Co-op ends the divi

[alanjjohnstone]

The CPGB take on co-ops here.http://www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/988/co-op-scandal-labour-is-the-real-target "….The cooperative movement as a whole has become thoroughly bureaucratised and, with the partial exception of its marginally left-of-centre political wing, with its almost exclusive focus on promoting mutuals, depoliticised. The relationship with Labour is cosy, and no longer has much connection with the original attempt to serve the needs of workers. But in a sense this is a reflection of the low level of politics in the labour movement generally. Marxists, of course, support the formation of workers’ cooperatives. While not being able to escape the law of value and the dictates of capitalist accumulation, in their mode of operation they can point to the sort of society we want to create, as well as providing a buffer against the hardships constantly imposed on workers. Thanks to capitalism’s continued erosion of national borders and the global division of labour, we can easily imagine these on a European scale – a development, like EU-wide trade unions, which would be a factor in realising a very different world order, of international solidarity and democratic planning. But in its present form, the UK’s largest mutual is not much of a threat to the rule of capital…."Andi have never read such a stalwart defence of the Labour Party"…the bourgeoisie, even now, does not quite trust the Labour Party, and would rather it ceased to exist, or were at least relegated to a position of impotence. This would emphatically not be good news for the left. For many, Labour still represents some sort of independent representation of workers. Its reliance on a working class, and left-leaning voter base, is evidenced by Ed Miliband’s quiet dumping of the New Labour project and fractional moves to the left. Despite all the recent attacks by the right, Labour is still the most likely port of call for the millions outraged by austerity, not any of the ‘Labour mark two’ projects being hawked around. Genuine Marxists must engage in order to highlight the contradictions of Labour and build a pole within it – not hold their noses for the sake of ‘revolutionary purity’…"The eventual and inevitable route of the new Left [Unity] Party ?

[Anonymous]

Co-op are still very popular in the Caribbean region,( Cuba, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic and Jamaica )  They were initiated by Salesian fathers, freemasons,  and workers union, and at the very beginning they looked  very combative, and some of their founders went to jails, but they have been swollen by big banks, and governments are promoting them, which indicates that they are not a threat to capitalism. Co-op have been widely spread in Venezuela and Bolivia and the government are funding most of them

[alanjjohnstone]

To be expected –  "the Co-operative Group is cutting or terminating donations to charities and organisations, some of which are now facing closure." "The Co-op board has also been presented with a plan to reduce its elected members from 15 to seven, with four non-executives being brought in, including the chief executive of the Co-op Group, Euan Sutherland. The move would change the power structure of the board at the expense of the democratically elected members."http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/dec/07/cooperative-group-slashes-funding-charities-tory

[alanjjohnstone]

The Independent promotes co-ops and has furnished some stats …500 UK co-ops and 10 billion turnover.http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/workers-cooperatives-one-for-all-all-for-one-9047590.htmlSuma a wholesaler of veggie food is the biggest with 140 workers. Made 1 million profit on a 34 million turnover and gave themselves a 5% pay rise and almost 5000 bonus .  "We have a triple bottom line – that's people, planet and profit" – (tempted to make a pun on the 3 pees) Not bad conditions though, 27,000 a year  plus profit linked bonus, 7 weeks annual vacation, unlimited overtime, final salary pension"The reason we have survived, compared with other co-operatives in the 1970s and 1980s, is because we make a profit and pay a decent wage. Small co-ops can be like small businesses, where you have people working 80 or 90-hour weeks, killing themselves and paying themselves very little. We decided that wasn't the way to go." They cornered their little niche market and seemed to have made a success…600 applying for a few vacancies…but i detected a bit of nepotism too in the recruiting… Still it doesn't alter our understanding that co-ops if generalised changes very little. 

[alanjjohnstone]

Another call for alternative capitalism by Richard Wolff http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/20991-worker-coops-and-left-strategy i added a comment and another called DrKihn had something worthwhile to say.    

[alanjjohnstone]

Coincidental, the current issue of Libertarian Communism has as its theme co-ops.http://www.stephenshenfield.net/pdf/lib_com/Lib_Com_25.pdfA couple of the articles seem intent on the justifying co-ops by stating they are examples that show people are capable of organising the work-process democratically. Using a word from Cde O Neil's vocabulary, i found this rather snotty and perhaps it reveals rather more about the actual work experience of the writers. From personal experience and from reading others in the field of the psychology of work , workers invarably develop their own informal ways of working that is constantly under attack from management. They adapt techniques to make it easier and quicker to achieve'job and finish'. they frequently administer the overtime rota and often the allocation of duties. We don't need told that we are capable of self-organising. I won't bother explaining the experience of centuries of trade unionism, mutual aid societies, social clubs etc run by 'humble' workers for centuries. This what gets me so often…the self righteous 'we re-invent the wheel' attitude. As another article should have  touched on but didn't  , the democratic organisation by workers is pre-capitalist when peasants and serfs had control of the commons to make the democratic decisions on usage by open general assemblies when fairs brought these workers together.We don't need to prove anything to anybody but ourselves and do workers co-ops actually do that? Rant over

[ALB]

That's why, the last time this came up at the end of the 1980s, our 1989 Conference passed the following resolution:

Quote:

This Conference reaffirms the Party's position on co-operatives as set out, for instance, in the chapter on "The Co-operative Movement" in the 1942 edition of Questions of the Day, that is:"In the minds of many workers the Co-operative movement is regarded as being in some way linked up with socialism. When the co-operators take up this attitude they claim in justification that Robert Owen, the co-operative pioneer, was actively concerned for some part of his life with possible means of escape from the capitalist system (…)Robert Owen's solution was that small groups of workers should try to establish self-supporting 'villages of industry', in which there would be no employer, no master. They would constitute, as it were, little oases in the desert of capitalism, owning the 'land and means of production common'. He anticipated that the movement would grown until finally the workers would have achieved their emancipation (…)The Co-operative Movement cannot solve the basic economic problems of the workers as a whole, or even of the co- operative societies' own members. Its success is merely the success of an essentially capitalist undertakings (…)Co-operation cannot emancipate the working class. Only Socialism will do that. The workers cannot escape from the effects of capitalism by retiring into Owen's 'villages of industry'. They must obtain for society as a whole the ownership of the means of production and distribution, which are the property of the capitalist class. For this they must organise to control the machinery of government. Once possessed of power they can then reorganise society on a socialist basis of common ownership. Owen's original aims can only be achieved by socialist methods."

 

[ALB]

alanjjohnstone wrote:

Coincidental, the current issue of Libertarian Communism has as its theme co-ops.

Just got round to reading this and, actually, apart from one rather long-winded facing-both-ways article, the section on co-operatives and their limitations within capitalism is not bad.Very revealing is the article reprinted from the Economist in 2009 showing how workers in  the much-touted Mondragon co-op in Spain not only exploited themselves but other workers (twice as many) too who are not members of the co-operative, as the Israeli kibbutzim also ended doing:http://www.economist.com/node/13381546I see that the group's managers used the same pretext for paying themselves more as the emerging nomenklatura did in the early days of the old USSR: that non-party experts were getting paid more than them.

[alanjjohnstone]

http://truth-out.org/news/item/22000-a-call-to-develop-a-worker-cooperative-sector-in-new-york-city-how-the-city-can-create-jobs-and-address-inequality-at-its-rootsAnother "radical" call for co-ops. " "If worker cooperatives are so great, why aren't there more of them?" Panelists discussed four necessary components for growing the worker cooperative economy: increasing technical and legal expertise available to start-up co-ops; better access to capital to start and grow businesses; a legal framework that encourages co-op development; and the development of a culture of support for democratic workplaces." Why not be an entrpeneur and make a business out of "mentoring" co-ops? "Omar Freilla, founder of Green Worker Cooperative, stated that there is a need for more professional co-op developers"  But in the end the conference calls for the capitalist state to create and finance co-ops. 

[alanjjohnstone]

More on the Co-ops demise. Putting its farms up for sale and looking for offers on its its pharmacies. http://www.scotsman.com/business/retail/co-op-looks-to-sell-farms-ahead-of-2bn-loss-1-3321436

[ALB]

As a member of the Co-op (for the divi) I filled in the online consulation they asked (I said don't give money to Labour Party, improve the terms and conditions of employees, and drop the "ethical" stuff). I have just got a reply from the Chief Execitive (I suppose everybody who filled in the questionnaire will have) in which he states:

Quote:

We have also put in place a business plan which we intend will restore us to longer-term sustainable profitability over time

Apparently this involves selling off some of its assets that it's had for years. The Co-op is now of course in the hands of US vulture capitalists. To tell the truth I feel a bit sad that all the efforts put in by workers over the years to built up the Co-op as an attempted alternative to normal capitalist enterprises should come to nothing, even though we told them so. Hopefully people will learn the lesson that you can't outcompete ordinary capitalist businesses and not try this all over again, as some are urging.

[alanjjohnstone]

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-26525590The lingering drawn out death of the co-op continues. In his resignation letter Mr Sutherland said the governance structure of Co-op limited the reforms he wanted to implement."Until the group adopts professional and commercial governance it will be impossible to implement what my team and I believe are the necessary changes and reforms to renew the Group and give it a relevant and sustainable future." John Thanassoulis, professor of financial economics at Warwick Business School, told the BBC that Mr Sutherland's resignation underlined a "clash of cultures" about the way forward for Co-op Group."This is a comment on how viable the Co-operative Group's business model is – can it survive or does it not work?," he said.

[ALB]

From today's Times:

Quote:

Andre Spicer, Professor of Organisational Behaviour at City University's Cass Business School, said that Mr Sutherland's resignation was the result of a stand-off between "democracy and managerialism". He said: "Mr Sutherland wanted to introduce typical managerial reforms such as restructuring, selling off parts of the firm's businesses and streamlining governance procedures. Traditionalists in the group want to preserve the values of democratic decision-making and the slow and unwieldy processes this entails. It is difficult to see how you can reconcile these two very different visions."

In other words, can a capitalist enterprise succeed in making profits while being run democratically? I wonder what lessons Peter Tatchell will draw from this as one of the "baby step" reforms he advocated in his recent debate against us was to introduce democracy into the boardroom.

[Brian]

ALB wrote:

From today's Times:

Quote:

Andre Spicer, Professor of Organisational Behaviour at City University's Cass Business School, said that Mr Sutherland's resignation was the result of a stand-off between "democracy and managerialism". He said: "Mr Sutherland wanted to introduce typical managerial reforms such as restructuring, selling off parts of the firm's businesses and streamlining governance procedures. Traditionalists in the group want to preserve the values of democratic decision-making and the slow and unwieldy processes this entails. It is difficult to see how you can reconcile these two very different visions."

In other words, can a capitalist enterprise succeed in making profits while being run democratically? I wonder what lessons Peter Tatchell will draw from this as one of the "baby step" reforms he advocated in his recent debate against us was to introduce democracy into the boadroom.

It depends on whether the enterprise is in the social not for profit sector, or in the commercial for profit sector.  For instance a housing association is mainly concerned with ensuring all its costs are covered by the returns on rent – which is another term for profit – and is not directly driven by commercial considerations of the market – other than the usual risks of welfare reform or higher interest rates.  You'll find that all registered housing associations have tenants represented on their boards with periodical elections to these positions and they are accountable to the tenants.However, that said all social and afforable housing is a liability and not an asset.  So eventually when depreciation catches up housing associations will be confronted with making decisions which are driven by the commercial considerations of the market that will put them in conflict with their structure of governance.This is exactly what has occurred with the Cooperative Society when they invested in enterprises which were clearly liabilities and also depreciating in value.  They came unstuck when they failed to turn this investment around and are now faced with their democratic aspirations going down the plughole.  

[J Surman]

First – I accept that the UK and the US are two nations divided by a common language! Now, having just read the latest on this thread I then found this article (link below) which I found very interesting. What it does reveal for me is that whatever capitalism throws at people there are plenty of folk out there wanting, above all else, to be part of democratically run communities, to be organising in the interests of people, to be 'in charge' of their own lives and futures. And it's not something new but long established and you might say in this day and age, against all odds. People are out there seeking what socialism will give them – the means to do their own organising etc,

Quote:

I’ve been wondering about that, too. And in fact one of the things I found is that there’s more of a connection between black cooperatives and civil rights than there is between black cooperatives and capitalism. I think there’re a couple of reasons. In the U.S. co-ops are often linked with hippies, communism or socialism and back in the 1950s, just after the McCarthy era, black leaders knew they couldn’t talk about either and be listened to. So there was an official avoidance of the subject of co-ops. Second, there was a lot of resistance from capitalists. White unions in the late 1800s were being sabotaged and certainly blacks got the same resistance as well because co-ops gave them more economic control and power. So by necessity, even if you were involved in co-ops it had to be as clandestine as possible. And third, people, including many blacks, just wouldn’t accept civil rights if it included language about economic rights.

-more-http://www.popularresistance.org/how-co-ops-helped-produce-foot-soldiers-for-civil-rights/

[Author]

Posts