Also a bad thing: the coop still needs a CEO… but now all the financial risk falls onto the workers, who are too busy… well, doing actual work… to attend board meetings or take part in power struggles and politicizing… leaving the coop in the hands of a few with very little stake in how it does in the future.
(source: I’ve seen a coop split from a business, they first got swindled out of ALL their capital by a crooked CEO and friends, because nobody else cared about checking the books… then refinanced by asking all workers to chip in from their savings… and shortly after, went down completely, leaving everyone without their investment, job, or savings)
but now all the financial risk falls onto the workers
Wasn’t financial risk on the workers already? It’s not shareholders who will be fired first, and it’s not workers who will keep their income.
to attend board meetings or take part in power struggles and politicizing…
Not like that don’t happen already, except only to tell workers how they don’t deserve being paid.
I’ve seen a coop split from a business, they first got swindled out of ALL their capital by a crooked CEO and friends, because nobody else cared about checking the books… then refinanced by asking all workers to chip in from their savings… and shortly after, went down completely, leaving everyone without their investment, job, or savings
With regular corporations it happens more often.
because nobody else cared about checking the books
Sadly “outside of politics” propaganda was too strong.
Wasn’t financial risk on the workers already? It’s not shareholders who will be fired first, and it’s not workers who will keep their income.
Nope:
Workers risk losing however much they’ve worked since their last paycheck (pro tip: never work month after month without getting paid)
Shareholders risk loosing ALL their investment when nobody wants to buy the shares (it’s a thing, shares go to $0 and you get jack shit)
Coop worker-shareholders… run BOTH risks at once!
Power struggles and politicizing at the board/shareholder level, are not to tell workers how much they’ll get paid (the whole board agrees that it’s "as little as possible), it’s to see who can kick whom harder in the nuts. Shareholders usually have shares in more than a single company at once, so they try to push the company policy towards benefitting their other companies instead of letting others push it to benefit theirs.
As a simple worker, you don’t need to worry about that; just work your 8-to-5, make sure to get paid (unionize, go to strike, by all means), then go home.
As a coop worker-shareholder, you need to worry about it all… but most workers are not prepared and don’t want anything to do with it, making them end up getting kicked in the nuts the hardest. Often right before losing their jobs.
With regular corporations, board members can focus full time on not getting kicked in the nuts, while trying to kick everyone else in the nuts; they don’t have some other 8-to-5 job to distract them.
Sadly “outside of politics” propaganda was too strong.
If only. There was also a “spend all money by year’s end so we don’t have to pay taxes on dividends” propaganda. Guess who got left without any dividends? That’s right, the worker-shareholders. And who got to decide how to spend all that money? The CEO.
Seriously, I’m all for the ideal of having everything be a coop, everyone to be equal and self-employed… but IRL, I’ve spent years warning people, a couple friendly lawyers kept warning people, even the notaries kept warning them… but there was just no way to get anyone to listen.
Except it’s worse than that. GM paid their CEO 22 million in 2021 which broken across the employees would equate to an extra $173-4 USD that year or $2-3 per week.
so, let’s fire the CEO and split his salary evenly. Let’s say Ford has 10k employees. And the CEO earns 365 of an average. Now, 365/10k=3.5%.
Alright, now everyone got a 3.5% raise and the company doesn’t have a CEO. Seems like a massive win! /s
Yeah cause the ceo is definitely the only higher up earning a disproportionate wage
Turning Ford into coop will do a lot of good things. Sadly, it won’t happen.
Also a bad thing: the coop still needs a CEO… but now all the financial risk falls onto the workers, who are too busy… well, doing actual work… to attend board meetings or take part in power struggles and politicizing… leaving the coop in the hands of a few with very little stake in how it does in the future.
(source: I’ve seen a coop split from a business, they first got swindled out of ALL their capital by a crooked CEO and friends, because nobody else cared about checking the books… then refinanced by asking all workers to chip in from their savings… and shortly after, went down completely, leaving everyone without their investment, job, or savings)
Wasn’t financial risk on the workers already? It’s not shareholders who will be fired first, and it’s not workers who will keep their income.
Not like that don’t happen already, except only to tell workers how they don’t deserve being paid.
With regular corporations it happens more often.
Sadly “outside of politics” propaganda was too strong.
Nope:
Power struggles and politicizing at the board/shareholder level, are not to tell workers how much they’ll get paid (the whole board agrees that it’s "as little as possible), it’s to see who can kick whom harder in the nuts. Shareholders usually have shares in more than a single company at once, so they try to push the company policy towards benefitting their other companies instead of letting others push it to benefit theirs.
As a simple worker, you don’t need to worry about that; just work your 8-to-5, make sure to get paid (unionize, go to strike, by all means), then go home.
As a coop worker-shareholder, you need to worry about it all… but most workers are not prepared and don’t want anything to do with it, making them end up getting kicked in the nuts the hardest. Often right before losing their jobs.
With regular corporations, board members can focus full time on not getting kicked in the nuts, while trying to kick everyone else in the nuts; they don’t have some other 8-to-5 job to distract them.
If only. There was also a “spend all money by year’s end so we don’t have to pay taxes on dividends” propaganda. Guess who got left without any dividends? That’s right, the worker-shareholders. And who got to decide how to spend all that money? The CEO.
Seriously, I’m all for the ideal of having everything be a coop, everyone to be equal and self-employed… but IRL, I’ve spent years warning people, a couple friendly lawyers kept warning people, even the notaries kept warning them… but there was just no way to get anyone to listen.
Huh. Informative and unfortunate.
Except it’s worse than that. GM paid their CEO 22 million in 2021 which broken across the employees would equate to an extra $173-4 USD that year or $2-3 per week.
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