A vision of a cooperative day

A driving force of this blog is my vision of living an entirely cooperative day. I'd like to get all my food, clothes and housing from co-ops. I'd like to read a newspaper written and printed by a cooperative over a cooperative cup of coffee at the cooperative cafe. I'd like to live in a community where the products and services in life are provided by people who have a say in how they do their work, the types of groceries available at their store, the state of their housing, etc. And when we put these things together we'll be doing more than buying things, we'll be building the cooperative economy. I see the work I do and the things I buy best used to cooperate among cooperatives and to create a web of cooperatives of all kinds - worker, producer, consumer, and housing. I can see so clearly how, with a little planning, this cooperative economy will provide a structure that expands and develops cooperatives and educates consumers and potential worker/owners about the cooperative process.

In our region cooperatives already exist making my dream more possible. I can already buy my food at three different food co-ops and many buying clubs in the area, drink a cup of Equal Exchange coffee (roasted and distributed out of West Bridgewater, MA), get my trash and recycling ported, host a website, design a website, assess and install an alternative power system, treat my skin with salves and oils, repair or renovate my home or office, and more. For those of you with a car you can get that worked on, too, by an experienced and easy to understand charging process at Pelham Auto (Just click on the title of this blog for a list of area worker co-ops at the Valley Alliance of Worker Cooperatives website).

There is a thesis among some in the cooperative movement and in worker cooperative movement specifically that once things get to a certain size they don't function as well. Currently we have examples challenging this concept both inside and outside the United States. Cooperative Home Care Associates in the Bronx has over 1,200 member owners the last I heard and have the highest training standards and costs of any other known home care provider in New York. In the Mondragon Cooperative Complex in Spain Fagor (click on the blog title with applesauce to see part of their website), Europe's fifth largest appliance manufacturer with over 8,000 members, is just one of several larger co-ops that make up this cooperative of 84,000 people.

With these examples I don't believe cooperation doesn't work with more than 15 or 50 or 500 people. My theory on why we don't have more larger cooperatives ourselves is in the education and funding of this very different form of business. In my next posts I'm going to write about the resources we have for funding and investing in cooperation. I'm also going to begin featuring a co-op every week to do a little education as well.

Merits of making applesauce

My friend Mollie and I like making each other laugh, making things, and talking about work and romance. Both of us like giving and receiving home-made gifts. So I says to myself, let's do all that and include my resolution.
I bought a bushel of apples from the Valley Green Feast section of the Pedal People food catalog and a canning kit from Fagor which we're selling at my work partly for a fundraiser with CISA. Two nights ago we got out the ol' Foley Food Mill and started chopping. A couple hours later we had a few gallons of applesauce and canned them with visions of nice gifts to friends. Applesauce is in a few recipes I want to make and don't feel like going to the store for that one ingredient I don't have. It's also better, in my humble estimation, homemade and saves all that shipping across who knows where when we have excellent apples right around here.
Here's what we did:
To make the sauce
All you need aside from the apples and pot is a mill or press.
Chop up the apples, being careful to avoid bruised or rotted pieces, in half, half again (for 4 quarters), and then cut that quarter into thirds. Put these into a big pot with a quart or so of water to prevent scorching. If you like flavored sauce like cinnamon, etc, put it in while stirring. Stir frequently until it gets, well, saucy, frankly, and put it through a mill or press. Sauce is done.
To can the sauce
You'll need more equipment for this: jars, bands, and lids, a big canning pot with the rack to keep the cans upright and off the bottom of the pot, tongs to install and remove jars and a funnel to pour the sauce into the jars.
Boil the water, sanitize the jars, lids and bands by carefully putting them in the boiling water. They don't need long in there, just a minute or so. Pour sauce into sanitized jars, wipe the top of the jar to get a clean seal, lid and band them, and submerse into racked canning pot for 15 to 20 minutes. Remove when done and leave for 24 hours before storing. Check to see that the lids sealed, you know like jars at the store when the top of the lid is concave? Those that seal are ready to store. Those that don't seal just eat them soon!

Some special things about my job and a cooperative dinner

I'd like to start off with an initial result of my resolution.
I had one of those moments where I just wanted to run to a convenience store, buy some chips and salsa, call that dinner and head in for the night. I was getting out of work at 6:30 and didn't really feel like getting involved in making a whole meal.
Well, I thought of my little dedication here and decided it'd be stronger just to head out and see what I could come up with at River Valley Market. Being pretty hungry when I got there I grabbed some tempeh and salad (You know the kind I'm talking about? Pret-ty good, I tell ya.) by the Quarry Cafe and headed out to achieve my short shopping list making some rice and bean deliciousness burrito style. So, heres to resolutions as I'm healthier and the cooperative economy has one more well fed customer to its credit.

I wanted to put a couple thoughts down about why I'm so curious about cooperatives and why I want to participate more in them. So much of my reasons come from my experiences at work.

I've been at CC since 2004 and have learned much about myself, my coworkers, and what it means to work toward a common goal with others.
One of the beautiful things about working in a cooperative is that it means different things to different people. At my job my co-workers and I get to experience many unique benefits: the dynamics and challenges of a cooperative business, shared control over conditions and compensation, ability to challenge ourselves and gain expertise in new areas, apply our values to our business and just that feeling of trying to create a safe, supportive, productive place to work.
I feel there are two important facets that we have at work that make this such a different and rich experience. First is the one member, one vote, consensus decision making. A requirement of worker cooperatives and collectives is that only workers are members and all members own an equal share of the business. This insures that those affected by decisions that are made are the very same people who make them.
The second thing that I really value is that workers decide what to do with the surplus of our business- that is, what's left over and typically called profit in a traditional capitalist firm. I feel that it is in control of the surplus where I feel I really have a say and really share the experience of working as I can apply my full self, my values and my love for my coworkers to the decisions on the table. I don't have to fear retaliation of a boss or try to make some decision happen behind the scenes. As in many worker cooperatives we use this as an opportunity to contribute to our communities and at my job we donate 10% of our gross surplus to the community in copies and financial support.
It strikes me that for how well Collective Copies works for the workers and our customers there aren't more worker run businesses. At my job we spend more money on paper (we only stock recycled paper), have decent pay and health benefits for workers, use what is considered a slow, difficult decision making process with no business or accounting degrees awarded to any of us and we are succeeding at our mission. It just makes me wonder if a little copy shop, by introducing equality based and transparent practices in our business, can make such a difference, what else can we do by cooperating? Where else is it really important to cooperate? How can I inform others about worker cooperatives?

My New Years Resolution

My resolution this year is to dedicate myself to the cooperative economy. I have a dream of being able to live a life that depends on only cooperative processes. My locale's special contributions to cooperatives are very valuable however this dream isn't exactly around the corner. I'm so happy to be a member of a couple cooperatives (Collective Copies, River Valley Market, Pedal People Food Collective, Freedom Federal Credit Union and UMass 5 Federal Credit Union) and can't wait to see where this goes.