faq

about collectives, co-ops and union

 

what is a co-op?

A co-op is a cooperative, democratic enterprise, owned and operated by its workers.

what's the difference between a co-op and a collective?

The short answer is that a collective is just one form a co-op may take.  A co-op may be constituted along any of a fairly familiar range of structures: straight hierarchy; a management team and a labor force; democratic or participatory management or, as in our case, a collective. The collective structure  is characterized by consensus decision-making; we do not have separate management or labor teams. We all do more or less the same job (see below for details) and share administrative, managerial, customer service and production responsibilities and so we run the business on the basis of our shared experience and expertise.

who's the manager in a collective?

A collective doesn’t really have a ‘boss’ — it runs counter to the collective philosophy. In some collectives, there may be a member whose task it is to act as office manager, another who does bookkeeping, another who purchases inventory...each of which in a traditional business might be regarded as a managerial position but, in a collective, these tasks are usually distributed among numerous members, based on skill and inclination and in such a way as to avoid a power imbalance.

how does anything get done if there's no boss?

Don’t you find that you pretty much already know your own job?
Most people, when they go to work, have a pretty good idea what needs to be done and how to proceed without being told. The day-to-day stuff is easy because we are all experienced and know our jobs. Each collective has its own approach, but when making decisions that affect the business, consensus is always key. For major decisions, like services to offer, pricing, major equipment purchases, we involve all the members. Yes, we may defer to the recommendations of individual members with special expertise, or committees tasked with researching the question, but we have equal say in determining the outcome.

how do you decide what to pay yourselves -- benefits and such?

We’re the owners as well as the workers; while this presents sometimes competing instincts, our decisions are ultimately based on what we’d like, what's fair, and what's good and reasonable for the business. One of the incentives to be responsible in this area is the year-end distribution of profit shares; if spending has been high, we have little to distribute at year’s end. If investment in the business has been too low, profits will diminish over time. It helps that over half our members have 9 years or more in the collective -- we have a long view.

how does the business management end of things get done? (Who pays the bills?)

Again, each collective will approach this in their own way. In our case, in addition to our usual daily work, each of us takes on administrative tasks on the basis of skill or inclination. At one time, each administrative task could be performed by a single individual. These days, most require the work of a committee. We break down the administrative areas as follows: Accounts payable, accounts receivable, financial, supply ordering, paper ordering, marketing/promotion, donations, accounts development, payroll/vacation, sales tax, benefits administration, machine maintenance & repair, new equipment & services research, health & safety, aesthetics and physical plant. At certain times of the year we add copyright clearance.

if you guys are "the Management", why do you need to belong to the union?

We don’t need to...we're members out of principle. Before there was a Collective Copies, there was an evil corporate chain; the UE was instrumental in helping the workers there to organize and fight for fair wages and working conditions. Those workers eventually founded Collective Copies. While we would love to see the day when most businesses are owned by their workers, for today, the vast majority of businesses are not. Unionization is still the best protection of a worker’s rights and safety. So, we pay our dues and are happy to be our local’s “virtual members”.

how does hiring (and firing) work?

There’s no special trick to getting hired at a collective. When we hire, we naturally look for the usual qualifications (related work experience) but we’re also looking for the qualities we’ll need in an owner -- intelligence, initiative, imagination, and a good fit with the personality and culture of the collective itself.
A new hire begins with a period of apprenticeship. During this time, as a non-member, s/he may not vote, but as a worker, does earn a share of the profits. After successfully completing the apprenticeship, the new hire is offered membership.
Our job security is pretty high -- In keeping with our statement of purpose, firing is regulated by a system of checks and balances, formal reprimands and a probationary period -- no one member has the power to unilaterally dismiss another.

don't you have to buy-in to get hired?

Yes, this is a common and critical feature of co-ops; after all, we're hiring owners rather than employees and a buy-in ensures a degree of commitment. There is, however, a wide range of opinions and practices with regard to the size of the buy-in amount. Our choice has been to keep the buy-in very low; When an apprentice is offered membership, s/he is expected to buy in for a whopping $250... and it comes out of her/his paycheck 5 bucks at a time (it's refunded when a member leaves the collective). This way, the collective only has to worry about hiring the best people -- not just the ‘best-people-who-happen-to-have-the-money-to-invest’ -- and no qualified applicant gets sent away solely because of a financial barrier.

so what happens if you leave the collective -- do you get to keep your shares?

Nope. We’re worker-owned, which means only those actively working here can be owners and we all know this when we sign on. A departing member is reimbursed the buy-in amount and is paid her/his usual share of the profits for the part of the year s/he worked.