This is a common and legitimate question often posed to members of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW). Worker cooperatives are excellent examples of the power of workers themselves to direct an economy. They are models of the control of workers over their own livelihoods and conditions. There are no bosses in a cooperative, at least not institutionalized (bosses). The traditional conflict between bosses and workers is not evident within cooperatives, and so the role of a traditional union-to help the workers fight the bosses for better wages and conditions-does not make sense within the setting of a cooperative.
So, what use, then, is a union to a cooperative? Well, there are a couple of reasons. First of all, not all of us are so fortunate as to work in a cooperative-most of the workers on this planet are still forced to work under at least one boss, and usually many more. If our goal is worker control in every workplace, we have a long way to go, and we must be organized to get there. Unlike many unions, this is also the goal of the IWW. While many unions call for a fair day's wage for a fair day's work, the IWW goes farther to demand the abolition of the wage system and control of the means of production by the workers themselves. The IWW as an organization has a great deal of experience with organizing workers to take control of their livelihoods-not just members of cooperatives, but all workers.
As long as there is a class of people in this world who owe their livelihoods to other people who do all the work while they make the "big" decisions, the rest of us will continue to have less than we deserve. As long as there are bosses who profit by skimming off the proceeds of workers' labor, the rest of us will live in relative poverty. As long as there is an employing class who can grow rich by building enormous economies of scale on the backs of their workers, the rest of us will never earn a living wage. Privately owned companies can make plenty of money while still charging artificially low prices only by exploiting their workers. As long as these workers remain exploited, the prevailing prices in the economy will never support a decent wage for anyone, whether they work in a cooperative or not. The only way in this prevailing system for a worker to make a decent living is either to demand more from the boss class (by seizing the means of production or demanding better wages and conditions) or to steal from other workers.
An interesting example of the latter is the much-vaunted Mondragon Cooperatives in Spain. When Spain opened its economic borders to the rest of Europe, the new globalized economy would no longer support the wages of the Mondragon Cooperative members. Rather than organizing with workers in other parts of the economy to force exploitative companies to charge prices that reflect the true costs of supporting workers, they chose instead to contract with those same exploitative companies in other parts of the world to save their own salaries at the expense of others'. This is the sort of thing that joining and organizing with the IWW would guard against...
The IWW is the only union in the United States which recognizes cooperatives as a legitimate organizational form for workers, let alone encourages that form of organization. The IWW is the direct action union. This means that the IWW does not advocate begging employers for better wages and conditions, it does not go to legislators to beg for more labor-friendly laws, it advocates the use of the might of an organized working class to take what it is entitled to: that is, all that it creates. This sort of initiative and self-starting attitude is at thecore of the cooperative movement.
Another criticism of unionism is that it tends to constrict the activities of its membership. This is not true with the IWW. Rank and file control is always paramount, as is the autonomy of all constituent bodies of the IWW. There is no micromanaging of any of the concerns of local and industrial bodies. The only mandate of the IWW towards local branches and job shops is that they adhere to the constitution (set up primarily to provide a consistent framework, reliable lines of communication and to ensure rank and file democratic control) and the principles of the union as set forth in the Preamble to the Constitution. The only regulations of the IWW are those necessary for the building and maintenance of an organized, effective and egalitarian working class.
As regards cooperatives specifically, there are only three very broad regulations in the IWW Constitution: first, that no member of a cooperative who has exclusive power to hire and fire may be a member of the IWW; second, that the cooperative may not be exploitative; and third, that the cooperative may not undermine wages. These regulations are meant to keep members of the IWW who are involved in collectives and cooperatives allied and aligned with a genuine working class movement.
The last two regulations could use some clarification. Many cooperatives, unfortunately, are exploitative to their own workers because of a lack of access to capital-access generally enjoyed by the employing class. Cooperatives will lower their wages to nothing to keep the project going. These are not the cooperatives targeted by the regulation, however. It applies more to cooperatives such as the ones in Mondragon which contract with privately held companies who exploit their workers.
The third regulation, prohibiting the undermining of wages, applies to cooperatives who exact charges for products and services well below the industry standard and affect the prevailing costs thereby. If a cooperative has a strong enough foothold in any particular economy and its prices are significantly lower than the industry standard, other company's executives will likewise have to lower prices to stay in business, and you can be sure that the cost for lower prices will be born by the workers, not the employers. Such price wars can only be justified by cooperatives who organize with other workers in their industry (e.g., through the IWW) to make sure that their wages are not adversely affected. Likewise, cooperatives which pay their workers low wages will tend to lower the prevailing wages of all workers in that industry. Once again, this applies primarily to large cooperatives which actually have a strong enough influence in their industry to affect prevailing wages and prices.
Basically, all regulations in the Constitution of the IWW stem from a wariness--exhibited throughout history by all lovers of freedom--of the concentration of power into the hands of a few. The Constitution is meant to distribute power as evenly and equitably as is practical, and to make sure that access to that power is enjoyed by all workers, not just the members of the Union.
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