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Worker co-operation (coops) models [0] exist and can take the form of a dozen employees, or scale to really quite enormous companies like Mondragon[1]. I've co

Worker co-operation (coops) models [0] exist and can take the form of a dozen employees, or scale to really quite enormous companies like Mondragon[1]. I've come across lots of them in Europe, and a few where I live now in Canada, but I don't know if they're common at all in the US? [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation

zja 5y ago
America is generally pretty allergic to socialist ideas. The tech sector in particular seems to gravitate towards libertarian ideologies, idolizing founders as heroes who single handedly disrupt entire industries and are rewarded with massive wealth. I’d be really interested to see more product based startups follow the coop model, most of the tech coops i’ve heard of are dev shops. I imagine not being able to take VC money is a big challenge, and a reason we don’t see more tech coops.
- johnebgd 5y ago
  Why couldn’t you take VC money? The VC would just have more shareholders to contend with.
  - brianwawok 5y ago
    VCs talk to 200 people a month with a single CEO or maybe the odd co-CEO. Along you come with a 20 person co-op leadership structure. Why would they take that dive? They want you to look/act/speak/organize like their previous successes. (Which is the same general reason why non-white males start at such a giant disadvantage )
  - jimkleiber 5y ago
    I think one reason it's harder is because typically VCs pay more money to have more decision making power and many coops are founded on the one member one vote principle. So despite how much money they'd contribute, they'd have no more say than the average member.
  - zja 5y ago
    The defining feature of a worker coop is that it’s owned by the workers. That means they can’t give shares to VC’s. I’m sure there’s hybrid models where the company is only majority owned by workers, but I don’t know how common they are and I doubt they’re very attractive to VC’s for reasons others have mentioned.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- DizzyDoo 5y ago
  My understanding of co-ops, while I haven't experienced them first-hand, is that they are still capitalist in nature - they are usually profit driven (though not at the expense of workers), pay is not equal, and the difference is a democratic decision making structure.
- jimkleiber 5y ago
  > America is generally pretty allergic to socialist ideas. I think yes, we often feel allergic to government ownership of things (at least that's how I see socialism, which may not be how others see it), yet I don't think that's why many of us don't like coops, as publicly traded companies are owned by many people through the stock markets. I think what may hinder the rise of coops in the US is ironically our allergy to democracy in business. We seem to love democracy in governance yet prefer top-down authoritarianism in business (and mostly in the military, minus the civilian leaders). Most coops I know strongly emphasize democratic governance, where all shareholders are equal in voting power, and most businesses I know are very far from that. I think the desire for and familiarity with top-down governance (which seems like authoritarianism to me) that we get in the business world is influencing many of our attitudes towards on democracy in governance, as top-down can be quicker, more adaptive, more efficient, etc However, I wonder if the perception of being exploited by some of these large companies, especially in the consumer tech sector, will lead to a demand for more democratic/representative governance, as we see with some DAOs and more. I personally would love to see more coop Clubhouses, Facebook, TikToks, etc. Let the users 1) have more decision making power on the platform and 2) receive more profits from the services.
  - zja 5y ago
    Very well said! You might find this talk interesting, it’s about “democracy at work” as a new-ish flavor of socialism. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ynbgMKclWWc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ynbgMKclWWc
    - jimkleiber 5y ago
      Ahh thanks! I'll check it out. I think unfortunately the word socialism evokes so many emotions and different interpretations in people that I try to not use it, although I do like the concept of "democracy at work" :-) perhaps I'll change perspective after the video
  - Zababa 5y ago
    > yet I don't think that's why many of us don't like coops, as publicly traded companies are owned by many people through the stock markets. That's not the same thing. The concept of coops is that the people that work in them own them.
culi 5y ago
I'm not sure how much it applies to tech as an industry, but research shows that coops (or, "labor-managed firms") tend to last much longer and be more productive than non-coop companies as well. https://www.uk.coop/resources/what-do-we-really-know-about-worker-co-operatives https://www.uk.coop/resources/what-do-we-really-know-about-w...
- DizzyDoo 5y ago
  Thanks for the link, what an interesting pdf. What I still don't quite understand about coops is how they practically come about? The pdf you linked to says that 84% come into being from scratch. If you need to buy some mechanical equipment and rent a factory, does everyone who joins the coop at the beginning pay into those start-up costs? Or is the investment in the coop usually entirely from the outside like bank loans? Is there ever a distinction between coop members who have invested money into the firm, and those who join later that haven't?
  - ipaddr 5y ago
    I was part of an employee owned company but I had no ownership and was only a contractor. At some point the company couldn't pay the employees and they took partial ownership. The employees were senior ex-sun types who could forgo money for stock. It was a pleasant and the darkest (in terms of no lights on). Conversations were about high level technical and no meetings. Great place to work while it lastest.
conradev 5y ago
Worker co-ops don't eliminate executive roles, though. They just make it so that executives serve at the pleasure of the members (and are usually elected in some form). Mondragon has a President, who was formerly a Vice President and Managing Director. REI, a US-based co-op, has a more complicated story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recreational_Equipment,_Inc.#Governance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recreational_Equipment,_Inc.#G... They still have hierarchy and pay still scales with position in that hierarchy. The ratio of CEO pay to worker pay is generally more equitable, but it is still a ratio. I have no idea what the work-life balance is like, but running a co-op (or a nonprofit, for that matter) still sounds like a stressful job to me.

zja 5y ago

America is generally pretty allergic to socialist ideas. The tech sector in particular seems to gravitate towards libertarian ideologies, idolizing founders as heroes who single handedly disrupt entire industries and are rewarded with massive wealth. I’d be really interested to see more product based startups follow the coop model, most of the tech coops i’ve heard of are dev shops. I imagine not being able to take VC money is a big challenge, and a reason we don’t see more tech coops.

johnebgd 5y ago
Why couldn’t you take VC money? The VC would just have more shareholders to contend with.
- brianwawok 5y ago
  VCs talk to 200 people a month with a single CEO or maybe the odd co-CEO. Along you come with a 20 person co-op leadership structure. Why would they take that dive? They want you to look/act/speak/organize like their previous successes. (Which is the same general reason why non-white males start at such a giant disadvantage )
- jimkleiber 5y ago
  I think one reason it's harder is because typically VCs pay more money to have more decision making power and many coops are founded on the one member one vote principle. So despite how much money they'd contribute, they'd have no more say than the average member.
- zja 5y ago
  The defining feature of a worker coop is that it’s owned by the workers. That means they can’t give shares to VC’s. I’m sure there’s hybrid models where the company is only majority owned by workers, but I don’t know how common they are and I doubt they’re very attractive to VC’s for reasons others have mentioned.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
DizzyDoo 5y ago
My understanding of co-ops, while I haven't experienced them first-hand, is that they are still capitalist in nature - they are usually profit driven (though not at the expense of workers), pay is not equal, and the difference is a democratic decision making structure.
jimkleiber 5y ago
> America is generally pretty allergic to socialist ideas. I think yes, we often feel allergic to government ownership of things (at least that's how I see socialism, which may not be how others see it), yet I don't think that's why many of us don't like coops, as publicly traded companies are owned by many people through the stock markets. I think what may hinder the rise of coops in the US is ironically our allergy to democracy in business. We seem to love democracy in governance yet prefer top-down authoritarianism in business (and mostly in the military, minus the civilian leaders). Most coops I know strongly emphasize democratic governance, where all shareholders are equal in voting power, and most businesses I know are very far from that. I think the desire for and familiarity with top-down governance (which seems like authoritarianism to me) that we get in the business world is influencing many of our attitudes towards on democracy in governance, as top-down can be quicker, more adaptive, more efficient, etc However, I wonder if the perception of being exploited by some of these large companies, especially in the consumer tech sector, will lead to a demand for more democratic/representative governance, as we see with some DAOs and more. I personally would love to see more coop Clubhouses, Facebook, TikToks, etc. Let the users 1) have more decision making power on the platform and 2) receive more profits from the services.
- zja 5y ago
  Very well said! You might find this talk interesting, it’s about “democracy at work” as a new-ish flavor of socialism. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ynbgMKclWWc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ynbgMKclWWc
  - jimkleiber 5y ago
    Ahh thanks! I'll check it out. I think unfortunately the word socialism evokes so many emotions and different interpretations in people that I try to not use it, although I do like the concept of "democracy at work" :-) perhaps I'll change perspective after the video
- Zababa 5y ago
  > yet I don't think that's why many of us don't like coops, as publicly traded companies are owned by many people through the stock markets. That's not the same thing. The concept of coops is that the people that work in them own them.

culi 5y ago

I'm not sure how much it applies to tech as an industry, but research shows that coops (or, "labor-managed firms") tend to last much longer and be more productive than non-coop companies as well. https://www.uk.coop/resources/what-do-we-really-know-about-worker-co-operatives https://www.uk.coop/resources/what-do-we-really-know-about-w...

DizzyDoo 5y ago
Thanks for the link, what an interesting pdf. What I still don't quite understand about coops is how they practically come about? The pdf you linked to says that 84% come into being from scratch. If you need to buy some mechanical equipment and rent a factory, does everyone who joins the coop at the beginning pay into those start-up costs? Or is the investment in the coop usually entirely from the outside like bank loans? Is there ever a distinction between coop members who have invested money into the firm, and those who join later that haven't?
- ipaddr 5y ago
  I was part of an employee owned company but I had no ownership and was only a contractor. At some point the company couldn't pay the employees and they took partial ownership. The employees were senior ex-sun types who could forgo money for stock. It was a pleasant and the darkest (in terms of no lights on). Conversations were about high level technical and no meetings. Great place to work while it lastest.

conradev 5y ago

Worker co-ops don't eliminate executive roles, though. They just make it so that executives serve at the pleasure of the members (and are usually elected in some form). Mondragon has a President, who was formerly a Vice President and Managing Director. REI, a US-based co-op, has a more complicated story: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recreational_Equipment,_Inc.#Governance https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recreational_Equipment,_Inc.#G... They still have hierarchy and pay still scales with position in that hierarchy. The ratio of CEO pay to worker pay is generally more equitable, but it is still a ratio. I have no idea what the work-life balance is like, but running a co-op (or a nonprofit, for that matter) still sounds like a stressful job to me.