6 ms·

Yeah, or it works ok at a small scale but you can never expand, and a competitor (maybe your own ex-employees) eats your lunch like what happened to Cheeseboard

Yeah, or it works ok at a small scale but you can never expand, and a competitor (maybe your own ex-employees) eats your lunch like what happened to Cheeseboard. Which is still ok, you can be in that cool little niche if that's what you like, but don't tell me it's a better model overall.

DangitBobby 3y ago
It's almost certainly a better for the people who are working somewhere they actually care about for more than minimum wage with performance potentially tied to income.
- TylerE 3y ago
  Except that looking at the two linked here (Seward and the pizza place) both are struggling - raising prices, cutting hours, and both are essentially begging the community to fund them so they continue to exist.
  - afavour 3y ago
    There are plenty of non worker owned restaurants doing the same in today’s economy, of course. Non-chain restaurants are kind of weird businesses, really. Owner owned or worker owned they’re rarely big money spinners and often owe a lot to the community around them to keep them viable.
  - hot_gril 3y ago
    Idk how Cheese Board is doing. They were fine last I checked. Just probably would've done way better as a corp. The Avedisyan couple turned their cheese shop into a coop decades ago, and it was basically an act of charity when they could've kept ownership instead. The store didn't expand much despite decades of exceptional work and high popularity, which is a missed opportunity for profit, but that wasn't their goal. I do wonder where they got the initial investment for the shop.
    - sdenton4 3y ago
      Arizmendi spun out of Cheeseboard in 1996 and now has six locations... Also, Mondragon exists. Coops can expand.
      - deleted 3y ago
        [deleted]
      - hot_gril 3y ago
        Arizmendi and Cheeseboard are separate companies though, same with Cheeseboard and Sliver (which is btw not a co-op). Not sure about Mondragon's structure since it's headlined as a corporation/federation of co-ops, which sounds like the workers don't collectively own the entire business and there's a higher level that's just a regular corp. Anyway, I'm not saying co-ops can never expand while still maintaining collective ownership, only that it's harder. Also harder to start, or to exist in general.
- hot_gril 3y ago
  Just because the employees own the store doesn't mean they pay everyone above market rate. If they do, then yeah, some lucky employees will get paid extra at the previous investors' expense. Meanwhile a regular corp restaurant could offer the same pay but fill the spots with higher skill to match, and some do. Same thing except the corp more likely thrives.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
MrJohz 3y ago
Except worker cooperatives are noted for being particularly resilient against closures - Wikipedia links to a number of studies and analyses here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative#Research_on_worker_cooperatives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative#Research_on... For example there's a British study that shows that 76% of worker cooperatives tend to survive the first five years, compared to 42% of all companies overall, making them particularly stable businesses. You've also got typically higher job satisfaction from the employees (so less likely to have the ex-employees to create competitors out of), and more productive employees overall. Honestly that sounds like a pretty good model for businesses overall to me.
- hot_gril 3y ago
  Because of the big leap involved in "worker owned cooperatives that have been created by workers buying a business." Either the workers are unusually wealthy and dedicated or a rich owner is doing a bit of charity, in both cases their odds are way better with a corp too. If you're starting with nothing, it'll be difficult to find investment for a co-op.
  - MrJohz 3y ago
    Do you have evidence to back up that claim? I would imagine that only a minority of coops are actually founded by existing workers, and the majority would be new companies - certainly this is the experience I've had with worker coops near me. But it would be interesting if that wasn't the case. EDIT: the France study is particularly interesting because they specifically talk about this as a potential reason for the surprising longevity, but then point out that "the overwhelming majority of cooperatives are created from scratch, and hence this explanation remains incomplete".
    - hot_gril 3y ago
      Created from scratch probably means someone with a lot of money beforehand decided to do it. The same study calls coop formation rare, and it's hard to control things when you're sampling a rare case.

DangitBobby 3y ago

It's almost certainly a better for the people who are working somewhere they actually care about for more than minimum wage with performance potentially tied to income.

TylerE 3y ago
Except that looking at the two linked here (Seward and the pizza place) both are struggling - raising prices, cutting hours, and both are essentially begging the community to fund them so they continue to exist.
- afavour 3y ago
  There are plenty of non worker owned restaurants doing the same in today’s economy, of course. Non-chain restaurants are kind of weird businesses, really. Owner owned or worker owned they’re rarely big money spinners and often owe a lot to the community around them to keep them viable.
- hot_gril 3y ago
  Idk how Cheese Board is doing. They were fine last I checked. Just probably would've done way better as a corp. The Avedisyan couple turned their cheese shop into a coop decades ago, and it was basically an act of charity when they could've kept ownership instead. The store didn't expand much despite decades of exceptional work and high popularity, which is a missed opportunity for profit, but that wasn't their goal. I do wonder where they got the initial investment for the shop.
  - sdenton4 3y ago
    Arizmendi spun out of Cheeseboard in 1996 and now has six locations... Also, Mondragon exists. Coops can expand.
    - deleted 3y ago
      [deleted]
    - hot_gril 3y ago
      Arizmendi and Cheeseboard are separate companies though, same with Cheeseboard and Sliver (which is btw not a co-op). Not sure about Mondragon's structure since it's headlined as a corporation/federation of co-ops, which sounds like the workers don't collectively own the entire business and there's a higher level that's just a regular corp. Anyway, I'm not saying co-ops can never expand while still maintaining collective ownership, only that it's harder. Also harder to start, or to exist in general.
hot_gril 3y ago
Just because the employees own the store doesn't mean they pay everyone above market rate. If they do, then yeah, some lucky employees will get paid extra at the previous investors' expense. Meanwhile a regular corp restaurant could offer the same pay but fill the spots with higher skill to match, and some do. Same thing except the corp more likely thrives.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]

MrJohz 3y ago

Except worker cooperatives are noted for being particularly resilient against closures - Wikipedia links to a number of studies and analyses here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative#Research_on_worker_cooperatives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worker_cooperative#Research_on... For example there's a British study that shows that 76% of worker cooperatives tend to survive the first five years, compared to 42% of all companies overall, making them particularly stable businesses. You've also got typically higher job satisfaction from the employees (so less likely to have the ex-employees to create competitors out of), and more productive employees overall. Honestly that sounds like a pretty good model for businesses overall to me.

hot_gril 3y ago
Because of the big leap involved in "worker owned cooperatives that have been created by workers buying a business." Either the workers are unusually wealthy and dedicated or a rich owner is doing a bit of charity, in both cases their odds are way better with a corp too. If you're starting with nothing, it'll be difficult to find investment for a co-op.
- MrJohz 3y ago
  Do you have evidence to back up that claim? I would imagine that only a minority of coops are actually founded by existing workers, and the majority would be new companies - certainly this is the experience I've had with worker coops near me. But it would be interesting if that wasn't the case. EDIT: the France study is particularly interesting because they specifically talk about this as a potential reason for the surprising longevity, but then point out that "the overwhelming majority of cooperatives are created from scratch, and hence this explanation remains incomplete".
  - hot_gril 3y ago
    Created from scratch probably means someone with a lot of money beforehand decided to do it. The same study calls coop formation rare, and it's hard to control things when you're sampling a rare case.