I have pieced together an assortment of views on the subjects of size and the creation of structures within collectives. My goal in doing so is to present a range of opinions that have existed over the years. I wove these diverse sources into a summary of the questions encountered in defining a co-op.
Definition of terms is essential to any discussion, so here are some broad clarifications:
Cooperative/co-op: An organization that is owned eqally by those who utilize its services. Each member receives one vote, regardless of investment.
Worker-cooperative: A cooperative which is owned and controlled by those who work there.
Worker collective: A form of cooperative with usually not more than twenty members, in which important decisions are made by the entire group, rather than by elected officials. Since the collective (and its various mutant forms) is the subject of this issue, a more extensive explanation is necessary. This can only be a general definition, as no two collectives are exactly alike.
Collectives tend to hold in very high regard the ability of the individual to participate in the decisions made by the group that affect him/her. To a varying degree, all important policy decisions are made in an assembly of all workers that occurs at least once a month. While responsibilities may be delegated to committees and individuals, the group retains the right to question the actions of such delegates. Occasionally this manifests as everyone being involved in every decision, which can lead to frustration and endless meetings.
At the other extreme, a collective may be a loose-knit group in which each member mainly does as she or he likes and very few issues are seen as justifying collective discussion. What these two forms share is the idea that power ultimately resides in the group, and that no person or group should be allowed control over the others.
In the mission statement of the Network of Bay Area Worker Collectives (NoBAWC), that group provides another definition: "Workers' self-management exists when the workers directly control the means of production, the resources of the organization and the work process. The unequal boss-worker relationship is replaced by an egalitarian one where each worker has as much potential decision-making power as the next, and where ultimate authority lies with the workers as a whole."
Getting back to the questions asked in NBN#1: First, can there be non-owner employees? I have seen a variety of approaches that venture into the gray areas. The first set of these include the use of non-members to supplement the collective during peak seasonal times or in the case of members being out sick, and the regular use of non-members as a pool out of which to hire new members. As long as there is an equitable division of labor and power this is not necessarily equivalent to the boss/employee relationship--especially if the non-members are being actively considered for membership or if they are former members being offered the opportunity to stay in contact with the collective and help out when it is convenient for them. However, there is definitely the risk creating a heirarchy.
In some cases, non-member employees may be necessary for the functioning of the business. At Slug Books, the collectively-run textbook store where I am presently working, we need at least twenty workers during the beginning of each quarter. But within a few weeks there are only enough hours for six part time workers. We have not yet figured out how to avoid a two-tier system of core members and short-term rush workers.
However, necessity does not equal justification, and steps must be taken to avoid straying too far from the collective ideal. Some co-ops have lost sight of this to the point that a minority makes decisions while the workers may not even realize that there is a democratic structure at the top of the heirarchy. Another example of straying too far from one's roots may be found in the much-praised Mondragon Cooperative Group in Spain, which has recently begun buying operations in other parts of the world (including the United States) and running them with little or no input from the workers and no plans to ever turn them into cooperatives. It may be difficult to set a precise maximum percentage of non-member workers or to dictate a single protocol to be used under greatly varying circumstances; but at a certain point it becomes misleading to refer to these hybrids as cooperatives.
The second question I asked in the last issue was of what difference in pay and authority can exist among members. A common sentiment is that everyone should be paid alike, but few cooperatives are able to pay everyone a wage high enough to prevent those with advanced (and often expensive) training from being lured away to "straight" jobs. For a discussion of the issues surrounding pay we turn to the first article.
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