workers co-ops (new questions)

[Bud Fox]

What are your thoughts on mainstream cooperatives eg: the co-op or John Lewis in the UK? Are these better companies for workers or just the same as capitalist ones as they both operate in the capitalist economy? are there examples of better cooperatives than these?

I thought that maybe it is better for a worker to be an unproductive employee of a capitalist company than a co-op?

Thanks for replies to any part.

[Blake's Baby]

I spent a long time in the Co-op movement, 'the political wing of the Co-Op Stores' I later called it, convinced that I would be able to find traces of the old-style Rochdale Pioneer, workers' self-help, anarcho-socialist beginnings (maybe some actual Anarchists hiding somewhere).

I was sadly disabused of that notion and realised eventually that I was merely another cog in the capitalist machine and what's more contributing to the ideological hegemony of the Labour Party.

I started researching co-ops, and frankly, some of them are shitty employers; the Mondragon Co-Op group in Spain, for instance, has whole sections where work is done by people hired on normal contracts just like any other hire-em-fire-em business. The Co-Op Group in Britain (Co-operative Insurance, Co-operative Group Stores, the Co-op Bank) is actually prety bad at the whole workers' rights thing - the IWW was in a long-running dispute some years ago, and I'd be surprised if it's been resolved.

In the end, yes they are still capitalist, just self-managed capitalism. Unfortunatetly it sounds like it should be somehow an improvement but it isn't, statistics show that most co-ops (producer co-ops at least) survive better than 'normal' capitalist enterprises (I think the figures are something like 4/5 of normal companies fail in 5 years, only 1/5 of co-ops), but also that workers in co-ops are much more likely to work unpaid and for longer hours. In a new 'business' it's generally only the boss that's putting in 80 hour weeks and doing loads of unpaid shit (he's the one carrying the can when it goes under, he's looking after his investment); in co-ops everyone is carrying the can, so they all do it (often, not always). So self-managed exploitation means super-exploitation.

On the upside, do believe it was the federation of co-ops in Russia that was the first organisation to raise the slogan 'All Power to the Soviets'. Can't see that happening soon at John Lewis, however.

[RadioRaheem84]

Blake pretty much laid out the pros and cons of co-ops, but Rosa Luxembourg also lays them out as they were tried in the early twentieth century. Many capitalists tried to turn their enterprises to co-ops to appease the growing worker discontent.

It should be noted that many fascists were once syndicalists that broke away from the anarcho-syndicalists to establish a co-op system in which the State would act as harmony of interests between boss and worker. The Falange in Spain was heavily stooped in autogestion talk. There is also an anti-communist/socialist Peronist wing of the autogestion, recovered factories movement in Argentina. Point is that it's not a solution to capitalism.

[syndicat]

workers coops are merely a reform within capitalism. some are better or worse than others. on the positive side, sometimes workers can have more say in controlling their work. not always, but sometimes. again, this depends on the coop. even in the case of the Mondragon coops in Spain, where workers don't really have control -- they're controlled by a managerial & professional hierarchy, just like capitalist firms -- nonetheless, because the managers & professionals are local employees, and major decisions require okay of an employee assembly, they can prevent the firm from running away and closing down their jobs. so coops can be used as a local development strategy.

for example, the United Steelworkers Union recently signed a deal with Mondragon to help develop unionized coops in the USA. but these will have a conventional managerial hierarchy, just like Mondragon, so workers won't be in control. but because they will be employee-owned, the capital will be "captive" to the local community, which includes all the employees.

[AK]

Even if workers' co-ops were organised in such a way that there was no hierarchy, they would still be subject to the whims of the market. You can't have a democratically run economy without socialism - plain and simple.