Documents workers cooperative 31 results

"Most large firms are controlled by shareholders, who choose the board of directors and can replace the firm's management. In rare instances, however, control over the firm rests with the workforce. Many explanations for the rarity of workers' control have been offered, but there have been few attempts to assess these hypotheses in a systematic way. This book draws upon economic theory, statistical evidence, and case studies to frame an explanation. The fundamental idea is that labor is inalienable, while capital can be freely transferred from one person to another. This implies that worker-controlled firms typically face financing problems, encounter collective choice dilemmas, and have difficulty creating markets for control positions within the firm. Together these factors can account for much of what is known about the incidence, behavior, and design of worker-controlled firms. A policy proposal to encourage employee buyouts is developed in the concluding chapter."

"Cooperatives the world over are successfully developing alternative models of decision-making, employment and operation without the existence of managers, executives and hierarchies. Through case studies spanning the US, Latin America and Europe, including valuable new work on the previously neglected cooperative movement in Cuba, Peter Ranis explores how cooperatives have evolved in response to the economic crisis. Going further yet, Ranis makes the novel argument that the constitutionally enshrined principle of 'eminent domain' can in fact be harnessed to create and defend worker cooperatives. Combining the work of key radical theorists, including Marx, Gramsci and Luxemburg, with that of contemporary political economists, such as Block, Piketty and Stiglitz, Cooperatives Confront Capitalism provides what is perhaps the most far-reaching analysis yet of the ideas, achievements and wider historical context of the cooperative movement."

"In a study conducted by the author in 2006 of five mixed-sex, worker-led cooperatives in Buenos Aires, all of the workers in each of the coops were paid exactly the same. Five years later, only two of the worker cooperatives – both dominated by women – came even close to maintaining the same pay for everyone. The other three cooperatives, all dominated by male workers, had instituted hierarchical pay scales which paralleled a concomitant decrease in workplace democracy. An increase in pay inequities and a decrease in worker democracy went together; moreover, the two paralleled an increasingly inhospitable workplace for women. This article addresses two, interconnected, questions: How did this intertwining of pay and worker democracy happen, and more specifically, how was this process gendered?"

"The authors undertake the first econometric study of efficiency for Eroski, the largest member of the Mondragon group of worker cooperatives. Three types of stores are found within Eroski: 1) cooperatives with significant employee ownership and voice; 2) cooperatives with modest employee ownership and limited voice (known as GESPAs); and 3) conventional stores with no employee ownership. Key data are monthly observations—9,800 for supermarkets and 2,150 for hypermarkets (large superstores combining supermarkets and department stores). By estimating first-difference models, the authors find that hypermarket stores with cooperative ownership have significantly faster sales growth than do GESPA stores. For supermarkets overall, they find no significant differences in performance among the three types of stores. For a subgroup of small supermarkets, however, cooperatives outperform conventional stores. To investigate the mechanisms that help explain why cooperatives perform better, the authors provide additional evidence that takes into account the more extensive opportunities for employee involvement, training, and stronger economic incentives in cooperatives. While cooperative members are better paid than peers in comparable firms, individual data show that job satisfaction is lower for cooperative workers than for GESPA workers. Though this may reflect higher worker expectations in cooperatives, alternatively cooperatives may constitute a “high-stress work system.”"

"Après 25 ans de politiques néolibérales, l Argentine a traversé au début des années 2000 une crise sociale et politique majeure. Entre 2003 et 2010, Maxime Quijoux a enquêté dans deux usines de Buenos Aires en mêlant entretiens et observations de terrain. Il a observé des situations de travail contradictoires où se côtoient solidarités ouvrières et conduites concurrentielles ou individualistes.

Il découvre aussi des parcours improbables au regard des mobilisations. A partir de l expérience argentine, ce livre propose non seulement de redécouvrir l autogestion à l ère du néolibéralisme, mais aussi d interroger la dimension culturelle du travail dans les sociétés contemporaines au travers du prisme du «travailleur zélé». "