7 ms·

So is this a case of the co-ops just not making enough to pay everyone a decent amount, or is a higher-up still taking a significant chunk of the profits? If th

So is this a case of the co-ops just not making enough to pay everyone a decent amount, or is a higher-up still taking a significant chunk of the profits? If the latter, what's preventing the workers from voting against that?

Nomentatus 9y ago
I've been an employee of a Canadian Co-op, and the union and the company were really the same thing (a captured union)... so where will you vote? Nearly the worst working conditions I've ever encountered.
- fallingfrog 9y ago
  I believe you, but that's just a bizarre situation because a) in a coop do you not just vote on who the management is and how salaries and working conditions are set? And b) your coop needs a union??? Representing the workers against who? We must not have the same definition of coop. Again I'm not saying you're making anything up, that's just quite astonishing.
  - Nomentatus 9y ago
    I should have mentioned that the customers were all members of the Co-op; so that drowned out the votes of the workers. We BADLY needed a union, management was only interested in serving themselves, which they could do well enough 'cause few members voted. Remember that corruption and Co-ops have a long history in the U.S - early Life Insurance companies, many of which survive, were formed as Co-ops 'cause they founders knew the policy holders wouldn't show up to vote: therefore management could pay themselves very well and structure the company to serve themselves.
    - fallingfrog 9y ago
      Well that's enlightening..
toyg 9y ago
Higher ups make more money (which often helps their para-political careers), but mostly profits are going back in the business - not necessarily the same business. Some of it ends up in "friendly" political activities of every sort, some in cooperatives that are desperately unprofitable but politically convenient, some of it goes in real estate, etc etc. This worked beautifully while managers and political directors were ideologically motivated and somewhat honest: the sectors making money were financing massive expansion everywhere else, pushing the model, and because workers were similarly motivated, overall costs were always pretty low, generating virtuous dynamics. Then three things happened: the USSR collapsed, irreversibly killing the dream; long-term effects of bad hiring policies finally came to bear (historically, if you attempted a career in The Party and failed, someone would find you a job in a cooperative, regardless of your actual skills); and the wartime generation (people who had literally fought in the mountains and been persecuted under fascism) was naturally replaced by more cynical and greedy boomers. Cooperatives slowly migrated towards a more traditional corporate setup, but worker compensation (unsurprisingly) was not adjusted. Coincidentally, Italy has been economically fragile since the late '80s, but because of the political implications, cooperatives tend to avoid redundancies (they do happen, but they are somewhat rarer than elsewhere); people value that security, so they kept voting with the boss. There are indications that this might have changed recently, but tbh I'm not close enough anymore to say whether that's true.

Nomentatus 9y ago

I've been an employee of a Canadian Co-op, and the union and the company were really the same thing (a captured union)... so where will you vote? Nearly the worst working conditions I've ever encountered.

fallingfrog 9y ago
I believe you, but that's just a bizarre situation because a) in a coop do you not just vote on who the management is and how salaries and working conditions are set? And b) your coop needs a union??? Representing the workers against who? We must not have the same definition of coop. Again I'm not saying you're making anything up, that's just quite astonishing.
- Nomentatus 9y ago
  I should have mentioned that the customers were all members of the Co-op; so that drowned out the votes of the workers. We BADLY needed a union, management was only interested in serving themselves, which they could do well enough 'cause few members voted. Remember that corruption and Co-ops have a long history in the U.S - early Life Insurance companies, many of which survive, were formed as Co-ops 'cause they founders knew the policy holders wouldn't show up to vote: therefore management could pay themselves very well and structure the company to serve themselves.
  - fallingfrog 9y ago
    Well that's enlightening..

toyg 9y ago

Higher ups make more money (which often helps their para-political careers), but mostly profits are going back in the business - not necessarily the same business. Some of it ends up in "friendly" political activities of every sort, some in cooperatives that are desperately unprofitable but politically convenient, some of it goes in real estate, etc etc. This worked beautifully while managers and political directors were ideologically motivated and somewhat honest: the sectors making money were financing massive expansion everywhere else, pushing the model, and because workers were similarly motivated, overall costs were always pretty low, generating virtuous dynamics. Then three things happened: the USSR collapsed, irreversibly killing the dream; long-term effects of bad hiring policies finally came to bear (historically, if you attempted a career in The Party and failed, someone would find you a job in a cooperative, regardless of your actual skills); and the wartime generation (people who had literally fought in the mountains and been persecuted under fascism) was naturally replaced by more cynical and greedy boomers. Cooperatives slowly migrated towards a more traditional corporate setup, but worker compensation (unsurprisingly) was not adjusted. Coincidentally, Italy has been economically fragile since the late '80s, but because of the political implications, cooperatives tend to avoid redundancies (they do happen, but they are somewhat rarer than elsewhere); people value that security, so they kept voting with the boss. There are indications that this might have changed recently, but tbh I'm not close enough anymore to say whether that's true.