By Liam K. Lynch
In a city becoming increasingly unaffordable and out of touch with the needs of city workers, and an urban society based in consumption, hyper-gentrification, luxury, commercial and tourist real estate, the need for economic alternatives and an offensive strategy to combat unsustainable practices looms large.
A study published earlier this year by the Center for Economic Opportunity revealed that almost half of New York City’s population is living near poverty. Moreover, City Comptroller Scott Stringer reported that over a period of 12 years between 2000-2012, rents increased by over 67%, while real median income dropped by almost 5%. With these numbers playing a real role in the lives of many here in the city, something needs to be done.
Worker-owned cooperatives may be an answer.
As the dominant historical narrative goes, workers have formed unions as one of the many ways to confront the ills of capitalism. Unions sought to solve the tension between labor and capital and challenged the culture of individualism, a cornerstone of our current economy.
Worker cooperatives have largely been missing from this narrative. From the Rochdale Pioneers in 1844, often considered the founders of the current cooperative model, to the worker-owned recovered factories in Argentina to the success of Mondragon in the Basque region of Spain to the Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives in Western Massachusetts, cooperatives have been a powerful response to economic crisis. And yet, the cooperative movement’s rich and complicated history is routinely omitted from labor’s collective memory. But this may be changing.
Recently, NYC has taken a notice. This year marked the 1st annual NYC Worker Cooperative Conference hosted by the New York City Network of Worker Cooperatives (NYC NOWC), where many gathered to listen to panelists speak on worker cooperatives or engage in group discussion and networking. That same month, June 2014, the New York City Council pledged 1.2 million for the development of worker-owned cooperatives in the city, an historic move, marking the largest governmental support of the cooperative sector as of yet. That very same day, the City Council recognized June 21st as “NYC Worker Cooperative Day.” According to a report released earlier this year by the Federation of Protestant Welfare Agencies, there are 23 worker cooperatives in the NYC cooperative community. This may seem like a rather small group, but with the new NYC cooperative development fund, there are plans to jumpstart over 20 more cooperatives in the coming year as well as further develop the existing cooperatives.
With this cooperative support popping up on the urban landscape, the question remains: what’s so great about them anyway? The International Cooperative Alliance, a nonprofit association established over 100 years ago to energize and unite the cooperative movement, asserts that cooperatives are entrenched in values and principles that transform a co-op into more than a traditional business enterprise. These values include self-help, self-responsibility, democracy, equality, equity, and solidarity. At first glance, it’s too good to be true. Enterprises that are guided by core values instead of a profit margin? But let’s take a closer look.
Co-ops are democratically operated. This means that all workers are considered members, each with one vote. Unlike in many traditional businesses, there are no outside investors. While there may be nonprofit organizations providing funds for co-op start-ups, these incubators do not have a voice in the business as they might with traditional business structures. At every level, the workers control their own enterprise. They get to decide whether they would like to elect a board of directors, a management team, etc. They determine their own structure.
With workers deciding the course of action, there may be straightforward financial benefits to cooperatives. According to the FPWA report, within Si Se Puede, a Brooklyn-based worker-owned cooperative in the housecleaning industry, workers get as much as $25 an hour, tripling their previous wages. In a worker-owned co-op, there are usually no middlemen taking away income from workers. Moreover, studies show that there is a much smaller gap between the highest paid and lowest paid workers within a co-op — perhaps reflecting a belief to value work equally and the one-member one-vote structure.
Perhaps what is so enticing about worker cooperatives is that they are built by us and for us, profit no longer taking precedent. According to John Restakis, author of Humanizing the Economy and Executive Director of BC Cooperative Association, the fundamental and transformative difference between cooperatives and capitalist enterprises is that one is built on fulfilling human need through communal effort while the other is a means to fulfilling the want and need of some at the expense of the majority. Cooperatives open up an opportunity for NYC workers to take control of their work, their livelihoods and thus their communities. They provide an opportunity to explore what it really means to collectively and democratically attain a sustainable and fulfilling work life. In other words, with co-ops, workers call the shots.
The substantial role of cooperatives has yet to be fully realized in NYC; in fact we are far from it. But amidst all the talk about the labor movement and its continual decline, I see the cooperative movement expanding its horizons and believe that the cooperative movement is and always has been intrinsically intertwined with labor. As the cooperative community unfolds its potential, I ask: is this the future direction of the labor movement?
Liam Lynch is a former Union Semester intern and a current student in the Labor Studies MA program. He works full-time at DC 37 Health and Safety Department.
