Let’s Pass the Workers’ Cooperative Law in RI: Guest MINDSETTER™ Stewart
Tuesday, June 27, 2017
Summertime on Smith Hill is a drag for everyone involved and I wish our legislators a speedy recess. However, there is one key piece of legislation that it behooves me to request some activation from those who I otherwise would prefer to leave respectfully in peace and it is for the creation of workers cooperatives in House Bill 6001 and its parallel Senate Bill 676.
If our elected officials can please streamline the passage of this legislation there are many people across this state who would be overjoyed and able to begin to get to work.
What are workers cooperatives?
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTThe United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives (USFWC) offers for definition “Worker cooperatives are business entities that are owned and controlled by their members, the people who work in them… The two central characteristics of worker cooperatives are: (1) worker-members invest in and own the business together, and it distributes surplus [residual profits] to them and (2) decision-making is democratic, adhering to the general principle of one member-one vote.”
It is an economic arrangement that synthesizes the idealism underwriting aspirations striven for by small business owners and organized labor unions, two concepts which have otherwise been considered anathema for decades.
In a traditional workplace arrangement wherein you have an existing incorporated entity, the employees pool their resources and capital, buy out the ownership, and hire the boss to be one among equals with them, creating a democratic arrangement that is not just sustainable but, according to academic literature, has a higher rate of success than traditional small business arrangements that are inclined to failure within the first five years of operation.
These are all well and good for reviving the local economy because it provides a stabilizing booster to the level of demand in Rhode Island in a bottom-up fashion as opposed to the clumsy, neoliberal top-down manner currently utilized by Gina Raimondo and the Commerce Corporation. Instead of throwing away millions on absurd and unmerited projects with low chances of success, such as Joe Paolino's efforts to get a state subsidy to convert one of his Kennedy Plaza buildings into a luxury hotel, the state can provide an infrastructural benefit to a system that has higher probability of success.
But it is in regards to how cooperatives can benefit those who find themselves relying on the 'gig' economy, part-time work, or simply are totally unemployed that this law would be truly amazing. Such individuals would be able to group together and create worker-owned employment agencies that could be contracted to employers. The schematic for such a novel business schematic is laid out by 'A Technology Freelancer's Guide to Starting a Worker Cooperative' authored by members of the Network of American Tech Worker Cooperatives (NATWC).
The Anti-Poverty Arrangement the State Needs
This arrangement of workers would allow member-owners to create a small pool of employees who would be able to gain health insurance coverage under a small group healthcare plan through HealthSource RI that they would be able to augment this with a personal Health Saving Account (HSA). Furthermore they could use this assembly to formulate a retirement plan that could either utilize an IRA, a traditional 401k plan, or even create a pension plan if you build enough membership.
Such an organization, if carefully formulated and developed in a way that centers its efforts on the poor, could prove to be the anti-poverty program that this state needs. The data we have on poverty is truly heartbreaking and needs to be understood within these contexts. A significant percentage of Black women in Rhode Island subsist daily on two fungible dollar bills a day. According to a recent report published by the Economic Progress Institute, “for every dollar of income in the median White household, the median Black household realizes just fifty-seven cents.” As of 2016, Black unemployment was 7.2% as compared to the white rate of 4.6%. Black underemployment is 1.7 times greater than whites, meaning underemployment for Blacks in Rhode Island is 14.8%. In education, 34% of whites have a Bachelor's whereas 19% of Blacks have graduated college. Over a 15-year period, black unemployment doubled white unemployment, reaching 157% in 2016. The median Black wage is 71% of the median wage of whites. These numbers indicate a kind of degradation caused by sustained systemic racism that should be the definition of a crisis. Worker cooperatives could provide the opportunity for much-required aid in multiple dimensions of this perilous and painful topic.
Speaking from my own perspective, I have now for over a year alongside my fellow freelancer Rob Duguay, one of the best music journalists in not just the Ocean State but perhaps on the East Coast, been trying to legally formalize the creation of such a business, the Rhode Island Media Cooperative. In this regard it would utilize the artistic talents of people in any venue that can be deemed media to generate a living for such people. South Providence, Pawtucket, and many other communities are chock full of aspiring rappers, singers, writers, poets, and artists who define a substantial labor surplus. This law would create an absorption module for this surplus and put them to productive, meaningful work on that which is their passion and joy, art, as opposed to boring 9 to 5 drudgery that wastes such talents. With the new fiasco of TrumpCare coming down the trail, it could provide a framework of relief for myself and many fellow workers who otherwise would be unable to find decent healthcare.
These freelancer cooperatives are designed from the foundation to have quality controls and assurance of delivery that simply is not provided via Craigslist. And whereas the Koch brothers and corporate Libertarians of the world posit a utopian notion of freedom before creating a business environment only favorable to them and their cronies, worker-ownership materializes these possibilities with a system that prevents abuse from the start. Furthermore, such an enterprise, when applied to domestic and agricultural workers, would effectively and with complete legality work around the historical and undeniably racist exemptions of the National Labor Relations Act that has been the bane of workers of color over the past eight decades. Worker-owned housecleaning and farm hand agencies would improve services for clients and quality of life for maids, butlers, cooks, doormen, and fruits/vegetable pickers while reducing costs for both.
What?
Yes, if such a freelancer cooperative were to develop a large enough number of worker-owners, they would be able to utilize tax credits and other legislative elements that are seen as favorable to big businesses. Overnight a paradigm would be shifted to create a genuine type of economic freedom for working people.
So please, let's get these bills turned into law as soon as possible so I and my fellows can get to work!
Andrew Stewart is a member of the Rhode Island Media Cooperative, an organization created for freelancers by freelancers which you can join for free.
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