One of my co(-op)-conspirators, John Burnett, has an idea that people who work in collectives for a long time should occasionally get a little refresher course on why we are sitting through all of these damn meetings and such. He calls it a "slavery sabbatical." While I'm not sure I agree that co-ops should make a policy of routinely exiling members into the cold world of wage slavery, I recently learned a lot from my first straight jobs since I joined the co-op movement four years ago. What started as a simple attempt to save some money turned into quite a learning experience.
To make things really interesting, I decided to take the worst job I could find; to hang out at gas stations in the hot sun, selling people auto service plans--commission only. It was boring, degrading, mostly solitary work, except for a few mechanics that were good company when I was at their station. But it was a world that I had never experienced before, and I'm glad I got a chance to study the isolation of this sort of work. It provided a stark contrast with the benefits of cooperation that we may take for granted. In any case, this job was made bearable by its short duration; just a (long) few weeks, while I waited for my really interesting job to begin:
This next job was at a new Borders bookstore, which is just about the antithesis of what I am trying to create in the world; it is a rapidly growing chain that engages in many Orwellian practices, from surveillance to Doublespeak. I realize that my taking this job will be controversial, since Borders is the target of a boycott by the Industrial Workers of the World in response to the firing of a union organizer in Philadelphia. I decided not to attempt to organize the Sacramento store, since I was a short term employee and feel that little solidarity is built by activists who come to a workplace solely to agitate for a union, then leave once it is in place. Besides, Borders isn't a bad job, and the majority of workers that I encountered are happy there.
But I do not intend to apologize for Borders, as the company provides a vivid reminder of the importance of our struggle for a new society based on liberty and trust, and has forced me to examine what it is like to submit to a workplace that mirrors the increasing control and decreasing privacy and respect found in society at large. Employees have only token input and are required to sign an agreement that they may be fired at will. Policy is made by people that the workers generally never meet. It is possible to rise quickly through the hierarchy, but what a hierarchy it is!
At Borders I not only made contact with like-minded people, but also learned about the chain store juggernauts that are dramatically changing our society, as well as what one looks like from the inside. Borders' proclaimed mission to be "not a chain, but a collection of fine stores, each an integral part of its community" rings a bit hollow; it is Big Business in every sense of the word. But I was surprised by how pleasant it can be; management is quite responsive and willing to please--at least at this new store where there hasn't been time for antagonism to develop (and I do not predict that it will or will not develop). And at times the air of security, excitement and success of an expanding company was so seductive that I found myself being lulled into accepting the overall package, warts and all. That is something that I had never expected.
Its growth rate is one of Borders' most striking traits. While the current rate of forty new stores a year (an increase of 25% in an industry that is experiencing little if any growth in total sales) is excessive, it is this process of relentless expansion that brings me to the point of this article: The system whereby new Borders stores are opened resembles my original vision for a collective of organizers.
Of course, there are some major differences, and I want to make clear that what I have in mind is not at all a centralized, mechanical process like the one at Borders. But I am impressed at their system: There is a position within the company called "trainer," which is someone who has a home store, but spends weeks at a time working on new stores. During the process of opening our store, we had eight or so trainers helping us with everything from shelving to learning the intricacies of the cash register system. The trainers are specialists in opening stores, and they got us up and running in under three weeks.
While the trainers occasionally gave insight on how something was handled at their home store, we were mostly told the official way of doing things. This homogenous, authoritarian side of the training process was a major departure from my vision, but I have long pondered this sort of system. Borders' cookie-cutter technique is not appropriate to the weird world of workplace democracy, but it is a starting point, and brings up some questions:
1) How broad can a system of co-op trainers be? How useful is someone from a printing collective to a new bakery? My hunch is that the organizers could have their own specialties-- legal, decision making, outreach, personnel, baking, etc.--but of course a baker will be most useful to a bakery.
2) Who pays? Unlike Borders we have no sugarmama or daddy at the corporate headquarters. While there are fledgling efforts underway in the San Francisco Bay Area to create a second level cooperative association, and individual co-ops have created autonomous spin-off enterprises, we are a long way from a paid staff that can travel to advise co-ops in formation. I suggest that pledges of support (perhaps $50) be lined up, and sent whenever there is someone ready to go to where a collective is forming. The money raised from pledges could go toward a travel stipend and spending money, while the host collective could pitch in to provide housing and food. At first this would probably be infrequent enough that a voluntary contribution could be tolerated without getting into the larger, sticky issues of committing to an organization. We also could use nonprofit status, to go after more sources of money.
3) Who should be involved? Obviously, it depends who is interested. But how to decide what is a worthwhile project to fund? If a new co-op isn't a formal workers co-op, some may not want to help out. Perhaps vegetarians, for example, may object to starting a collective butcher shop. There may also be differing opinions on how purely democratic a co-op must be. It is difficult to conceive of anything short of a full decision making process (whether representative or a direct vote) that could deal with an individual situation. Perhaps we shouldn't worry about hypothetical situations, but one of the historically common mistakes made by co-ops is to figure things out as they go.
4) How long should the trainer's visit be? Three weeks is (barely) enough for an efficient system with vast amounts of capital and extensive support systems to tell a new store how to work. But this obviously doesn't describe the conditions that we can expect. We also need to ask how frequently a new co op can be developed.
5) Will this tie into a permanent structure? In the long run, this idea will be most easily sustained by a stable structure that includes a system of dues and a paid staff. But setting up such a structure is a huge task even on a regional level, and we would need a high level of interest and commitment to pull it off on a large scale.
6) Can this idea be combined with a parallel project, such as a worker-exchange program? It seems that in exchange for sending a worker to help the co-op in formation, a collective could host and train someone from the new co-op. This trainee could help cover the shifts of the temporarily absent member and perhaps the two could exchange living situations. Such an exchange could also take place between two established co-ops, and would serve as a valuable educational tool.
These questions are intended to spur some dialogue about what sort of concrete efforts can be made to strengthen and expand the co-op movement. While I am suggesting one model, there are many other ideas (a school, conferences etc.) that would be equally useful. Please write in with ideas of your own. It would be especially helpful if we could come up with a way to eventually decide how to make a decision (and exactly who "we" are).
I hope that my research in the belly of the beast will bear fruit someday. Although it is an unlikely source of guidance, we have much to learn from the system we hope to dismantle.
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