Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's
Speaker 2: Chuck and Jerry's here too, and this is stuff you
Speaker 2: should know. And it turns out that this is the
Speaker 2: stuff you should know about worker cooperatives, but you might
Speaker 2: be more familiar with as co ops, not coops. That's
Speaker 2: why they put the hyphen in there, because it can
Speaker 2: get pretty confusing.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: In fact, I went back when I titled this episode
Speaker 3: for Jerry and added that hyphen because Jerry would say,
Speaker 3: what is this think about coops?
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, And I'm sure Aaron Cooper's like, oh, but
Speaker 2: don't get your hopes up, Aaron, We're not talking about you. Wait,
Speaker 2: we just did it. Spinally happened. So Chuck, just let
Speaker 2: me lay the scene here for a second. Okay, Because
Speaker 2: co ops, especially for those of us in the United States,
Speaker 2: they are like I can think of one, and that
Speaker 2: is in Atlanta, and it is called Sevenanda, and it
Speaker 2: is one of the few vegetarian grocery stores in the
Speaker 2: entire country. That's my experience with a co op, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Sevenonda legendary store.
Speaker 2: It is, and it's great. A great, great grocery store.
Speaker 2: So they're kind of like this almost like fringe thing,
Speaker 2: especially in the US, and you know basically everywhere they're
Speaker 2: not really mainstream. But there was a time where there
Speaker 2: are people who are like, this is the way to go,
Speaker 2: this is how industry should develop. And it all just
Speaker 2: like most things that have to do with labor and capital,
Speaker 2: stemmed from the industrial revolution and it was a path
Speaker 2: that people that we could have taken, and we so
Speaker 2: took the capitalist route that it's we don't even question
Speaker 2: the idea that people with money buy a mill and
Speaker 2: all the equipment, and they hire you and put you
Speaker 2: to work, and in return for your work, they give
Speaker 2: you a wage and they manage things and they say
Speaker 2: go do this, do that faster, stop doing that, and
Speaker 2: do this instead. And again we just don't even question
Speaker 2: it because it's so normal. But there's an alternative worker
Speaker 2: cooperatives that it's just a different way of doing things,
Speaker 2: and the idea that it could have been the way
Speaker 2: things win is really surprising and interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well you forgot the last part of that little descriptor,
Speaker 3: which is they get the money the profit from that
Speaker 3: said business because they're the owners.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's true. Yeah, and we don't really question that,
Speaker 2: although that's a little more easily questioned, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but you know that pushed co ops now in
Speaker 3: the United States to this fringe area where you might
Speaker 3: have a you know, you kind of look at them
Speaker 3: as or at least I do, as like these little
Speaker 3: hippie operations, sure like Sevenanda, like this little vegetarian grocery
Speaker 3: store that has been in little five Points since I mean,
Speaker 3: it's got to be since the seventies, don't.
Speaker 2: You think it sure seems that way.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Mean some of the stuff on the shelves looks like
Speaker 3: it's been there since the seventies.
Speaker 2: For sure. It's definitely got that well lived in feel
Speaker 2: for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's great, but that yeah, it's a fringe thing
Speaker 3: for the United States. And I guess we could go
Speaker 3: back in time a little bit and talk about where
Speaker 3: these were this idea was.
Speaker 1: Sort of born. And I know we've talked about Owenism before,
Speaker 1: haven't we.
Speaker 2: I don't know if we've talked about Owenism, but we've
Speaker 2: definitely talked about the Chartists. But I mean, we've talked
Speaker 2: about so many utopian societies from the nineteenth century who
Speaker 2: can keep track.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I guess you're right, or maybe I'm thinking of
Speaker 3: I don't know, one of those other ones. But yeah,
Speaker 3: this was a utopian sort of philosophy. Owenism named after
Speaker 3: a guy named Owen, Robert Owen. He was a Welsh
Speaker 3: mill owner and he had this vision that you were
Speaker 3: kind of talking about, like, hey, it's it's early on,
Speaker 3: it's in eighteen twenty five, and there's a way forward
Speaker 3: that could be great for everyone. He tried this out
Speaker 3: in New Harmony, Indiana, like I said, in eighteen twenty five,
Speaker 3: for the first time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it didn't really live very long. New Harmony, Indiana
Speaker 2: is still there. It's not a utopian society any long ago,
Speaker 2: though it looks like a nice town based on its website.
Speaker 2: But his whole idea was like what happens if everybody
Speaker 2: kind of takes care of everybody else in this again mill.
Speaker 2: I think he was a mill owner to where like
Speaker 2: your children are schooled and fed, and you have opportunities
Speaker 2: for education outside of your work, and he found that
Speaker 2: productivity goes through the roof in those situations. So that
Speaker 2: was it wasn't like this is the first worker cooperative. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he helped lay the groundwork for this, and he inspired
Speaker 2: a lot of other people through Owenism, both in the
Speaker 2: United States and the UK.
Speaker 1: Yeah, sure, sure. I don't know if they were using
Speaker 1: the S word back then.
Speaker 3: I don't know how much we're going to use the
Speaker 3: S word, but it's impossible to, I think, not use
Speaker 3: the word socialism at some point when talking about at
Speaker 3: least some of these early ideas, because they were very
Speaker 3: much sort of socialist ideas of let's take like you said,
Speaker 3: let's take care of everyone, let's have all boats rise
Speaker 3: and everyone chip in, sort of in a hippie commune
Speaker 3: kind of way.
Speaker 2: Initially, Yeah, and I was I was thinking about that.
Speaker 2: I read something that was basically like, this is socialism
Speaker 2: in its purest form. It's not like a planned central
Speaker 2: government or planned society. It's more just like, hey, let's
Speaker 2: all take care of each other, let's all contribute, let's
Speaker 2: all benefit. That's about the extent of it. And I
Speaker 2: was thinking about socialism too, the way that you just
Speaker 2: basically danced around it like we do in the United
Speaker 2: States here. If you're trying to explain something to somebody
Speaker 2: that has like socialist tinge to hers, socialist in nature.
Speaker 2: Look you can't, yeah, exactly, like you can't use that word.
Speaker 2: And it occurred to me that like it's just basically approached,
Speaker 2: like it's a brand. You got socialism, you got capitalism, right,
Speaker 2: and when you if you buy into socialism, it's like
Speaker 2: you're buying a kit, and here's your socialist society, right, Like,
Speaker 2: like you can't just kind of pick and choose what
Speaker 2: makes sense, and you don't have to go all socialism.
Speaker 2: You don't have to go all capitalism. You can take
Speaker 2: the best of everything and put it together if you
Speaker 2: want to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, here's your socialist get here's here's mediocre everything. Just
Speaker 3: open it up and enjoy your mediocre life with mediocre things,
Speaker 3: because nothing is awesome because capitalists aren't in charge of
Speaker 3: making things perfect or great. Right, all right, So we
Speaker 3: talked briefly about Robert Owen with this short lived sort
Speaker 3: of hippie commune and New Harmony, and you mentioned that
Speaker 3: that inspired people and at least uh, you know, overseas
Speaker 3: and you know in England and here in America, but
Speaker 3: their real cooperative. A lot of people talk about the
Speaker 3: Rochdale Pioneers, which is near Manchester, Roachdale is, and they
Speaker 3: were flannel makers.
Speaker 1: They wove flannel.
Speaker 3: It was a big seed of flannel manufacturing for like
Speaker 3: hundreds of years. And they started staging the workers there,
Speaker 3: started staging strikes kind of when industrialization hit, because you
Speaker 3: mentioned that the beginnings of co ops were kind of
Speaker 3: lockstep with the beginnings of the industrial revolution.
Speaker 2: Yes, for sure, because there was this idea that like, okay,
Speaker 2: you like, you don't have to submit yourself to wage labor.
Speaker 2: Your work is valuable. You should own your own work
Speaker 2: and lease it out as you see fit. That was
Speaker 2: kind of the way that they were thinking. And so
Speaker 2: the weavers ended up forming I think sixty of them
Speaker 2: got together and formed the Rochdale Friendly Cooperative Society. And
Speaker 2: I'm sure, just based on experience, we're mispronouncing. It's probably
Speaker 2: like Rideau right in the UK, but it's spelled Rochdal. Yeah.
Speaker 2: And it was a retail store, right. It was basically
Speaker 2: you could get flour and butter and all this stuff.
Speaker 2: And this is where the basis of cooperatives come from.
Speaker 2: This is the first co op store that existed in
Speaker 2: the world. And the whole idea was you got all
Speaker 2: these people who make this stuff coming together selling it,
Speaker 2: dividing the fruits of their labor up evenly, and then
Speaker 2: taking the profits and like reinvesting it and making this
Speaker 2: business better. But rather than one rich person, you have
Speaker 2: a bunch of non rich people who can conceivably come
Speaker 2: up with the same amount of money as a rich person.
Speaker 2: And if you do that, all of a sudden, you
Speaker 2: own the factory and it's just divided equally among all
Speaker 2: the people who put in for it and are working
Speaker 2: for it. That's where that's the basis of all co ops.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this one, the Friendly Cooperative Society didn't last long.
Speaker 3: That store was just a couple of years. I think
Speaker 3: it was eighteen thirty when it opened. And about fourteen
Speaker 3: years later they got together and they tried it again.
Speaker 3: There were some people from that original society. They got
Speaker 3: together with other people who were you know, unemployed or
Speaker 3: facing poverty or hungry. So some of those owenites and
Speaker 3: they said, hey, let's let's give this another go. And
Speaker 3: this time it was called the Ruschdale Society of Equitable Pioneers.
Speaker 1: And they had to And you'll see that.
Speaker 3: This is kind of a it's not always because all
Speaker 3: co ops, you know, operate in their own way, but
Speaker 3: they had to pay to be a part of it,
Speaker 3: so everybody chips in a little bit of money. In
Speaker 3: this case for the Society of Equable Pioneers, it was
Speaker 3: just one pound each. And they got it going and said, hey,
Speaker 3: we're going to do the kind of the same thing.
Speaker 3: We're going to have like a kind of like a
Speaker 3: general store basically, and we'll use the profits from that
Speaker 3: to build housing for people who are members of the
Speaker 3: co op, and we can buy up some land and
Speaker 3: if you're not, if you are a co op member
Speaker 3: and you're not working, you could like farm there and
Speaker 3: grow crops for everybody.
Speaker 1: And it was very much in that Owenite model.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so they went from just being a co op
Speaker 2: store to trying to get a whole utopian community formed,
Speaker 2: and again that didn't go very far. I don't know
Speaker 2: that there is any utopian community that's still around today.
Speaker 2: They don't seem to last very long. Maybe there's no
Speaker 2: such thing as utopia. Yeah, but that store model became
Speaker 2: like just what all co ops were based on after that,
Speaker 2: and in fact, the Rochdale Pioneers Cooperative store mushroomed into
Speaker 2: what's now called today the Cooperative Group, which is a
Speaker 2: multi billion pound operation. A bunch of different co ops
Speaker 2: and a bunch of different sectors that are all part
Speaker 2: of this larger co op. The Cooperative Group in the
Speaker 2: UK that it grew from the Rochdale Pioneers, not like
Speaker 2: inspired from it. I believe it actually grew from that, actually.
Speaker 3: I think so, yeah group, Yeah, yeah, And you know,
Speaker 3: you'll see that as a common thing too. Where the
Speaker 3: largest co ops in the world, and we'll talk about
Speaker 3: some later on in Spain and India are groups of
Speaker 3: co ops that have formed larger co ops because the
Speaker 3: whole idea is that you know, there's a lot more
Speaker 3: you can get done with a lot more people, obviously.
Speaker 2: Yeah, or a lot more companies. Like the different companies
Speaker 2: can stand in for different individual workers, you know, I
Speaker 2: think it's neat.
Speaker 3: So in the United States, it was really post Civil
Speaker 3: War when things started to boom, and in particular Black
Speaker 3: Americans after the Civil War were the ones who kind
Speaker 3: of got this idea going because they were obviously, you know,
Speaker 3: post Civil War, having a hard time with wide owned
Speaker 3: businesses being treated poorly obviously, and they're like, well, why
Speaker 3: don't we get our own thing going? And one of
Speaker 3: the places that one of the earlier ones started in
Speaker 3: Baltimore when black trade unionists, they were led by a
Speaker 3: guy named Isaac Myers, founded what was called the Colored
Speaker 3: Calkers Trade Union Society.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Calkers were the people who worked in shipyards that
Speaker 2: waterproof the ships, make sure they didn't leak, right, And
Speaker 2: it was traditionally a black dominated profession, but black people
Speaker 2: were starting to get edged out in shipyards. So this
Speaker 2: Colored Calkers Trade Union Society just decided to buy a
Speaker 2: shipyard themselves so that they could employ black calkers, and
Speaker 2: they did exactly that. They also bought railways and just
Speaker 2: started founding this huge, essentially cooperative empire of black workers
Speaker 2: and artisans. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think they're also the ones who coined the contractors
Speaker 3: term calk and paint will make it what it ain't.
Speaker 2: I've not heard that one.
Speaker 1: Have you never heard that?
Speaker 2: No? Did you make it up?
Speaker 1: Oh? No, no, No, that's really Yeah.
Speaker 3: There's two contractor terms that basically mean you're getting kind
Speaker 3: of shoddy work, right, calkin pain, I'll make it what
Speaker 3: it ain't. And my favorite one, which is I can't
Speaker 3: see it from my house.
Speaker 2: Oh that's an app for that one.
Speaker 1: That one really stings.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it especially when they're talking about your work.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2: Well at any rate, Yes, the Caukers did come up
Speaker 2: with that. I believe that's right. So your initial statement, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Things got going on a larger scale after that when
Speaker 3: farmers started banding together, and in this case, post Civil War,
Speaker 3: black farmers were excluded from the Southern Farmers Alliance and
Speaker 3: they formed the Colored Farmers National Alliance and Cooperative Society,
Speaker 3: which had a million members or more by eighteen ninety one.
Speaker 3: And this wasn't sort of a strict, you know, definition
Speaker 3: of a co op. It was more like, hey, we're
Speaker 3: all farmers, so let's all sort of just cooperate with
Speaker 3: one another and share information and you know, lift each
Speaker 3: other up.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And because they were dealing with the Jim Crow South,
Speaker 2: post Civil War South and all of that, they were
Speaker 2: basically faced with an option like just submit yourself to
Speaker 2: like really bad treatment, or figure out how to come together.
Speaker 2: You don't have to know about co ops throughout history
Speaker 2: to come up with your own co op. It's actually
Speaker 2: like a general idea that any group would stumble upon,
Speaker 2: typically when they're being mistreated or when they don't have
Speaker 2: the resources to improve their lives. They realize like, well,
Speaker 2: wait a minute, we're in the same boat. Let's just
Speaker 2: put our resources together and improve our lives that way together.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and this was like, this is spreading as a
Speaker 3: philosophy more so than like all these like concrete examples
Speaker 3: of like literal co ops that would come a little
Speaker 3: bit later. But one of those other sort of ideas
Speaker 3: that was spreading mixed in with this was something called
Speaker 3: labor republicanism, and that was just you know, aligning with
Speaker 3: this sort of the idea that hey, you know, if
Speaker 3: you want real freedom, then you need to be able
Speaker 3: to control your work and just be a wage laborer.
Speaker 2: Right, You own that work, That's what I was talking
Speaker 2: about earlier. You own that work, you lease it out
Speaker 2: as you see fit. You're not submitting yourself to wage slavery. Like,
Speaker 2: that's what that's all about. Apparently there's a debate going
Speaker 2: on still today between labor republicanism and just universal basic income,
Speaker 2: which one is actually the way to actual freedom from
Speaker 2: being dominated by some boss.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3: It's also tied into the rise of unions and unionism
Speaker 3: for sure, don't you think.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's the Knights of Labor, which was basically the
Speaker 2: first massive union in the United States that came close
Speaker 2: to a million members by the eighteen eighties. Their whole
Speaker 2: thing was essentially setting up worker cooperatives, like creating an
Speaker 2: economy in the United States based around co ops, collectives,
Speaker 2: things like labor republicanism. That's exactly what they were about.
Speaker 2: And they were pretty successful to an extent. I think
Speaker 2: we can see today that they weren't actually successful at all,
Speaker 2: and instead they were supplanted by a much more business
Speaker 2: friendly union, the American Federation of Labor, which became even
Speaker 2: more massive.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and that was less like hey, let's you know,
Speaker 3: get rid of these bosses and make a co op,
Speaker 3: and it was like, let's try and find a way
Speaker 3: to work with them, and you know, and true union
Speaker 3: style like get fair pay and all that kind of stuff,
Speaker 3: which is great, but just sort of strayed from that
Speaker 3: co op idea a little bit more. And I think
Speaker 3: in eighteen ninety five was when finally the International Cooperative
Speaker 3: Alliance was formed.
Speaker 1: Sure, and that was you know.
Speaker 3: These are this is like a worldwide organization, obviously international.
Speaker 2: Sure, what if they were just based in Topeka with
Speaker 2: none but they're shooting for the sky.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that'd be fun.
Speaker 2: You want to take a break, Yeah.
Speaker 3: We'll take a break and we'll talk a little bit
Speaker 3: sort of how these things work right after this.
Speaker 1: All right, we're back to talk.
Speaker 3: Who helped this is Libby, I think, and she called
Speaker 3: this section nuts and bolts because that's exactly what it is.
Speaker 2: Sure.
Speaker 3: These are all sort of listed under the Roachdale Principles
Speaker 3: of Cooperation, which the ICA, the International Cooperative Alliance, adopted
Speaker 3: in nineteen ninety five. And it's a series of bullet
Speaker 3: points basically of generally how co ops can work. But
Speaker 3: like I said, they're all they all have their own nuances.
Speaker 3: But the first one is probably true across all cases.
Speaker 3: You have a membership that is voluntary and anyone can
Speaker 3: join as long as they fit the bill, like you
Speaker 3: can't discriminate.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there are some slight differences among co ops that
Speaker 2: as these bullet points start to spread out, that one
Speaker 2: seems to be like that's the that's a common universality,
Speaker 2: you know. Yeah, there's also another one. They need to
Speaker 2: be run democratically with one vote per member.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 2: There's another way to do it that some co ops
Speaker 2: choose where the more shares you have, the more votes
Speaker 2: you have, so one share equals one vote rather than
Speaker 2: one worker equals one vote. So one worker can amass
Speaker 2: ten shares and they'll have ten votes opposed to the
Speaker 2: other workers who just have one share each for sure.
Speaker 3: And that capital that you have is also controlled democratically
Speaker 3: and should serve the organization's goals and not just you know,
Speaker 3: the CEO or whatever.
Speaker 2: Right, Like, if you're if your honeymakers, you wouldn't want
Speaker 2: to use your profits to invest in like an up
Speaker 2: and coming b extermination out of it? It makes sense. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you also want to be autonomous. I love this one too,
Speaker 2: Like it doesn't matter who you sign a contract with,
Speaker 2: whether it's a government contractor with another business, a corporate
Speaker 2: vulture who cares, there's nothing in that contract that can
Speaker 2: basically undermine any of this. The worker's democratic voice, the
Speaker 2: sharing of profits, being open to all, nothing can undermine that.
Speaker 2: And I love that one because they're autonomous. They're like,
Speaker 2: we don't need you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 3: Another thing that you have to do is you got
Speaker 3: to train up your folks, got to coach them up
Speaker 3: so they can all be contributors. And then you know,
Speaker 3: another part of that is just letting people know what's
Speaker 3: going on that you're you're not some weird fringe group.
Speaker 3: But educate the people on what sort of the benefits
Speaker 3: of cooperative.
Speaker 2: Work, right, and then they're like all co ops smell
Speaker 2: like this. Yeah, and then you want to work with
Speaker 2: other cooperatives. That's a big one. I mean supporting one
Speaker 2: another because it even in societies where they really support
Speaker 2: co ops there they still have the decks stacked against them.
Speaker 2: So the more they can rely on other co ops
Speaker 2: on each other, the better off each co op is.
Speaker 1: Going to be you know, yeah for sure. And they
Speaker 1: always give back to the community.
Speaker 3: It seems like, you know, that's part of getting the
Speaker 3: word out is doing like good work in the community.
Speaker 3: And so they so people see like, oh, this is
Speaker 3: that co op that's doing you know, the park cleanup
Speaker 3: or you know, any anything sort of like that.
Speaker 1: And here's the deal.
Speaker 3: You know, we said, there's a lot of different ways
Speaker 3: you can structure these not you know, if you see
Speaker 3: there's a co op, it doesn't mean every single person
Speaker 3: that's working there that day is a member owner because
Speaker 3: a lot of times you have to kind of prove
Speaker 3: you're in it for the long haul, like there's a
Speaker 3: probationary period. Sometimes you have to buy into it financially,
Speaker 3: but not always. And also sometimes you either you're either
Speaker 3: buying in financially and or being voted in by existing members.
Speaker 2: Yes, by Biff, that's right.
Speaker 3: And sort of the final thing is how it works
Speaker 3: the structure at the top, because you know, even though
Speaker 3: it's a co op, you still need to have kind
Speaker 3: of people near the top in charge of the higher
Speaker 3: you know, upper management sort of decisions, especially if they're
Speaker 3: you know, larger co ops, because you know, you can
Speaker 3: have some smaller co ops that are a little more
Speaker 3: like you know, probably like Sevenonda, where you have workers
Speaker 3: that are voting directly on just about everything that.
Speaker 1: Happens with a co op.
Speaker 3: But the bigger you get, the more you might see
Speaker 3: a structure where those workers aren't voting on everything directly,
Speaker 3: but they're electing some of their own to sort of
Speaker 3: act as the executive branch or maybe who like you know,
Speaker 3: go out and hire a leadership staff or form a
Speaker 3: board or something like that. But they're voting on the
Speaker 3: people that do that. And you know, ideally, and I
Speaker 3: think usually in most cases they're they're bringing in the
Speaker 3: people that are going to want to serve the co op. Well,
Speaker 3: it's not like all of a sudden they're like, oh no,
Speaker 3: we got this board in there that's now taking over
Speaker 3: and changing it to a more capitalist structure.
Speaker 2: Right, We're going to bring in a young hot shot
Speaker 2: fresh out of a private equity firm to take over.
Speaker 1: Not a good idea.
Speaker 2: And again it's like some co ops face easier goes
Speaker 2: of it, and depending on the country you're in, and
Speaker 2: depending even on the state, it can be easier than others.
Speaker 2: If you're in the Pacific Northwest, you can turn to
Speaker 2: the Northwest Cooperative Development Center and Cooperative Fund of the Northeast.
Speaker 2: It just keeps going and they'll essentially tell you how
Speaker 2: to convert your business into a co op, which you
Speaker 2: can do if you have an existing business, how to
Speaker 2: start a co op from scratch, all the ins and outs,
Speaker 2: that kind of thing. And again, this is highly necessary
Speaker 2: to have somebody who has expertise and understanding on how
Speaker 2: to navigate co op operations in the United States or
Speaker 2: in other countries too.
Speaker 1: Co op ops.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so you know, there are definitely some efforts in
Speaker 3: the United States to assist people that have these ideas,
Speaker 3: it's just not as robust as like in other countries.
Speaker 3: And speaking of other countries, I know we talked about
Speaker 3: Spain early on, and that is the home of the
Speaker 3: largest and most prominent co op in the world, basically,
Speaker 3: which is the I'm gonna say Mandragon.
Speaker 2: That's what I would say too, not.
Speaker 1: The Mandragon, even though that's way cooler.
Speaker 2: So it is, and that's how I want to put
Speaker 2: it too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but the Mandragon Corporation is a collective. Again, this
Speaker 3: is one of those it's a bunch of co ops
Speaker 3: that got together to make a larger co op in
Speaker 3: the Basque region of Spain. And it's named for the
Speaker 3: town of Mandragon.
Speaker 2: Yes, And it was founded by Jose Maria Rismonda Rieta.
Speaker 2: That is quite a name, nice, believe me. I know
Speaker 2: he is a priest or. He was a priest who
Speaker 2: was actually started out as a journalist writing against the
Speaker 2: fascists against the Franco regime in the Spanish Civil War
Speaker 2: in the thirties. After the war, he became a priest
Speaker 2: and he was assigned to the town of mandra Gone
Speaker 2: in nineteen forty one and he said, hey, mandra Gone,
Speaker 2: we are going to go capital s word all the
Speaker 2: way in this town.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he you know, doing good stuff, like hey, let's
Speaker 3: create a medical clinic, let's get some housing going for
Speaker 3: these people. What about technical schools in education to like
Speaker 3: lift everybody up. And in nineteen fifty six, there were
Speaker 3: five workers who had been part of this, you know,
Speaker 3: planned with him, and they created a cooperative company to
Speaker 3: make kerosene heaters. That's how they got their start, the
Speaker 3: biggest one in the world. Started out making kerosene heaters initially.
Speaker 2: Yeah, for sure, and then it just started to grow
Speaker 2: from there. They created their own pension and healthcare systems. Essentially,
Speaker 2: every time the town faced a problem, they needed something
Speaker 2: like funding for a new co op and they couldn't
Speaker 2: get it from the outside world. They just did it themselves.
Speaker 2: So each new problem, each new obstacle, saw a co
Speaker 2: op founded to address it, and it just it just
Speaker 2: kept growing and growing from there, and eventually it became
Speaker 2: the Mandragon Corporation, which is enormous. It employs something like
Speaker 2: eighty thousand people today and it's made up of again,
Speaker 2: like you said, ninety five different co ops coming together
Speaker 2: as a co op themselves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and how it works for them.
Speaker 3: They are one of the ones that has one of
Speaker 3: those probationary periods before you can become a member. And
Speaker 3: once you've done that, you are a shareholder. You are
Speaker 3: a worker and a shareholder in that company, and you're
Speaker 3: voting on you know, all the stuff it takes to
Speaker 3: run a corporation, business strategies, what kind of money people make.
Speaker 3: Everyone gets an equal vote. They do have a governing council,
Speaker 3: and that one because you know, it's a big, unwheeled
Speaker 3: so they need they need sort of a higher up council.
Speaker 3: There's a managing director and they sort of act as
Speaker 3: like a CEO. But this is super awesome and kind
Speaker 3: of one of the keys is the highest paid person there.
Speaker 3: They have like a wage cap basically for what you
Speaker 3: would call a CEO yea, and the highest paid wage
Speaker 3: earner can be paid no more than six times the
Speaker 3: salary of the lowest paid. If you look at a
Speaker 3: regular capitalist American corporation, that number is about three hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty to one rather than six to one.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's pretty impressive. They also share the co ops
Speaker 2: profits the member owners, and they have to make difficult choices.
Speaker 2: This is something that co ops are are good at
Speaker 2: like this. This is why co ops are pro worker. Like.
Speaker 2: If there's a hard time, an economic downturn or something
Speaker 2: like that and sales are down, profits are down, most
Speaker 2: capitalist companies just lay people off. They ramp up a
Speaker 2: lot of works in like fat times, and then they
Speaker 2: just cut them in lean times. Co Ops don't tend
Speaker 2: to do that. Instead, they tend to all agree to
Speaker 2: take a pay cut to spread the pain around so
Speaker 2: that no one person has to take the brunt of it,
Speaker 2: or no one group of people have to take the
Speaker 2: brunt of it and lose their job.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3: And they you know, they've had to change things a
Speaker 3: little bit over the years. That ratio I think that
Speaker 3: I said with six to one, that's an increase. It
Speaker 3: used to be a three to one ratio of the
Speaker 3: highest paid to the lowest paid worker. So they've had
Speaker 3: to roll with the times a little bit. But six
Speaker 3: to one is still way different than three hundred and
Speaker 3: fifty to one for sure.
Speaker 2: So this is the far and away the largest. There's
Speaker 2: the second largest is nothing to sneeze at either the
Speaker 2: or A lungo labor contract Cooperative Society founded in Kerala, India,
Speaker 2: has about eighteen thousand employees and it was founded back
Speaker 2: in nineteen twenty five while the Brits were still ruling
Speaker 2: India as a colony, and some of the workers from
Speaker 2: the lower casts I think sixteen of them got together
Speaker 2: to pool their money and said, hey, we're going to
Speaker 2: start repairing roads. Government give us some contracts, and that's
Speaker 2: where the whole thing started.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3: The first Prime Minister of India, Nehru was was basically
Speaker 3: very much into the idea of these workers co ops
Speaker 3: and farmers co ops, and you know, did a lot
Speaker 3: to encourage and incentivize these popping up over there. I
Speaker 3: think there are a ton of Indian cooperatives and this
Speaker 3: is just the biggest one at like eighteen thousand employees.
Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, Yeah. Nehru also encouraged people to rethink their jackets.
Speaker 3: Oh man, those are good looking. I can't get away
Speaker 3: with those, but those are cool.
Speaker 2: Okay. So that's India. I guess that's kind of second
Speaker 2: to Spain, like we said, at least as far as
Speaker 2: the largest co ops go. But Italy I would say,
Speaker 2: is possibly the country that supports co ops the most.
Speaker 2: On a societal level.
Speaker 1: It seems like there's that.
Speaker 3: S word streak still running through Italy to a large degree.
Speaker 2: Sure. Yeah, yeah, So the Italian government gives financial incentives
Speaker 2: to start and run a co op. There's laws that
Speaker 2: say if you don't run a co op, you have
Speaker 2: to give up one of your kids. They're really pro
Speaker 2: co op. They also this is another thing too that
Speaker 2: some co ops come out of, where a company will
Speaker 2: be failing and the owners will be like, well that's
Speaker 2: it for me, I'm ruined, and the employees will be like, well,
Speaker 2: we still have some money that we can put together.
Speaker 2: Let us buy the company from you, and the owner
Speaker 2: will sell the company to the employees. And the government
Speaker 2: of Italy helps facilitate this kind of thing to make
Speaker 2: it more likely. And that makes so much more sense
Speaker 2: than just letting a company fail. Let the workers buy
Speaker 2: it if they want to and run as a co op.
Speaker 2: Let them all over the company.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's a big thing that happened in Argentina, and
Speaker 3: I sort of remember this in the early two thousands
Speaker 3: when Argentina was having such a rough time. A lot
Speaker 3: of workers were laid off in the industrial sector and
Speaker 3: they were did what you were just talking about. They
Speaker 3: were like, well, hey, this factory is going out of business,
Speaker 3: so let's as employees get together and buy these things.
Speaker 3: And it became known as the National Movement of Recovered
Speaker 3: Companies and they're about four hundred of these still going strong.
Speaker 2: Yeah. What's cool about the Argentinian model too, is I
Speaker 2: think they actually took over these companies. They were all
Speaker 2: laid off and they're like, oh yeah, watch this. I
Speaker 2: think that's pretty neat. Yeah. Mexico is well known for
Speaker 2: fishing cooperatives. This happens around the world, but Mexico has
Speaker 2: some pretty strong ones. And one of the cool things
Speaker 2: is that there's often lax enforcement of things like sustainability
Speaker 2: and catch quotas among fishermen in Mexico. So these co
Speaker 2: ops tend to support sustainability themselves by essentially paying attention
Speaker 2: to one another and making sure everybody's acting fairly. Sustainability
Speaker 2: just grows out of that.
Speaker 1: So you want to take another break.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I didn't see that coming.
Speaker 3: All right, we'll come back right after this, and Josh,
Speaker 3: we'll speak first, because that's how we do things.
Speaker 2: So Chuck, it's probably not a surprise, as we've seen
Speaker 2: compared to other countries, the United States is not exactly
Speaker 2: up to speed. As far as co ops are concerned,
Speaker 2: there's potentially seven to ten thousand Americans out of what
Speaker 2: three hundred and sixty somethingter million who are employees and
Speaker 2: co ops in the United States. That's not a very
Speaker 2: significant number, but there are the people who are employed
Speaker 2: there are happier than you will ever be in your
Speaker 2: entire life. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Probably.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 3: The largest one in the United States is the Cooperative
Speaker 3: Home Care Associates started in the Bronx in nineteen eighty
Speaker 3: five when twelve home health aids came together and said, hey,
Speaker 3: there's got to be a better way, and they started
Speaker 3: recruiting people and they've got Wow. Out of that seven
Speaker 3: to ten thousand, two thousand of them work for the UHCA.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then they also typically hire women of color
Speaker 2: and immigrants, usually low income, and train them to be
Speaker 2: home health aids. And then eventually, with a one thousand
Speaker 2: dollars payment, you can buy in and become a worker
Speaker 2: member owner. And they tend to have people have compared
Speaker 2: this model to actually this company to other home health
Speaker 2: aid companies, and the workers tend to have greater job satisfaction.
Speaker 2: They trust management more because they're talking about themselves in
Speaker 2: a lot of cases, but even the workers who aren't
Speaker 2: member owners tend to have a higher trust in management.
Speaker 2: And this is where people are like, I don't get it,
Speaker 2: Like why would you do this? Because what you're doing
Speaker 2: is creating a social good, Like, it's not just about
Speaker 2: maximizing profits. And I believe Cooperative Home Care Associates is
Speaker 2: a for profit company, and co ops can be for profit.
Speaker 2: They don't have to be a profit. But they're proving
Speaker 2: that you can still promote a social good. You can
Speaker 2: still make society a better place and still turn a profit.
Speaker 2: It's just not you know, you're not going to ever
Speaker 2: set the stock market on fire. That's not the point.
Speaker 2: The point is more to create the social good, and
Speaker 2: that's one of the things that the Cooperative Home Care
Speaker 2: Associates does.
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure, there are some other cool examples here
Speaker 3: I'm going to jump to. I know you know where
Speaker 3: I'm going because Olivia included the podcast company Maximum Fun.
Speaker 3: Longtime supporters of stuff you should know. Maximum Fun was
Speaker 3: had a single sole owner in Jesse Thorn. Yeah, he
Speaker 3: was mogul very early on. He's the guy that set
Speaker 3: up Mark Marin initially in his garage with equipment and
Speaker 3: was like, here's how you do podcasting. So Jesse's a
Speaker 3: pioneer in the business itself. Obviously does Judge John Hodgman
Speaker 3: with Our Pal and Jordan Jesse go and Bullseye with
Speaker 3: Jesse Thorn a great interview show, but Maximum Fun was his.
Speaker 3: He started it as a very sort of forward thinking
Speaker 3: young guy. She's I don't even know how many years ago.
Speaker 3: It had to be twenty ish years ago at this point.
Speaker 3: And three years ago Jesse was like, you know what,
Speaker 3: I don't want to run the show anymore, and I
Speaker 3: think Maximum Fun could transition to a co op. We've
Speaker 3: got these great employees who are heavily invested, and why
Speaker 3: not see if they'll go all in. And they did,
Speaker 3: and Maximum Fund became a worker own co op.
Speaker 2: Yeah, which is pretty cool. I mean even before that
Speaker 2: he had basically transferred ownership of the individual shows to
Speaker 2: the show creators and then so it was a I
Speaker 2: guess kind of an easy, easyish leap into a co
Speaker 2: op from there. So hats off Jesse Thorn and all
Speaker 2: the peeps at Max Fun.
Speaker 1: That's right.
Speaker 2: If you happened to be up in Maine along the
Speaker 2: coast and you're island hopper. I could not find exactly
Speaker 2: what islands, but there is a trio of stores, the Galley,
Speaker 2: VNS Variety and Burnt Cove Market, and all three of
Speaker 2: them are worker owned and operated. And there it was
Speaker 2: one of those situations where all three stores were being
Speaker 2: sold and the owners couldn't find any buyers, and then
Speaker 2: workers were like, well buy it. So now seventy people
Speaker 2: off the coast of Maine are part of the Island
Speaker 2: Employee Cooperative, which is again pretty cool totally.
Speaker 3: I don't think Maine has many islands, so I'm surprised
Speaker 3: you didn't find out what the deal was.
Speaker 2: I saw that the thing was headquartered and I think Stonington, Maine,
Speaker 2: but I didn't see what island that was on, and
Speaker 2: who knows could be the mainland for all I know,
Speaker 2: I'm not a up up northeaster and up easter.
Speaker 1: A manor Yeah, across the pond, you're from away, I
Speaker 1: think that is what they say.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, I cannot tell you how much murder,
Speaker 2: she wrote, I've seen in my life, and I still
Speaker 2: was that picked up the lingo. Oh yeah, cabin cokain.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I never, as you know, never saw a single episode
Speaker 3: of murder. She wrote very sad about that.
Speaker 2: I didn't know that, and I see you differently now.
Speaker 1: I need to I need to check it out. I
Speaker 1: know it's a classic.
Speaker 3: By way, I think my delivery might have been so
Speaker 3: dry that we're going to get Germany as landlocked emails.
Speaker 3: I know there are thousands of islands off of Maine,
Speaker 3: by the way.
Speaker 2: Oh, okay, you got me, You fooled me, Chuck.
Speaker 3: We should talk just at least mention aesops or employee
Speaker 3: stock ownership plans.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this isn't the same as a.
Speaker 3: Co op because you're you're generally not getting like a
Speaker 3: vote on things and how things run. But it's employees
Speaker 3: owning the business. And our beloved Public's supermarket chain is
Speaker 3: easily the largest employee owned company in the United States.
Speaker 3: I think they owned about employees of Public's owned about
Speaker 3: eighty percent of the company, which is a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like they have stock, but rather than being
Speaker 2: publicly traded, you have to be in a Public's employee
Speaker 2: to buy and own public stock, and pretty cool. A
Speaker 2: lot of people retire pretty well to do because of
Speaker 2: the public stock that they've accrued over their career and
Speaker 2: it is. It's great for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: ACE Hardware that's another kind of cool, and that's you know,
Speaker 3: they're independent retailers, and I think most people know that
Speaker 3: because your local ACE Hardware is is owned and operated
Speaker 3: by somebody who lives there, which is kind of a
Speaker 3: cool model.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Like, try buying something at one ACE and then
Speaker 2: taking it back at the other ACE. You're going to
Speaker 2: be sorely disappointed, my friend? Is that true? Oh? Yeah? They? Oh,
Speaker 2: I didn't know that I bought something. I should say.
Speaker 2: You and me bought something at an ACE and I
Speaker 2: took it to the other ACE owned by the same company,
Speaker 2: and because we bought it online, they could not they
Speaker 2: could not return it.
Speaker 1: Oh interesting, I don't think I knew that.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, be careful. You have to go back to
Speaker 2: the same ACE. It says it like on the sign. Yeah.
Speaker 2: ACE is the place and the only place.
Speaker 1: The helpful hardware folks.
Speaker 2: Isn't that? Yeah? It is?
Speaker 1: Should we end on a few pros and cons?
Speaker 2: Oh, I just real quick want to shout out a
Speaker 2: couple of co ops that are nonprofits. Subvert is an
Speaker 2: alternative to band camp. It's musician owned and then fair,
Speaker 2: which I think is a clever use of the term.
Speaker 2: It's fare. They're an alternative to like Uber and Lyft,
Speaker 2: and they're co ops. Oh okay, yeah, there you go.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean that's I got to check out and
Speaker 1: see affairs in Atlanta.
Speaker 2: Okay, okay, I don't use Uber.
Speaker 3: I use Lyft, but I've heard they're bad now too,
Speaker 3: So it's I just don't even know who to get
Speaker 3: rides from when I've had too much to drink anymore.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I used to do Lyft because supposedly they treated
Speaker 2: their people better. And I was talking to a lift
Speaker 2: driver once He's like, no, Lyft is terrible. Now Uber's
Speaker 2: nice to their drivers, and it's like, wow, who can
Speaker 2: keep up with this? So I guess, yeah, just take
Speaker 2: fair all.
Speaker 1: Right, I'm gonna check that out.
Speaker 3: Pros and cons now, yes, all right, well we've mentioned
Speaker 3: some of these along the way. But one pro is,
Speaker 3: you know one we touched on, which was that ratio
Speaker 3: between the highest paid worker and the lowest paid worker.
Speaker 3: They're definitely you know, the co ops. You're not going
Speaker 3: to see things just so out of whack in terms
Speaker 3: of wage earning.
Speaker 2: No, that's huge. Another one that's a pro in favor
Speaker 2: of co ops, not all. All of them are pros
Speaker 2: and favor of co ops. There are some cons too,
Speaker 2: Like you said, pros and cons. But if you work
Speaker 2: for a co op the chances of you getting laid
Speaker 2: off are pretty low, which you would think like, oh, okay, well,
Speaker 2: does our co ops just run and work as staffed
Speaker 2: by lazy people. Turns out no, because as an owner,
Speaker 2: a part owner of this co op, of this company
Speaker 2: that you're working for, you are a manager. So if
Speaker 2: everybody's a manager, they feel emboldened and empowered to police
Speaker 2: other workers. Everybody's just kind of keeping one another honest
Speaker 2: because they all have such a stake in this that
Speaker 2: co op workers tend to actually be more productive and
Speaker 2: happier and less slack than workers who are essentially just
Speaker 2: wage labor.
Speaker 1: Yeah, or what do they call it? Quiet quitting?
Speaker 2: Oh I hadn't heard that, but that makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Quiet quitting is when you're like phoning it in and
Speaker 3: just doing the bare minimum to not get fired.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is yeah, no good. Everybody.
Speaker 3: One con is or I guess you would say it's
Speaker 3: a pro for a non co op is they tend
Speaker 3: to be able to move a little quicker and add
Speaker 3: quicker on stuff if there's a crisis or if there's
Speaker 3: anything that needs like really fast attention. They don't have
Speaker 3: to sweat, you know, taking boats and asking everyone and
Speaker 3: debating what they think. So that can definitely sort of
Speaker 3: slow down in times of crisis if you're in a
Speaker 3: co op.
Speaker 2: Yes, but that said, you can make quick decisions and
Speaker 2: be more agile as a traditional capitalist company, but you
Speaker 2: can also make the wrong decision and go down the
Speaker 2: strong road. So with a co op, because it's moving slower,
Speaker 2: it's not trying to be on the fortune five hundred
Speaker 2: or anything like that, they can take their time a
Speaker 2: little more, and so they actually tend to outlast a
Speaker 2: lot of other companies I guess compared to other startups,
Speaker 2: co ops tend to last beyond the first five years, say,
Speaker 2: against a tech startup or something like that, because you
Speaker 2: can take your time making decisions enough to be like
Speaker 2: now now now you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure, and yeah, just job satisfaction.
Speaker 3: And we talked about this a few times, but overall
Speaker 3: people that work for co ops tend to report much
Speaker 3: happier lives basically when it turned in terms of their jobs.
Speaker 2: That's right, I guess that's it for co ops, Chuck,
Speaker 2: I think so well. We both agreed that that's it
Speaker 2: for co ops, which means it's time for listener.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's a follow up on the West Kowloon Walled
Speaker 3: City episode, which I thoroughly enjoyed personally.
Speaker 2: Yeah, me too.
Speaker 3: Hey, guys, just listen to The episode reminded me of
Speaker 3: the Ponta I guess po and t or Ponti City
Speaker 3: Tower and Johannesburg. Ponti City was completed in nineteen seventy
Speaker 3: five and originally intended to be a luxury development for
Speaker 3: the city's rich white folks. However, it quickly descended into
Speaker 3: decay for various reasons, and is widely regarded as becoming
Speaker 3: the world's first quote vertical slum end quote By the
Speaker 3: late eighties, it said that at its worst, the vast
Speaker 3: central core of the building was filled with trash, including
Speaker 3: human remains, all the way.
Speaker 1: Up to the fifth or sixth floor.
Speaker 3: When I was visiting friends in Johannesburg back in twenty thirteen,
Speaker 3: I did a tour of the tower with one of
Speaker 3: the residents. It's a truly astonishing building with a super
Speaker 3: interesting story of grandeur and rapid descent into chaos and
Speaker 3: looks to be coming back again. Ponti has been used
Speaker 3: for sets of several sci fi films. Neil Blombcamp is
Speaker 3: a big fan and was also the inspiration for the
Speaker 3: tower setting of the questionable twenty twelve Dread reboot.
Speaker 1: Thanks for the great stuff. That is from Bobby.
Speaker 3: Bobby sent in a picture from the interior of the
Speaker 3: City Tower and it is indeed super sci fi and
Speaker 3: interesting looking.
Speaker 2: I got to check that out, man, I hadn't heard
Speaker 2: of that at all. That was Bobby, Yeah, Bobby. Well,
Speaker 2: thanks a lot, Bobby. That was a great email. We
Speaker 2: appreciate it. And if you want to be like Bobby
Speaker 2: and tell us about something that we didn't know about,
Speaker 2: we're always welcoming those. You can send it off to
Speaker 2: Stuff Podcasts at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
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