Put Democracy to Work
Democracy: The fragile and beleaguered heart of modern British society. The legitimacy of the state rests perilously atop its broad shoulders. We insist on it, we fight for it, we shout, scream, protest and campaign when our democratic rights are under threat. It is recognised, in whatever form it takes, as being the lifeblood of a politically healthy nation.
Then we go to work, cross the threshold into the fluorescent lit office, and forget every single thing about it. Why? If democracy is something we believe in so deeply that we start revolutions and wars for it, surely, it should be something we practice at work as we do in other parts of our life.
One way democracy in the workplace is being put into practice in a meaningful way is through worker cooperatives. The concept is simple yet powerful. Workers own the business and share in its financial success based on their contribution of labour. Workers have representation on the board of directors and vote for those same directors on the basis of one worker, one vote. Beyond these two basic characteristics, the form, structure and working practices vary widely depending on the people involved, the location and the type of business, as you would expect for any traditional business.
The first time I heard about worker cooperatives, I struggled to imagine what they could look like. I pictured a languid, snail’s pace of a business with endless meetings, brought on by continual consensus-based decision making and a work culture rife with inefficiencies. This very lack of imagination is the great tragedy of our current economic system. The hyper-individualist, dog-eat-dog, winner-takes-all neoliberal project has damaged our capacity to even conceive of a different alternative.
“You don’t have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.” — Martin Luther King, Jr.
So, before I am charged with the crime of being Utopian (which used to be a good thing, by the way), let’s talk about a real example of a worker cooperative here in the UK. The Edinburgh Bicycle Cooperative is the longest running worker cooperative in Scotland, founded in 1977. It has several shops across the UK, around 150 people working who become full co-op members (one share, one vote) after one year’s employment. Cycling Weekly awarded them the title of Best Bike Shop in Britain. They run wheel-building classes in-store and cycle maintenance classes in a local secondary school.
Another, Suma is the largest independent wholefood wholesaler in the UK. In 2015, they generated £40 million in revenue and it has around 160 employee-owners. An elected management committee of six members oversee the progress of the democratically agreed business plan. Workers typically take on a number of roles to keep challenging themselves and developing a broader skill set. The inclusive working culture is best described by one of the employee-owners, Laura, ““If you’ve got an idea it’s listened to. I wouldn’t want to work anywhere else now.” — I’m sure the daily free, freshly cooked lunch doesn’t hurt either.
If you’re worried about scalability, the most often-touted example of a worker cooperative is Mondragon, a conglomerate of over 250 cooperatives that make up one of the largest companies in Spain. It is not a panacea by any means — Mondragon still needs contract workers and there is still hierarchy of some form. But the core principles underlying good business practice still apply. The spirit of entrepreneurship is still vital and, in this case, it not only remains but flourishes under the renewed vigour of democratic ownership.
Worker cooperatives bring their own challenges by the very nature of the way they’re organised — which varies hugely from one cooperative to the next. Worker-owned is not the same as worker-managed in some cases. There is still much to be worked out: the lack of knowledge, for example, and a poor support system in terms of legal and financial advice.
You can find a roaring plethora of examples of, not only worker co-ops, but co-ops of all kinds throughout the UK online.
In the next post (2 of 3), I’ll look at the performance of cooperatives and what they can tell us about ourselves in times of crisis.
You can get in touch with me at jawad.anjum@onpurpose.london
