5 ms·

What is the long term growth strategy for worker cooperatives? How do you scale them?

steveklabnik 7y ago
I’d investigate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation for answers to these questions. It’s interesting for an answer precisely because (as far as I know) it’s an outlier in this space.
ydlr 7y ago
Horizontally... by spinning off new coops.
marricks 7y ago
I like the idea of a coop for many reasons, one is that’s it’s not tied to the “must have a huge possibility for growth” any VC backed venture would have
- andrewflnr 7y ago
  I think the question was just how to handle more people joining. Or perhaps how to scale the practice across society. Both interesting questions IMO, even if not what GP meant.
ehnto 7y ago
There doesn't have to be one I don't think. Like a local farm co-op, it's meant to be sustainable so growth should be slow and natural, and should realistically find a maximum. That means that certain products/services aren't a good fit. So I think if you are part of one and you have lofty aspirations for what you are working on, you should plan for the day you outgrow the co-op and need to hire a bunch of people.
thecrash 7y ago
Local cooperatives can form networks which operate similar to a conglomerate business, with the network helping to bring in business and direct it to participating coops, or even form supply chains where local coops are providing goods and services to each other. This allows the complex efficiencies of a capitalist corporation, but allows the people doing the work to retain direct control over their local workplaces and not be beholden to investors. Mondragon in Spain is the most famous example of this. As such networks develop, starting a new cooperative venture may become more attractive to some entrepreneurs than a traditional startup, which in turn drives growth of the network.
thrwayxyz 7y ago
You don't. They are there to provide a human friendly system that supports it's members from birth to death.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
altras 7y ago
Imho, The long term goals may be similar to what "normal" companies may have. Cooperatives are just means to an end but generally one may achieve lofty ambitions in any type of organization. The document sums up very nicely the pros and cons of cooperative targeting freelancers. The only thing one has to decide is wether one will reach sustainability in a normal company or in a cooperative - the journeys are two different wild adventures. In terms of scaling: You may either form a network or join one. I'm part of Europe based digital cooperative and we're starting to do just that https://medium.com/camplight/accelerating-a-global-movement-through-inspiration-6bb0a38ec60e https://medium.com/camplight/accelerating-a-global-movement-... :)
barry-cotter 7y ago
You don’t. If you want to grow you either convert into a partnership with the normal up or out mechanism where the only people with a vote are the partners or elsewhere into a for profit company. Worker cooperatives are by and for the day ideologically committed.
jarofgreen 7y ago
Depends on your definition of "scale" but mostly the answer is - as others have pointed out - that they are not designed to "scale" in the way many people use that word. However there are some co-ops who make platform software and questions of "scale" might apply there, so maybe some interesting reading? Check out https://www.loomio.org/ https://www.loomio.org/ - their company handbook is online somewhere.
smadge 7y ago
A lot of people are saying that you don’t have to grow workers coops and they can (with the implication that they should) remain small. A counter example is the Mondragon Corporation, which is a worker coop/federation of worker coops which employs 75,000 people.
- nickpsecurity 7y ago
  Thanks for the tip. That's really neat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
- sespindola 7y ago
  Also here in Argentina we have Banco Credicoop, which is a credit union with more than 670,000 members. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banco_Credicoop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banco_Credicoop
brianhorakh 7y ago
Cooperatives are a self organizing network effect scaling pattern. They self scale because members are intrinsically motivated to join, humans are pack animals and we like to work together in a village. Very few people want to be entirely alone. Capitalism is actually very unhealthy from a mental health perspective, so the cooperative model creates the safety net opportunity to take risks and try new things.
Co_Reentry 7y ago
While mondragon is a great example of a "scaled" cooperative. There are other (somewhat smaller, but still meaningful) examples. Take Cooperative Home Care Associates (http://www.chcany.org http://www.chcany.org) around 1500 homecare workers in NYC, or the Arizmendi bakeries https://www.arizmendi.coop/ https://www.arizmendi.coop/ that have 5 bakeries and other businesses all growing and providing living wage jobs in the Bay Area. We chose to use a holding company model for our cooperative https://www.staffing.coop https://www.staffing.coop so that we could have many startups and conversions underneath one holding company worker cooperative.

I’d investigate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation for answers to these questions. It’s interesting for an answer precisely because (as far as I know) it’s an outlier in this space.

ydlr 7y ago

Horizontally... by spinning off new coops.

marricks 7y ago

I like the idea of a coop for many reasons, one is that’s it’s not tied to the “must have a huge possibility for growth” any VC backed venture would have

andrewflnr 7y ago
I think the question was just how to handle more people joining. Or perhaps how to scale the practice across society. Both interesting questions IMO, even if not what GP meant.

ehnto 7y ago

There doesn't have to be one I don't think. Like a local farm co-op, it's meant to be sustainable so growth should be slow and natural, and should realistically find a maximum. That means that certain products/services aren't a good fit. So I think if you are part of one and you have lofty aspirations for what you are working on, you should plan for the day you outgrow the co-op and need to hire a bunch of people.

thecrash 7y ago

Local cooperatives can form networks which operate similar to a conglomerate business, with the network helping to bring in business and direct it to participating coops, or even form supply chains where local coops are providing goods and services to each other. This allows the complex efficiencies of a capitalist corporation, but allows the people doing the work to retain direct control over their local workplaces and not be beholden to investors. Mondragon in Spain is the most famous example of this. As such networks develop, starting a new cooperative venture may become more attractive to some entrepreneurs than a traditional startup, which in turn drives growth of the network.

thrwayxyz 7y ago

You don't. They are there to provide a human friendly system that supports it's members from birth to death.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]

altras 7y ago

Imho, The long term goals may be similar to what "normal" companies may have. Cooperatives are just means to an end but generally one may achieve lofty ambitions in any type of organization. The document sums up very nicely the pros and cons of cooperative targeting freelancers. The only thing one has to decide is wether one will reach sustainability in a normal company or in a cooperative - the journeys are two different wild adventures. In terms of scaling: You may either form a network or join one. I'm part of Europe based digital cooperative and we're starting to do just that https://medium.com/camplight/accelerating-a-global-movement-through-inspiration-6bb0a38ec60e https://medium.com/camplight/accelerating-a-global-movement-... :)

barry-cotter 7y ago

You don’t. If you want to grow you either convert into a partnership with the normal up or out mechanism where the only people with a vote are the partners or elsewhere into a for profit company. Worker cooperatives are by and for the day ideologically committed.

jarofgreen 7y ago

Depends on your definition of "scale" but mostly the answer is - as others have pointed out - that they are not designed to "scale" in the way many people use that word. However there are some co-ops who make platform software and questions of "scale" might apply there, so maybe some interesting reading? Check out https://www.loomio.org/ https://www.loomio.org/ - their company handbook is online somewhere.

smadge 7y ago

A lot of people are saying that you don’t have to grow workers coops and they can (with the implication that they should) remain small. A counter example is the Mondragon Corporation, which is a worker coop/federation of worker coops which employs 75,000 people.

nickpsecurity 7y ago
Thanks for the tip. That's really neat. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation
sespindola 7y ago
Also here in Argentina we have Banco Credicoop, which is a credit union with more than 670,000 members. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banco_Credicoop https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banco_Credicoop

brianhorakh 7y ago

Cooperatives are a self organizing network effect scaling pattern. They self scale because members are intrinsically motivated to join, humans are pack animals and we like to work together in a village. Very few people want to be entirely alone. Capitalism is actually very unhealthy from a mental health perspective, so the cooperative model creates the safety net opportunity to take risks and try new things.

Co_Reentry 7y ago

While mondragon is a great example of a "scaled" cooperative. There are other (somewhat smaller, but still meaningful) examples. Take Cooperative Home Care Associates (http://www.chcany.org http://www.chcany.org) around 1500 homecare workers in NYC, or the Arizmendi bakeries https://www.arizmendi.coop/ https://www.arizmendi.coop/ that have 5 bakeries and other businesses all growing and providing living wage jobs in the Bay Area. We chose to use a holding company model for our cooperative https://www.staffing.coop https://www.staffing.coop so that we could have many startups and conversions underneath one holding company worker cooperative.