVES OR WAGE SLAVERY, Co-ops, Unions, Collectivity and Communalism from Early America to the Present, some form of collective democracy was part of almost every Native American social system north of Mexico. The most widely recognized modern cooperative is Mondragón Cooperative. It was started in the mid 1950’s by a Catholic priest, José María Arizmendiarrieta to address the utter poverty in the Basque region. Today it employs around 80,000. This is not a panacea for all the economic woes of the world. In 2012 Fagor Electrodomésticos Group,the largest and most established of the federation of 110 cooperatives, 147 subsidiary companies, eight foundations and a benefit society with total assets of 35.8 billion euros and total revenues of 14 billion euros filed bankruptcy. The division which produced appliances was hit hard by the economic downturn. I have to admire them because the internal insurance company will provide workers with 80% of their salary for two years and provide training to move some to other companies within the cooperative. You just don’t see that in large totally capitalists corporations even though they claim status as people. Maybe they’re just people who don’t care much about people. Mondragón has been criticized for not being mindful enough of their environmental footprint. Fortunately they are working to correct some of the problems.

Worker cooperatives are by definition democratic. Cooperatives coupled with a social purpose like creating foundations to increase penetration of other worker cooperatives in the community or setting up scholarship funds as part of the company platform or any number of social aims ahead of profit margins become triple bottom line companies.

Triple bottom line (abbreviated as TBL or 3BL) incorporates the notion of sustainability into business decisions. The TBL is an accounting framework with three dimensions: social, environmental (or ecological) and financial. The TBL dimensions are also commonly called the three Ps: people, planet and profits and are referred to as the "three pillars of sustainability." Interest in triple bottom line accounting has been growing in both for-profit, nonprofit and government sectors. Many organizations have adopted the TBL framework to evaluate their performance in a broader context. Wikipedia

The 10th anniversary of the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives will be celebrated at the Annual Worker Cooperative National Conference. 400 participants building business on shared ownership will be highlighted. To learn more about this incredible organization, cooperatives and the movement to work place democracy check out some of these links.

Some links:

http://www.usworker.coop/2014-national-conference

http://www.usworker.coop/

http://workerdemocracy.org/

Occupy Ink Printing

Small World Foods

http://evergreencooperatives.com/

Mondragon