Event Report: Society for co-operative studies

Last weekend we had our quarterly worker co-operative council meeting which took place at the Society for Co-operatives Study Conference. This blog is a brief summary and my thoughts on the conference aswell.

Apart from welcoming our newest member to the council Alison Banton of Dulas (full list of members here) The main items on the agenda were:

Our involvement in a European wide campaign to promote worker co-operatives as a sustainable form of employment www.sustainableemployment.eu. On an EU level with the size and strength of the Spanish, French and Italian movements we actually have quite a strong voice to influence policy (which of course filters back down to the UK). We've sent some case studies, pictures and other media.  If you want to add your worker co-operative, do a testimonial or get involved please get in touch with me.

Nominations for the President of CECOP, we have not put forward a UK candidate (our multi-lingual skills frankly aren't good enough) and have therefore nominated/seconded a Swedish representative.

The two representatives to the main Board of Co-operatives UK; Bob Cannell and Sion Whellen's gave feedback on previous meetings.  Members of the Council discussed a variety of membership and strategic issues to help inform future decisions of the Board including: Co-operatives Fortnight, Congress, membership recruitment, member services and risks affecting the movement. For members interested in goings on at the main Board you can read their Board Updates here.

Our meeting lasted about 2 hours after which we took part in the Society for Co-operatives Studies conference.

Highlights from Society for Co-operatives Studies Conference
The event started with a 2 speakers discussing "Lessons from Mondragon" (will try and get a links to presentation). The main thought I took from this session was the sense of community/solidarity within Mondragon which keeps this network of worker co-operatives together and supporting each other. This is very geographical and culturally based.

For the UK worker co-operative sector to succeed I think we need to work on this sense of solidarity and mutual self-help, which is more difficult due to the diversity and geographical spread worker co-operatives in the UK. We too often re-invent the wheel, or don't think about working together to satisfy our shared needs (something we do with-in our co-operatives). Any ideas on a postcard (or leave a comment below).

Bob Cannell of Suma ran a session looking at different approaches to strategic management within worker co-operatives and how mainstream managements systems thinking just isn't appropriate. Read his blog for notes on the presentation.

Britta Werner of Unicorn and Tony Gudgeon of Chelmsford Start, spoke at a session about the relationship within co-operatives between consumers and workers, from the perspective of a worker co-operatives and a consumer co-operative.  From a worker co-operatives  point of view it was interesting that our approach to customers was very similar from a service point of view, but our approach to workers very different.

The conference finished with a session facilitated by Alan Wilkins of CLADA looking at the opportunities and threats from the big society. I'm sure we've all discussed these countless times now so won't bore you with the details.  The one thing I will say however is; everyone talks about how to get involved and take advantage of the big society (and any funding), but what it should do is remind us of what we stand for and should be doing anyway, irrespective of who's in Government and what their plugging.

The co-operative movement already funds capacity building to help people help themselves; both through being members of Co-operatives UK and individual co-operatives initiatives like the Enterprise Hub.  What we need to do as a movement is co-ordinate and rally members to put less money into charities and more into developing the co-operative sector, so we are in position to deal with the big society (or the aftermath if it goes badly wrong).

To end on a less serious note, I unfortunately forgot to take any photos of the weekend so here is a picture of George our Rabbit who when i got home, in the spirit of self-help was munching on our flowers.

How do UK worker co-operatives compare to the rest of the world

I seem to be doing a lot of internationally focused blogs at the moment, if anyone wants me to cover a domestic worker co-operative issue, or write one themselves, get in touch.

Ever year Co-operatives UK sends data on worker co-operatives to CECOP (our European Federation). This helps CECOP lobby the EU on behalf of the movement and collectively show our strength. For those interested, here's a summary the information. 

Something to reflect on (if your that way inclined) are the terms social co-operative and artisan co-operative, which are terms we don't use in the UK.  I have loosely defined them below and keep meaning to write a blog on them both. 

None of the figures include social co-operatives as we just don't classify co-operatives in that way. For artisan co-operatives, I've looked for co-operatives of self-employed people that come together in a co-operative to produce stuff/deliver a service. These are usually referred to as consortia co-operatives in the UK but that term also includes consortia of very large buying groups like www.bako.co.uk , agricultural machinery rings etc, so its really isn't comparable.

The 90 collected below are an attempt to record these types of co-operatives and are predominantly: taxi firms like www.dialacab.co.uk (sadly not a member, if anyone can make an introduction...), arts and crafts consortia like: www.woolclip.com and professionals like: www.theverypeople.co.uk, www.uhc.org.uk.

Numbers of organisations

As we do not have data on every co-operative in the UK, this will be an underestimate and should only be used as a general guide to the sector (these figures are always changing as we get new data).

	Worker/  social 1 coops	Artisans coops2	TOTAL
Number of enterprises	392	90	482
Number of enterprises being SME’s3	392	89	481
Number of workers (members and non members)	2140	4002	6142
Total number of members of all types e.g. volunteers, investors	634	4657	7291

1 Social co-operatives are multi-stakeholder (predominantly worker/volunteers) that delivers public services (mainly in Italy).

2 Artisan Co-operatives are consortia’s of self employed people who come together predominantly Arts, Crafts, like pottery etc.

3 Define SME as greater than 250 workers or turnover greater than 50 millions €

Size of Co-operative Economy

Worker co-ops in membership of Co-operatives UK = £129m

Worker co-ops in economy = £146m

Artisan/professional co-operatives in membership = £900,000

Artisan/professional co-operatives in economy = £40.9m 

(predominately down to a few very large taxi firms)
Whole co-operative economy = £33.5bn

Lives and Deaths

185 have been creating since 2005, 101 of them members or affiliated to Co-operatives UK. 

33 have closed down over this period (that we know of).

Gender balance of Directors

Male Directors =565
Female Directors = 429 

Industry Sectors 

CECOP uses an International Industrial Classification Systems, so the figures may not be the same as others  figures I might have published in previous posts. I've attached the Spreadsheet, in Google Doc form here. for the juicy details and sub categories.  Again there is a health warning with this data, as it is our interpretation of information we have available.

ISIC & NACE Codes	NACE Description	Total
A	AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY AND FISHING	13
C	MANUFACTURING	13
E	WATER SUPPLY; SEWERAGE, WASTE MANAGEMENT	6
G	WHOLESALE AND RETAIL TRADE	62
H	TRANSPORTATION AND STORAGE	19
I	ACCOMMODATION AND FOOD SERVICE ACTIVITIES	16
J	INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION	26
M	PROFESSIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL ACTIVITIES	106
N	ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT SERVICE ACTIVITIES	14
P	EDUCATION	33
Q	HUMAN HEALTH AND SOCIAL WORK ACTIVITIES	52
R	ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT AND RECREATION	79
S	OTHER SERVICE ACTIVITIES	41

If you have not yet lost he will to live with too many figures, here some tid-bits from the last report from CECOP of how we compare with the rest of Europe:

Number of worker co-operatives in membership of a CECOP member

Country	N° of Co-operatives
Bulgaria	268
Czech Republic	252
Denmark	110
Estonia	3
Finland	70
France	1893
Germany	97
Italy	18151
Malta	28
Poland	340
Portugal	51
Romania	526
Slovakia	90
Spain	25486
UK	170
Total	47535

Industry Sectors (where they have data)

NACE	N° of Co-ops
A AGRICULTURE, FORESTRY AND FISHING	388
B MINING AND QUARRYING	11
C MANUFACTURING	2452
D ELECTRICITY, GAS, STEAM AND SUPPLY	16
E WATER SUPPLY; SEWERAGE, WASTE MANAGEMENT	167
F CONSTRUCTION	1930
G WHOLESALE AND RETAIL TRADE	995
H TRANSPORTATION AND STORAGE	1409
I ACCOMMODATION AND FOOD SERVICE ACTIVITIES	536
J INFORMATION AND COMMUNICATION	872
K FINANCIAL AND INSURANCE ACTIVITIES	26
L REAL ESTATE ACTIVITIES	128
M PROFESSIONAL, SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL ACTIVITIES	1966
N ADMINISTRATIVE AND SUPPORT SERVICE ACTIVITIES	2323
O PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION	18
P EDUCATION	1328
Q HUMAN HEALTH AND SOCIAL WORK ACTIVITIES	3196
R ARTS, ENTERTAINMENT AND RECREATION	1340
S OTHER SERVICE ACTIVITIES	1011
T ACTIVITIES OF HOUSEHOLDS	25

I hope you enjoy, if you have any questions, comments please get in touch

Worker Co-operative Survey Results

This year we asked worker co-operatives to fill in a few more questions in their annual return, to help us better understand the sector. Below is a summary from the 99 who returned their survey, Thank you!

These results only cover co-operatives that are live and trading. Roughly 25% returned the survey and some only partially completed, please view the results in this context. I hope you find this information interesting and reflect on how you are similar (or different) from other co operatives.

This first chart looks at all live worker co-operative records, we have 3 live co operatives dating back before the 70’s but these have not been included in this chart. IPS’s were the traditional legal form for co operatives, and most early worker co operatives registered as IPS’s. However this model was seen as cumbersome (needed 7 members to start) and quite expensive.

During the 80’s, the number of worker co operatives rapidly increased. ICOM and Co operative Development Bodies developed Company models that were predominately limited by guarantee, to reflect the interest in common ownership and to be more flexible (only needed 3 members).

With the introduction of new legal forms worker co-operatives have taken advantage of these; with at least 4 Community Interest Companies and a number of Limited Liability Partnerships being registered in the last few years.

This second chart focuses on the survey results and the different ownership structures; older worker co operatives tended to prefer common ownership (where the assets are held in common and not withdrawable). During the 00’s there has been a growing trend of “jointly” owned co operatives where members have an individual stake in the co-operative.

Others refer to assets held in trusts commonly used by John Lewis Partnership and Scott Bader for example.

Looking at Governance structure; 25 of the 27 “Collectives” (all members are directors) had 20 or less members. For co-operatives with a “representational” structure (directors elected from membership) there was no clear pattern with co-operatives as low as 4 members choosing this option.

Looking at Management structure; co operatives with a flat structure all had 10 or fewer members (with one exception). As co-operatives grow they tend to develop a sector or team based structure with 9 of the 13 co operatives having more than 30 members with the remaining 4 between
6 -11 members. As might be expected conventional management structures could be found at all levels of membership.







This chart looks in more detail at employees within worker co-operatives. As might be expected there is a higher ratio of women than men being employed part-time compared to fulltime and with roughly 4% of the employees from a Black or Minority Ethnic background.








Pay Structure (more than one answer could be chosen) Out of 99 responses
Members start on the same hourly rate irrespective of their role = 48
Members with longer service are paid more = 12
Members with more responsibility paid more = 31
Members pay based in part on individual performance = 9
Members pay based on need (member withdraws what they need) =1
The majority of members on a higher than industry average = 17
Profits are distributed as a bonus or dividend to members = 35
Members have individual investments that can be withdrawn = 10
Maximum differential in pay (highest can’t be paid ?x the lowest paid) = 6

This final chart gives a break down of worker co operatives by sector (where known). Worker co operatives set up in the 70’s tended to be manufacturing or retail based businesses; this has broadened out over the years, with more worker co-operatives starting in the creative and professional services sectors.









Conclusion
Worker co-operatives vary from 2 to 120 members, with a variety of different governance, management and pay structures, operating throughout the economy. They all however share something in common; their values such as: self-help, democracy, equality, honesty, openness and social responsibility.

We will start sending out next year’s survey at the end of the year. If you were not one of the 99 who returned your survey; please remember to fill this in when you receive your audited accounts for 2009. This information particularly turnover, member/employee figures helps us shout about the size of the sector and campaign on issues affecting our co-operatives.

If you would like to see us include different questions in next year’s survey or are a research interested in more in-depth information, please get in touch.

Approaches to employee participation

When hunting for information on the web about worker co-operatives I often come across examples of employee participation in other countries. Here are two recent finds.

Semco - Ricardo Semler (wiki entry)
In 1982 at the age of 24, Ricardo Semler took control of Semler & Company, a business founded and managed by his father. He set about dramatically reorganising the structure: eliminated all secretarial positions, dismantled managerial structures to eliminate "corporate oppression" and encouraged core business values of employee participation, profit sharing and a free flow of information.

Employee Survival Guide (Semco website)
Case Study

W. L. Gore & Associates
There are no traditional organisational charts, no chains of command, nor predetermined channels of communication. Associates (not employees) are hired for general work areas. Assoicates are guided by "sponsors" (not bosses) and after they have a certain level of understanding of the corporate culture and team objectives. They organise themselves and commit to projects that match their skills.

"We communicate directly with each other and are accountable to fellow members of our multi-disciplined teams. We encourage hands-on innovation, involving those closest to a project in decision making. Teams organize around opportunities and leaders emerge. This unique kind of corporate structure has proven to be a significant contributor to associate satisfaction and retention."

Have you come across interesting international examples?

Promoting Worker Co-operatives

As part of our ongoing work to promote worker co-operatives. I am looking at the political angle and would like your input. If you are in a worker co-operative please fill in this quick survey (5 questions). It will help me to map political engagement and improve my ability to locally target the promotion of worker co-operatives to elected representatives.

Although we do a lot of work at a national level; it is useful to get the participation of co-operatives at a local area. You may be contacted in the future depending on your response.

Click Here to take survey

Research on worker co-operatives

I've just read a research paper by Rory Ridley-Duff, revisiting some previous research into worker co-operatives. Looking at "the impact of asset-locks on the longevity, growth and management styles in co-operative social enterprise."
Linked here.

Particularly interesting were two diagrams on co-operative governance structures: A representative structure; and a team/sector & hub structure.

The main points raised were:

• The UK worker co-operative sector places a much stronger emphasis on common ownership than on the Continent.
• Devolution of management responsibilities was more prevalent in individual and collective ownership, as opposed to common ownership co-operatives.
• Access to external finance was less problematic for organisation where individual members had made investments.
• Staff controlled organisations with a combination of individual/collective ownership grew faster than those based on common ownership principles.

In my opinion the survey size is too small, to draw many conclusion. I would be interested in research that could cover a lot more worker co-operatives. This might be something we can facilitate in the future.

It did however raise some interesting questions in my mind about the priorities and motivation in worker co-operatives, especially common ownership ones. If they are not investor led, would they priorities growth, (increase in the number of employees) over creating stable and well paid employment for their existing members?

If anyone knows of interesting areas of research into worker co-operatives, especially looking at their motivations and priorities and non-growth measures of success please send me info.