Steelworkers Consider Worker-Run Co-ops
Dan Clore
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
http://labornotes.org/blogs/2009/11/steelworkers-consider-worker-run-coops
Steelworkers Consider Worker-run Coops
By Andrew McLeod
Created Nov 13 2009 - 12:51pm
The Steelworkers announced a plan October 30 [1] to create worker
co-operatives in North America, which overturn the traditional workplace
division between workers and bosses by having worker-owners make most
decisions on a �one worker, one vote� basis.
The coops will be created in partnership with the Mondragon
co-operatives [2] in Spain, a 60-year-old network of worker-run businesses.
Days after the announcement, coop developers Andrew McLeod and Lisa
Stolarski sat down with Rob Witherall, who is coordinating the new
program for the Steelworkers. Here�s an edited version of their
conversation, excerpted from the original on McLeod�s blog, Cooperate
and No One Gets Hurt [3].
Q: How did this agreement unfold?
A: We had a lot of interest in worker ownership in the past. We�ve done
a lot of work with Employee Stock Ownership Plans. We thought of doing
some type of coops, both here and in Canada. Our ESOP experience soured
us. By the time we were offered the opportunity to buy the shares the
company was so financially strapped that it had a very small chance of
success. Those that did succeed were usually bought out by some other
investor, and even earning those shares didn�t actually translate to any
accountability to the workers or worker input. It really didn�t change
the nature of work in a lot of cases. (see more about that here [4]).
Mondragon has an interest in a North American presence and we have
interest in developing a union worker-owner coop model that works,
because we are in situations where that�s going to be more beneficial in
the long run for our existing members, or a way to build our membership.
Q: How did the partnership develop?
A: Ultimately our agreement was pretty basic and broad. We figured it
was better to start with something that was broad and fairly simple and
figure out where to go from there, rather than try to figure out all the
details at first.
I think the figures I saw said there are about 14,000 people outside of
Spain that work for Mondragon, but only about 10 percent are also
owners. That concerns them because they want to grow more of the
ownership piece. [When] they have gone in and taken over a place and set
up without finding out what the culture and ideas are from the
beginning, they have a hard time getting people to buy into being an
owner. Because [the attitude is] �I�m a worker, I show up, I get paid,
and that�s all I have to do.�
You want to keep the spirit of the workers having a vested interest.
They understand that�s not something you can carbon copy�you have to
make some adjustments. So that�s why, for them, it made sense to work
with us because we have a lot of those relationships and can help steer
them.
Our members are not making minimum wage and going from one job to
another every six months. These are folks that are making, hopefully, a
living wage at least and are more vested in what they are doing than the
population in general. That�s important to [Mondragon]. They are looking
for somebody that is really going to be committed to the work that they
are doing and that plans on staying for the rest of their working lives,
essentially. They create their own insurance for lifetime jobs.
Q: Do you have any projects lined up?
A: Not at the moment. There are a lot of ideas. Their estimate is that
it takes about eight months from when they start talking to people to
changing over to a coop.
Q: Do you have any financing strategy that you�ve been talking about to
convert workplaces to coops?
A: This is going to be the tricky part. Going back to the family
business conversion example, people become members when they put in
something like $21,000. Normally that�s just a piece of the overall pie,
but a substantial piece from the perspective of the workers. But you
still have to figure out the rest of it.
Normally, they may have a coop interested in investing. They may have an
investment fund outside the bank. For us, we have friends in finance, so
maybe there is a way to structure some of that, while still having the
worker-owner goal. The National Cooperative Bank in D.C. is interested
in getting behind some of this.
Q: Is the Mondragon bank going to invest in this?
A: I don�t know whether it would be the bank or one of the coops. They
have been pretty firm that they don�t want to be a venture partner. It
goes back to (a) a matter of having the money to do that and (b) they
don�t want to essentially just be a business owner and employ workers
any more than they already are. There may be some role for them to play,
but I think it would be fairly small.
Q: They are not planning to work with Steelworkers to create coops to be
subsidiaries of their coops�they want to create a whole Mondragon-type
system in America?
A: Right. They are willing to help us implement their model, a
worker-ownership model that is affiliated with them.
The key part for us is whatever we do first, we want it to be successful
even if it�s five people. You want to be sure that it works right and is
successful. Then you figure out how to do the next one.
Q: Are other unions interested in this?
A: Generally the answer is no.
Q: Do you have plans for educating your members and the public?
A: Generally [we] pull all of our allies and friends together and figure
out where the common ground is. The analogy that we were drawing on is
the start-up of the blue-green alliance. Nobody really got it at first,
right? And so, as it took formation and there was a lot of interest
scattered about, it was a way to kind of channel those folks together,
and it developed some momentum. Now there are about 7 or 8 million
people who are affiliated with it.
--
Dan Clore
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