6 ms·

Co-ops in the US seems to be particularly popular in agriculture.

by eatonphil 3y ago

nextos 3y ago
Galois.com, pretty famous in the software correctness area, is kinda a co-op right, as it is employee owned?
- nyssos 3y ago
  Not exactly. Galois employees are beneficiaries of the ESOP trust that owns the shares, rather than direct owners as in a prototypical cooperative.
  - nextos 3y ago
    Sure, my understanding was that Galois is not exactly a co-op. Why this structure? Is it more advantageous in the US?
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago
      One of the main challenges for co-ops is navigating the entry and exit. If you had Direct employee ownership, you have to buy in when you start and sell your stock back when you leave. A trust with the employees as beneficiaries solves a lot of these problems. It also prevents the co-op members from taking the company public for a huge payday.
  - HideousKojima 3y ago
    I'm pretty sure that's more or less the same structure used by WinCo as opposed to direct ownership
_mlbt 3y ago
Energy cooperatives are another thing I've seen work well here in the US. A house I lived in got our electricity from a Touchstone Energy cooperative[1] and our rate was dirt cheap and they even mailed us a dividend check every year. I've even received a few checks from them after moving out of the area and no longer being a customer of theirs. They had great customer service too. They were significantly better in every way than the regional monopolies and municipal power companies I've dealt with. [1] https://www.touchstoneenergy.com https://www.touchstoneenergy.com
- Scoundreller 3y ago
  Sounds like my credit union. I call and someone picks up the phone pretty quickly and competently. I got in as a minor, so I paid $5 for my startup share. (Adults are $25). They’ve been giving me a $5 dividend share every year for a few decades. And charge me $0/month for a pretty full-service bank experience (not common at banks in Canada). They’re on a North American network of ATMs (Exchange & Accel) so I have pretty good coverage out of town, can even deposit cash/cheques into CDN partner ATMs. In a lot of smaller towns, you can’t bank on every big bank having a branch, but a good chance of a partner credit union.
  - willhslade 3y ago
    Which one?
    - Scoundreller 3y ago
      Would rather not specify, but one of the bigger ones in Southern Ontario.
cmurf 3y ago
I wonder if it could work for public education. Perhaps even in lieu of teachers unions. Much more narrowly, I wonder if it could work for certified flight instructors. Most CFIs are young, know little about business, marketing, tax compliance. And as a consequence are often exploited by employers who misclassify them as independent contractors only to pay them less, without benefits, and still direct their schedules, coerce them into noncompetes. A co-op would help protect their interests while raising standards, in a cost efficient way.
- dredmorbius 3y ago
  One of the challenges of a co-op school is that people tend to be "in the market" only whilst they have school-aged children, roughly ages 5 to 18. In much the same way that student involvement in higher education tends to focus strongly on the few years such students are actively being educated, which means that faculty, staff, and corporate influence in higher educational institutions tends to overwhelm student power. That said, yes there are co-op schools, with the Co-Op School in Brooklyn, NY, being prominent: <https://thecoopschool.org/ https://thecoopschool.org/>
- Kalium 3y ago
  > I wonder if it could work for public education. Perhaps even in lieu of teachers unions. In a very real sense, public schools are already customer-owned cooperatives governed by a set of trustees elected by the customer-owners. That said, once you have a school owned by the teachers it's no longer a public school. Public schools are funded by and governed by the public. A cooperative school owned by worker-owners is by definition not a public school.
  - matthewgard1 3y ago
    between the microschool and ESA movements going on right now, there will likely be many publicly-funded & worker-owned schools popping up over the next few years (amongst other much stranger hybrids). In many jurisdictions, a teacher co-op can already obtain a charter to have an "open to the public, funded by the public, and accountable to the public" charter school. If we're going to be pedantic I think that would fit your funded+governed definition. owned+operatred might be closer to what you are gesturing at though, or perhaps local democratic oversight? Regardless, the old public/parochial types of school categorization is not nearly nuanced enough to be particularly useful for where things are already, let alone soon headed.
Quarrel 3y ago
Quite a few construction companies too.
- xeromal 3y ago
  Seems to happen once the founder retires. My little brother's tile laying business is going to distribute ownership to the employees based on years + skill once the founder retires. They're already highly paid and treated well (they even have a 401k match which is surprising for a little 30 employee construction company). I think it's the way to go unless you have heirs that you want to run the company.
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    That sounds different than a co-op. The interesting and tricky part about a co-op is navigating entry and exit.
    - xeromal 3y ago
      Isn't a coop just an employee owned company?
      - s1artibartfast 3y ago
        Worker co-ops are employee-owned companies, but not all employee owned companies are co-ops. The point that I was highlighting was that it comes down to the Articles of Incorporation and how ownership is managed on an ongoing basis. What happens when someone retires or you hire someone new. If I were to retire and simply give my company to my 10 employees, Nothing would stop them from hiring new employees and not sharing ownership, leaving the company and keeping ownership, or selling their ownership to a third party.
        xeromal 3y ago
        I appreciate the extra information and that's exactly what I was looking for with my question. Makes total sense.
dredmorbius 3y ago
Quite, and encouraged by the USDA, see e.g., <https://www.usda.gov/topics/rural/co-ops-key-part-fabric-rural-america https://www.usda.gov/topics/rural/co-ops-key-part-fabric-rur...>. Producer co-ops generally are at least somewhat prevalent. Two notable former examples are Visa and Mastercard (they've since reverted to publicly-traded corporations, in the aughts). Both were originally formed as co-operative ventures among member banks, effectively a producer co-op. I've looked into worker co-ops previously, and noted that most examples seem to have relatively simple organisational needs, with typical sectors being food-service (restaurants and cafes), publishers, acting troupes, and if memory serves, a political party. Mondragon is notable for being an industrial manufacturing company. There are also worker-owned (though not necessarily co-operative) businesses, such as Bob's Red Mill (milling and cereal products). Consumer co-ops saw popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, but have largely faded from view. A niche they had occupied, "natural food store" is now dominated by Amazon through its Whole Foods subsidiary, though there are some independent co-ops still extant, often in quite unexpected locations. Three Rivers Market in Knoxville, TN, comes to mind. Credit Unions are another often overlooked case of co-ops --- both in terms of being neglected over commercial banks and not being recognised as co-operative businesses. The Nonprofit Quartery ran a recent article on recent trends in co-ops in 2022: <https://nonprofitquarterly.org/where-are-new-co-ops-emerging-the-changing-map-of-co-op-development/ https://nonprofitquarterly.org/where-are-new-co-ops-emerging...> News of a 2015 list of the top 100 US co-ops: <https://www.thenews.coop/list-top-100-co-ops-usa-released/ https://www.thenews.coop/list-top-100-co-ops-usa-released/> And the 2023 listing: <https://impact.ncb.coop/hubfs/Co-op%20100%202023%20Report%20-%20ADA.pdf https://impact.ncb.coop/hubfs/Co-op%20100%202023%20Report%20...> (PDF) Breakout: - Ag: 47 firms, $187.6 billion (59%) - Finance: 17 firms, $39.1 billion (12%) - Grocery: 8 firms, $33.1 billion (10%) - Energy: 22 firms, $26.8 billion (8%) - Hardware: 3 firms, $18.6 billion (6%) - Other: 3 firms, $13.4 billion (4%)
- com2kid 3y ago
  > Consumer co-ops saw popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, but have largely faded from view. A niche they had occupied, "natural food store" is now dominated by Amazon through its Whole Foods subsidiary, though there are some independent co-ops still extant, You missed a chance to mention PCC Community Markets, the USA's largest grocery store co-op, who are also located in Seattle! (And just like Amazon, PCC was recently in a union labor dispute!)
dllthomas 3y ago
Yes, but note that those are typically neither worker co-ops (like Cheese Board or the components of Mondragon) nor consumer co-ops (like REI or a grocery co-op), but a cooperative association of businesses that are themselves typically very much not co-ops.
vkou 3y ago
Customer co-ops are nothing like employee co-ops. REI is a customer co-op, and in the past few years, hasn't exactly been a model employer.
- eatonphil 3y ago
  That's not what I'm taking about. https://www.agweb.com/news/business/technology/almost-half-largest-100-cooperatives-are-focused-agriculture https://www.agweb.com/news/business/technology/almost-half-l...
- dllthomas 3y ago
  > Customer co-ops are nothing like employee co-ops. And agricultural co-ops are neither.
Qworg 3y ago
Morning Star is an example that takes it even further - there are no bosses and all pay is peer based. They do about $1B a year and have 10% of the tomato ingredient market.
- kyle_grove 3y ago
  I lived in Woodland for a time and I really wish I had heard about them back then so I could arrange a plant tour.

Co-ops in the US seems to be particularly popular in agriculture.

nextos 3y ago

Galois.com, pretty famous in the software correctness area, is kinda a co-op right, as it is employee owned?

nyssos 3y ago
Not exactly. Galois employees are beneficiaries of the ESOP trust that owns the shares, rather than direct owners as in a prototypical cooperative.
- nextos 3y ago
  Sure, my understanding was that Galois is not exactly a co-op. Why this structure? Is it more advantageous in the US?
  - s1artibartfast 3y ago
    One of the main challenges for co-ops is navigating the entry and exit. If you had Direct employee ownership, you have to buy in when you start and sell your stock back when you leave. A trust with the employees as beneficiaries solves a lot of these problems. It also prevents the co-op members from taking the company public for a huge payday.
- HideousKojima 3y ago
  I'm pretty sure that's more or less the same structure used by WinCo as opposed to direct ownership

_mlbt 3y ago

Energy cooperatives are another thing I've seen work well here in the US. A house I lived in got our electricity from a Touchstone Energy cooperative[1] and our rate was dirt cheap and they even mailed us a dividend check every year. I've even received a few checks from them after moving out of the area and no longer being a customer of theirs. They had great customer service too. They were significantly better in every way than the regional monopolies and municipal power companies I've dealt with. [1] https://www.touchstoneenergy.com https://www.touchstoneenergy.com

Scoundreller 3y ago
Sounds like my credit union. I call and someone picks up the phone pretty quickly and competently. I got in as a minor, so I paid $5 for my startup share. (Adults are $25). They’ve been giving me a $5 dividend share every year for a few decades. And charge me $0/month for a pretty full-service bank experience (not common at banks in Canada). They’re on a North American network of ATMs (Exchange & Accel) so I have pretty good coverage out of town, can even deposit cash/cheques into CDN partner ATMs. In a lot of smaller towns, you can’t bank on every big bank having a branch, but a good chance of a partner credit union.
- willhslade 3y ago
  Which one?
  - Scoundreller 3y ago
    Would rather not specify, but one of the bigger ones in Southern Ontario.

cmurf 3y ago

I wonder if it could work for public education. Perhaps even in lieu of teachers unions. Much more narrowly, I wonder if it could work for certified flight instructors. Most CFIs are young, know little about business, marketing, tax compliance. And as a consequence are often exploited by employers who misclassify them as independent contractors only to pay them less, without benefits, and still direct their schedules, coerce them into noncompetes. A co-op would help protect their interests while raising standards, in a cost efficient way.

dredmorbius 3y ago
One of the challenges of a co-op school is that people tend to be "in the market" only whilst they have school-aged children, roughly ages 5 to 18. In much the same way that student involvement in higher education tends to focus strongly on the few years such students are actively being educated, which means that faculty, staff, and corporate influence in higher educational institutions tends to overwhelm student power. That said, yes there are co-op schools, with the Co-Op School in Brooklyn, NY, being prominent: <https://thecoopschool.org/ https://thecoopschool.org/>
Kalium 3y ago
> I wonder if it could work for public education. Perhaps even in lieu of teachers unions. In a very real sense, public schools are already customer-owned cooperatives governed by a set of trustees elected by the customer-owners. That said, once you have a school owned by the teachers it's no longer a public school. Public schools are funded by and governed by the public. A cooperative school owned by worker-owners is by definition not a public school.
- matthewgard1 3y ago
  between the microschool and ESA movements going on right now, there will likely be many publicly-funded & worker-owned schools popping up over the next few years (amongst other much stranger hybrids). In many jurisdictions, a teacher co-op can already obtain a charter to have an "open to the public, funded by the public, and accountable to the public" charter school. If we're going to be pedantic I think that would fit your funded+governed definition. owned+operatred might be closer to what you are gesturing at though, or perhaps local democratic oversight? Regardless, the old public/parochial types of school categorization is not nearly nuanced enough to be particularly useful for where things are already, let alone soon headed.

Quarrel 3y ago

Quite a few construction companies too.

xeromal 3y ago
Seems to happen once the founder retires. My little brother's tile laying business is going to distribute ownership to the employees based on years + skill once the founder retires. They're already highly paid and treated well (they even have a 401k match which is surprising for a little 30 employee construction company). I think it's the way to go unless you have heirs that you want to run the company.
- s1artibartfast 3y ago
  That sounds different than a co-op. The interesting and tricky part about a co-op is navigating entry and exit.
  - xeromal 3y ago
    Isn't a coop just an employee owned company?
    - s1artibartfast 3y ago
      Worker co-ops are employee-owned companies, but not all employee owned companies are co-ops. The point that I was highlighting was that it comes down to the Articles of Incorporation and how ownership is managed on an ongoing basis. What happens when someone retires or you hire someone new. If I were to retire and simply give my company to my 10 employees, Nothing would stop them from hiring new employees and not sharing ownership, leaving the company and keeping ownership, or selling their ownership to a third party.
      - xeromal 3y ago
        I appreciate the extra information and that's exactly what I was looking for with my question. Makes total sense.

dredmorbius 3y ago

Quite, and encouraged by the USDA, see e.g., <https://www.usda.gov/topics/rural/co-ops-key-part-fabric-rural-america https://www.usda.gov/topics/rural/co-ops-key-part-fabric-rur...>. Producer co-ops generally are at least somewhat prevalent. Two notable former examples are Visa and Mastercard (they've since reverted to publicly-traded corporations, in the aughts). Both were originally formed as co-operative ventures among member banks, effectively a producer co-op. I've looked into worker co-ops previously, and noted that most examples seem to have relatively simple organisational needs, with typical sectors being food-service (restaurants and cafes), publishers, acting troupes, and if memory serves, a political party. Mondragon is notable for being an industrial manufacturing company. There are also worker-owned (though not necessarily co-operative) businesses, such as Bob's Red Mill (milling and cereal products). Consumer co-ops saw popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, but have largely faded from view. A niche they had occupied, "natural food store" is now dominated by Amazon through its Whole Foods subsidiary, though there are some independent co-ops still extant, often in quite unexpected locations. Three Rivers Market in Knoxville, TN, comes to mind. Credit Unions are another often overlooked case of co-ops --- both in terms of being neglected over commercial banks and not being recognised as co-operative businesses. The Nonprofit Quartery ran a recent article on recent trends in co-ops in 2022: <https://nonprofitquarterly.org/where-are-new-co-ops-emerging-the-changing-map-of-co-op-development/ https://nonprofitquarterly.org/where-are-new-co-ops-emerging...> News of a 2015 list of the top 100 US co-ops: <https://www.thenews.coop/list-top-100-co-ops-usa-released/ https://www.thenews.coop/list-top-100-co-ops-usa-released/> And the 2023 listing: <https://impact.ncb.coop/hubfs/Co-op%20100%202023%20Report%20-%20ADA.pdf https://impact.ncb.coop/hubfs/Co-op%20100%202023%20Report%20...> (PDF) Breakout: - Ag: 47 firms, $187.6 billion (59%) - Finance: 17 firms, $39.1 billion (12%) - Grocery: 8 firms, $33.1 billion (10%) - Energy: 22 firms, $26.8 billion (8%) - Hardware: 3 firms, $18.6 billion (6%) - Other: 3 firms, $13.4 billion (4%)

com2kid 3y ago
> Consumer co-ops saw popularity in the 1960s and 1970s, but have largely faded from view. A niche they had occupied, "natural food store" is now dominated by Amazon through its Whole Foods subsidiary, though there are some independent co-ops still extant, You missed a chance to mention PCC Community Markets, the USA's largest grocery store co-op, who are also located in Seattle! (And just like Amazon, PCC was recently in a union labor dispute!)

dllthomas 3y ago

Yes, but note that those are typically neither worker co-ops (like Cheese Board or the components of Mondragon) nor consumer co-ops (like REI or a grocery co-op), but a cooperative association of businesses that are themselves typically very much not co-ops.

vkou 3y ago

Customer co-ops are nothing like employee co-ops. REI is a customer co-op, and in the past few years, hasn't exactly been a model employer.

eatonphil 3y ago
That's not what I'm taking about. https://www.agweb.com/news/business/technology/almost-half-largest-100-cooperatives-are-focused-agriculture https://www.agweb.com/news/business/technology/almost-half-l...
dllthomas 3y ago
> Customer co-ops are nothing like employee co-ops. And agricultural co-ops are neither.

Qworg 3y ago

Morning Star is an example that takes it even further - there are no bosses and all pay is peer based. They do about $1B a year and have 10% of the tomato ingredient market.

kyle_grove 3y ago
I lived in Woodland for a time and I really wish I had heard about them back then so I could arrange a plant tour.