Work and Pay:
I have worked in several worker-owned situations. Some were successful, some not so much. The most successful one operated like this:
Each individual was responsible for getting a customer, managing the job, and getting the payment, then paying the funds to the suppliers and the co-workers for their labor (with a small percent going to shop overhead).
Within the shop, and on a per-job basis, work and pay were personally negotiated. This dispersed management philosophy meant that we had to have extremely good and tight communication. This just naturally led to a sort of institutional camaraderie. We built a huge kitchen with a large table and often spent a couple of hours of lunch every day working on the production schedule. Negotiating workloads and pay scales. On a per-job basis.
From the outside, it looked like chaos. Inefficient duplication and redundancy. But over time, what happened was an increase in personal agency and responsibility. Those who stuck it out and learned to be self-motivated thrived. You could work as much or as little as you wanted, take time off or not. We naturally drifted to the skills we were most interested in. And by completely decentralizing management, we were actually very competitive in the market.
Profit margins remained in check. And pay inequality was negligible. Capital expenditures of the shop as a whole were negotiated by consensus. This took a lot of time. And so we were conservative about it. Complete transparency of the shop overhead led to rationalizing the percent of revenues that each job paid to the shop. Everybody knew where the money was going.
Were there disagreements? Yes. Sometimes heated debates. Yet the systematic built-in equality and the minimization and distribution of power dynamics. Gave these disputes less chance to grow into major disruptions.
Overall it worked. It was not a shop for every worker. Some who came into the group did not thrive. They were not used to the personal self-agency needed. The personal nature of negotiating for the price of your labor. They wanted a "job" and a "wage" and a "boss." We understood this. Paid them well. And they moved on.
Those that stayed, stayed for years, became close friends. Worked hard. Played hard. Turned up the music. And got a lot of shit done. Did any of us get rich? No. But we all payed our bills. Took care of each other in times of need. Success was in the doing.
I have worked in several worker-owned situations. Some were successful, some not so much. The most successful one operated like this:
Each individual was responsible for getting a customer, managing the job, and getting the payment, then paying the funds to the suppliers and the co-workers for their labor (with a small percent going to shop overhead).
Within the shop, and on a per-job basis, work and pay were personally negotiated. This dispersed management philosophy meant that we had to have extremely good and tight communication. This just naturally led to a sort of institutional camaraderie. We built a huge kitchen with a large table and often spent a couple of hours of lunch every day working on the production schedule. Negotiating workloads and pay scales. On a per-job basis.
From the outside, it looked like chaos. Inefficient duplication and redundancy. But over time, what happened was an increase in personal agency and responsibility. Those who stuck it out and learned to be self-motivated thrived. You could work as much or as little as you wanted, take time off or not. We naturally drifted to the skills we were most interested in. And by completely decentralizing management, we were actually very competitive in the market.
Profit margins remained in check. And pay inequality was negligible. Capital expenditures of the shop as a whole were negotiated by consensus. This took a lot of time. And so we were conservative about it. Complete transparency of the shop overhead led to rationalizing the percent of revenues that each job paid to the shop. Everybody knew where the money was going.
Were there disagreements? Yes. Sometimes heated debates. Yet the systematic built-in equality and the minimization and distribution of power dynamics. Gave these disputes less chance to grow into major disruptions.
Overall it worked. It was not a shop for every worker. Some who came into the group did not thrive. They were not used to the personal self-agency needed. The personal nature of negotiating for the price of your labor. They wanted a "job" and a "wage" and a "boss." We understood this. Paid them well. And they moved on.
Those that stayed, stayed for years, became close friends. Worked hard. Played hard. Turned up the music. And got a lot of shit done. Did any of us get rich? No. But we all payed our bills. Took care of each other in times of need. Success was in the doing.