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Woldring
8 Posts |
 Posted - 03 Jun 2009 : 10:23:55
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Employee ownership and social inclusion:
beyond capitalism versus socialism.
At the root of the Social Inclusion debate is perhaps the question "Is the contradiction between capitalism and socialism still operative? ". This involves placing interpretations of Social Inclusion either in the collectivist, socialist ideology or in the individualist, aspirational philosophy of capitalism. The truth is that neither interpretation fits that contradiction any longer. However, the perspectives and language of yesteryear are still used to place Social Inclusion somewhere in that framework of opposites. The aim of Social Inclusion, as practised in the UK, would seem to be to give communities, including workplace communities, a sense of co-ownership and pride of the individuals' involvement in them. Employee ownership in an organisation, in whatever form, nearly always involves employees socially. Having a stake in an organisation is not merely a financial arrangement, especially not in a small or medium size business. That advantage is often overlooked.
Our public policies and policy makers are still conditioned by that old paradigm, often unwittingly, while they would profit from abandoning it. In practice this is gradually happening of course but there are areas in Australian public policy where the policy makers are still unnecessarily clinging to the semantics of old ideology. This is so particularly in the area of workplace relations. That could be seen and heard very clearly in the period just behind us during the debate about the Work Choices legislation and the campaign against it, "Your Rights at Work". It is reinforced by the domination of Australia's adversarial two-party system where the lines are drawn between the old parties of capital and the party of the workers however gentrified. "Hands up who are members of a trade union" former Treasurer Peter Costello demanded in Parliament in 2007. But these parties receive nearly equal financial support in election campaigns from corporate Australia.
The philosophy of "Social Inclusion" is approached by the ALP in a key document in 2007 as a remedy to "Social Exclusion" described as follows:
"Social exclusion" is the outcome of communities suffering from a range of problems such as unemployment, low incomes, poor housing, crime, poor health and disability and family breakdown, In combination, these problems can result in cycles of poverty, spanning generations and geographical regions. Social exclusion can happen as a result of problems that emerge during life, or it can start from birth. Being born into poverty or to parents with no jobs or low skills is a major influence on a child's life chances.
"Labor believes that to be socially included, all Australians need to be able to play of full role in Australian life, in economic, social, psychological and political terms. To be socially included, all Australians must be given the opportunity to:
* secure a job
* access services
* connect with others in life through family, friends, work, personal interests and local community
* deal with personal crisis such as ill health, bereavement or the loss of a job, and
* have their voice heard"
Later the "Principles" document, such as presented by the new Social Inclusion Board, presents a strong social welfare orientation. In the main the victims of poverty and disadvantage in a capitalist society are the logical clients of such a social welfare orientation. There is very little concern, if any, about the role of the employee in the workplace as an individual who wants to participate in the ownership of and decision-making in the business enterprise. Strangely this is still not seen as an important aspect of "Social Inclusion" in Australia even though Minister Julia Gillard has alluded to a new approach:
"The concept of social inclusion in essence means replacing a welfarist approach to helping the underprivileged with one of investing in them and their communities to bring them into the mainstream market economy. It’s a modern and fresh approach that views everyone as a potential wealth creator and invests in their human capital.
Including everyone in the economic, wealth-creating life of the nation is today the best way for Labor to meet its twin goals of raising national prosperity and creating a fair and decent society. This is a recognized policy ambition of social democratic parties around the world today.
Fairer workplace laws that encourage enterprise bargaining and cooperation will help create a fairer and wealthier society, but on their own they are not enough. We need a new approach to social and economic policy too. And social inclusion is it ". (The Economics of Social Inclusion)
However, the formal role of employees is still covered in the legal context of traditional adversarial IR relations. The recession creates casualties, e.g. refusal or avoidance of payment by employers of employee entitlements when laid off (e.g. Clyde Apac, Woodville factory); export of jobs to foreign countries, with much lower wage levels, are a growing threat to Australian employees. Employment lawyers and unions have to deal with those many who lose their income and are socially excluded from their workplace, often because they have no ownership stake in these companies. Social welfare comes to the rescue, public and private, but can it be done differently?
In contrast, the Social Inclusion Agenda in the UK has embraced a much more elaborate character in recent years. The Demos group in particular has promoted such an Agenda. A leading light in this group, Professor Charles Leadbeater has written extensively about the concept and presented several telling case studies. Interestingly, in May 2009 a visiting academic Geoff Mulgan, a "third way guru" assisting former PM Tony Blair, was engaged for three weeks consulting in the Department of the PM and the Cabinet. The adviser on Social Inclusion in Minister Julia Gillard's office is Tom Bentley. He was also Blair's adviser on Social Inclusion and formerly Director of the UK labour think tank "Demos". Bentley is very familiar what Social Inclusion means in the UK but much less so in the Australian setting. He appears to be an adviser now in the IR sector.
In the UK, Social Inclusion also means tackling 'the poverty of aspiration'. It refers to the ownership of a home, a business, shares or savings etc. Employee share ownership in their workplaces naturally falls within this agenda because it offers one form of 'ownership' that employees may aspire to.
Leadbeater is seen as an innovator; and a promoter of a new form of capitalism. He predicts a transformed landscape: a new ‘networked’ capitalism in which the state plays a part but cannot pick winners. However, it is questionable that in the wake of the crash of economic rationalism it makes sense to use such a label at all. Is there any value at all in continuing that adversarial discourse? There is a search for new approaches but redefining capitalism or going back to social democracy may not be the answers.
Nonetheless employee share ownership, employee voice and social enterprise for the delivery of public services, are all areas where Government intervention and assistance can do much to encourage Social Inclusion. Such an extension of existing philosophy could have great advantages in terms of job retention, productivity, employee commitment and the relatively inexpensive delivery of not-for-profit public services.
In the UK, new and highly successful dimensions of public service have emerged in recent years. These have been described on the AEOA website and elsewhere. Employees in these new, not-for-profit, mainly service organisations, have a large ownership stake AND a paid job! As social enterprises they are removed from the usual constrains of traditional public services as well as from the uncertainties which afflict many voluntary organisations. It is not just "having a job" that provides the Social Inclusion.
Furthermore, the engagement of employees in a traditional private sector enterprise is also enhanced by introducing broad-based employee share ownership plans. This has proved to be particularly effective, when combined with the introduction of employee voice. Such plans spread the ownership of business organisations thus potentially introducing a new socially inclusive culture. Again, this is much more than just having a job. It is the "more" that provides all the advantages of ownership and voice. They can also enhance the democratic ethos beyond periodic elections and the ballot box. Contrary to some critics' views the downside risk involved in employee ownership can be excluded by clear legislation and properly designed schemes. As to the use of employee voice it is increasingly obvious that European countries have been showing the way for the past 30 to 40 years. A culture change is needed in Australia. In a sense industrial relations has to be fast-forwarded. The "Rights to Work" campaign aimed to recover lost ground since 1996. The Fair Work legislation has partially achieved that but when it comes to real reforms Social Inclusion in workplace relations should be top of the agenda. This is one reason why the recent adverse Budget 2009 proposals in relation to employee share plans would have been a huge step backward instead of forward. It also suggests a partial misunderstanding of the objectives of broad-based plans.
At a time when capitalism is globalising, a trend that particularly benefits multinational corporations, the extention of business ownership to include employees can take remarkable forms. In a recent TV documentary "The Take ", shown by the ABC, a large number of businesses in Argentina, mothballed or abandoned in a period of serious economic decline (1990 - 2002), were successfully resurrected by the employees themselves. The decline was largely the result of President Carlos Menem following "El Modelo", the economist rationalist rules imposed by the IMF that virtually bankrupted Argentina. In many of these companies employees claimed a co-ownership stake essentially based on their labour and livelihoods. They proceeded to reclaim these factories and introduced a cooperative employee ownership culture. They reorganised the remuneration and management practices accordingly and, eventually, when challenged by the original owners, convinced the courts that ownership transfer had occurred. Idle resources were productively recommitted in this employee take-over.
In contrast, the recent closure of the Pacific Brand company in Melbourne (producers of Bond T shirts), regretfully demonstrates the quite unfair and unnecessary vulnerability of loyal and competent employees. At Pacific Brands, a company previously assisted with substantial Government subsidies, hundreds of employees lost their jobs when it closed its Australian plant. The exercise was motivated primarily by transferring its operations to a developing country offering lower wage levels. The benefits of the Government subsidies thus accrued exclusively to non-employee shareholders and grossly overpaid senior management. The upshot was that not only were the employees socially excluded; they would not even share in future profits. This Australian company is now engaged in a form neo-colonialism at the expense of their own workers and citizens. There are other still more recent examples, for instance, the ANZ bank transferring 500 jobs abroad.
It is therefore encouraging that the Victorian Government funded social enterprise developers -"Social Traders", met recently with Senator Ursula Stephens, Parliamentary Secretary for Social Inclusion. It does appear that the Federal Government is starting to accept a more "holistic" (her words) approach to "social enterprise" and that also e.g. employee buy-outs could yet be counted as a more inclusive approach to social enterprise.
Employee share ownership and employee voice are Social Inclusion issues in the workplace
Some have argued that the current financial crisis was not the result of "extreme capitalism" but, instead, of bad policy, in particular inadequate regulation and control. Plausible as this position may seem, how could such irresponsibility occur given that several previous financial crises had provided much insight in the prevention and management of such situations. Moreover, in spite of the quite widespread Keynesian type of responses from governments the public's confidence in the capacity of "markets" has been severely dented. The period of economic rationalism is at an end. Voters are again looking to governments to manage their economies, including the markets.
On the other hand, social democrats cannot put the clock back either although some may believe that this could or should happen. Something quite different is likely to emerge from the crises. It reminds one of the insights suggested by the sociologist R. M. McIver (1960). Perhaps the time for that view to be accepted more generally had not arrived then but half a century and two major crises later it may be different.
"Practically everyone agrees that there are social functions which the state alone can perform,
that there are others, which it is more, qualified to perform than any other association,
that there are others for which it is less qualified,
and finally that there are functions which the state is wholly incapable of performing."
One can now extend this assessment to include "economic functions" that the state can perform and others for which it is less qualified or not qualified. The balance would be different from time to time depending on the state of development. Also the international society impacting on a state may differ but what this theory does is shelving the notion that it is an either/or proposition. The socialism versus capitalism contrast has been presented more often than not as opposites in economic and political theory. These have informed and motivated western societies since the publication of Marx's writings based on his theory of dialectical materialism. This long period has made it difficult to view workplaces other than as comprising the capitalist owners and their salaried managers, on the one hand, and the waged employees, on the other hand. The concept that employees could be co-owners in the sense of being shareholders of the company they work in was quite exceptional. It did occur in some enlightened businesses and was the norm in worker cooperatives. The US first introduced ESO legislation in the early 1980s. In the socialist world the theories of Edvard Kardelj, Tito's right-hand in Jugoslavia, described as "market socialism", were introduced as a significant departure from monolith Russian communism. The Jugoslavs were ostracised by Moscow as a result.
The recent presentation by Rainer Schlueter, of the International Cooperative Alliance, organised by the Business and Labour History Group of Sydney University has shown that the crises of capitalism have fostered a growing acceptance of the worker cooperative models in the European Union. This may well suggest that the distinction between owner and employee has now lost much of its class orientation and that workplace democracy becomes the new reality, at least in Europe. There is of course a long post-WWII history of worker participation in several European countries, as well tripartite cooperation between government, trade union and employer's organisations, which would have facilitated this new trend.
The need for synthesis and new workplace models in middle class societies should be obvious in Australia as well. The review of the 2009 budget proposals for employee share ownership should cover a lot more than taxation issues. It provides the opportunity to greatly stimulate the spread of broad-based ESOPs especially in small and medium-sized enterprises
Klaas Woldring.
Secretary
AEOA |
Edited by - Woldring on 04 Jun 2009 09:40:28 |
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admin
632 Posts |
Posted - 09 Jun 2009 : 09:15:43
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Employee Ownership and Social Inclusion
With the recent election of an ALP Federal Government, the Hon Julia Gillard MP has been appointed both Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations and Minister for Social Inclusion.
The social inclusion agenda is a new one for Australia. In other countries, it is much more advanced. Social inclusion initiatives provide major opportunities for employee ownership. The UK “Social Enterprise of the Year, 2006” was the wholly employee owned “Sunderland Home Care Associates”.
For details on the employee ownership opportunity within the social inclusion agenda, see the “Foreword” by the Rt Hon. Hilary Armstrong, MP, UK Minister for Social Inclusion to the recently released report: “Caring and Sharing: The Co-owned Route to Better Care”, by David Wheatcroft, on Sunderland Home Care Associates. This report was published by the Employee Ownership Association UK, October, 2007. You can see the full report at: http://www.employeeownership.co.uk/publications.asp
Foreword: The Co-owned Route to Better Care
Earlier this year I had the pleasure of visiting Sunderland Home Care as Minister for Social Exclusion. I looked forward to the visit with great anticipation for two reasons. Firstly, Sunderland Home Care carried a reputation for innovation and good practice that I knew well from being an MP in the North East, and they had just won the prestigious Enterprising Solutions Award too. And secondly I have known Margaret Elliott since the days before I became a politician when I taught community carers, and this added a personal element to the visit.
I met many of the Sunderland Home Care care workers on that visit and spent time with a client at their home, and I can lay testament to the sheer dedication of the staff I met on that day. The 200 or so care workers own the organisation itself, adding to the sense of commitment not just to the client – which one hopes every care professional to have – but an extraordinary bond with colleagues and, most significantly, the enterprise too. In this instance it has created an organisation that is responsive, dynamic, enterprising, and client focussed.
Choosing to exploit the social enterprise model as a framework for Sunderland Home Care was a great idea. It meant that a people-centric organisation would be guaranteed at the outset and would remain into the future, with enough flexibility for management to shape the organisation and structure its ownership model to encourage the outcomes they sought.
Most of the general public will only recognise a few social enterprise brands and fewer still will be familiar with the concept and ideals of social enterprise itself. But social enterprise is a growing force within our society. The combined turnover of social enterprise in the United Kingdom is estimated at £27 billion with a contribution to GDP of £8 billion. Even though this is approximately equivalent in combined size with the agricultural sector, the potential for social enterprise is clearly so much greater than it is today. Measuring it in purely financial terms does not reflect the possibilities for social change either.
When I became Cabinet Office Minister in 2005, the Prime Minister introduced a new cabinet post, Social Exclusion, and also brought the Office of the Third Sector and the Social Enterprise Unit into the department too. This was recognition of the growing role and the future potential of the third and social enterprise sectors in supporting the hardest to reach in our society. Some people have an understandable distrust of state agencies and seem able to form a much more trusting relationship with these organisations. As a result, they have the opportunity to become what Bill Clinton has called ‘change makers’ – people and organisations that change our society for the better.
And when it comes to social change what better example is there than Sunderland Home Care? All employment has the potential to change lives for the better and fulfil people’s aspirations. It is too easy when discussing social enterprise to underplay the contribution and importance that private enterprise makes to our society and to so many millions of people’s lives. But in some cases more is needed over and above a straightforward employee / employer relationship in order to not just exploit people’s talent, but inspire personal change. This can and should lead to wider change within our society, often among people with low aspirations or other personal challenges.
Poverty of aspiration is a particular problem faced in the North East of England, a part of the country close to my heart. A unique industrial past and rapid economic restructuring – brutally mismanaged during the 1980’s - has left many people struggling to adjust to a globalised world where people aren’t just competing for jobs with folk in the next village but often in another continent altogether.
By creating an organisation owned by its staff, Sunderland Home Care employees at all levels have been empowered to influence decisions including budgets, pay and conditions of employment. Risky, some may think. But in this case it has had a remarkably positive effect on everyone involved in the enterprise. Employees have had their aspirations raised – working together as a team they directly benefit from greater corporate achievement. Pressure to excel not only comes from above, but from every level of the organisation including from peers.
One lesson that comes from the Sunderland Home Care experience is that participation changes people’s lives.
This is outlined clearly in the paper you are about to read. By extending the benefits of employment to carers from all backgrounds and incentivising their development as a core activity of the organisation, the enterprise has evolved with the twin aims of offering superlative client care and a level of personal development to staff that is matched by few other organisations in any sector.
With a mission to provide the best service to clients yet leverage the power of entrepreneurial spirit to elevate the aspirations of the staff too, Sunderland Home Care has provided us with a model of changing society for the better that we all need to learn from.
We in the North East badly need this level of enterprising spirit and dedication to social development. We have the talent, and we have the potential, but too rarely is either fully exploited.
I hope that you enjoy this paper, and learn from it, as I have. It is too rarely we come across true change-makers, and I have no doubt that in Sunderland Home Care we have just that. We should take heed of the lessons we can all learn from their example.
Rt Hon Hilary Armstrong MP
Employee Ownership Pioneer Receives OBE
As a postrcript to the story above, it is interesting to note the award made in the New Year, 2008 to the leader of Sunderland Home Care Associates, Margaret Elliott, now OBE.
"Margaret Elliott, the founder and executive director of an employee owned care provider has been awarded an OBE in the 2008 New Year’s honours list for services to the City of Sunderland. Sunderland Home Care Associates has gained national and international recognition for its social enterprise model and in 2006 won the Enterprising Solutions Award for the outstanding UK Social Enterprise of the Year.
Margaret Elliott said: “I have been totally committed to the principles of employee ownership for over thirty years, I know it changes peoples’ lives.” She described the OBE as “a huge pat on the back for the 220 owner workers of Sunderland Home Care Associates for their hard work and commitment.”
See the profile of Margaret Elliott at: Centre
http://www.socialenterprisenews.co.uk/features/Social%20Enterprise/1261
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admin
632 Posts |
Posted - 22 Jun 2009 : 08:26:58
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Employee ownership, social inclusion and generating savings
Social inclusion focuses on investing in the disadvantaged and their communities to bring them into the mainstream economy and society. It involves building the personal capacities and material resources of individuals, families and communities in order to fulfil each person’s potential for economic and social participation and a life of dignity.
Inequalities in the ownership of assets and security in employment are severe. Over 60 per cent of assets are held by 20 percent of the population while around 20 percent of the population have virtually no tangible assets except their income. In Australia, the number of working poor, earning two thirds of the median income is estimated at around 1.2 million people or 14 per cent of those in the workforce.
Building economic ownership and opportunity through savings and asset based policies can faciltate the success of social inclusion strategies. Employee share ownership can play a very important role in the building of medium term savings for lower income earners and the newly employed. For more information on the topic of savings and employee share ownership, see the discussion forum at: http://aeoa.org.au/0024/_forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=74 .
"Asset-based policies provide a powerful set of options to address the changing requirements of contemporary social policy. The core idea of asset-based strategies in welfare policy is to facilitate individuals’ experience of ownership and provide opportunities to make decisions about building resources and capabilities for the future.
Where the social welfare debate has mostly focused on providing income rather than assets, an expanding body of evidence is showing that ownership of assets has a strong impact on the choices people make and their life opportunities. The core idea of asset based strategies in welfare policy is to facilitate individuals’ experience of ownership and opportunities to make decisions about building resources and capabilities for the future. Through providing incentives to encourage new behaviour patterns, asset-based strategies assist people on low incomes purchase physical assets such as a home or invest in knowledge or human capital through purchasing education and training." (From: "Asset Based Policies - Matched Savings: Exploring Options" by The Allen Consulting Group for The Chifley Research Centre - copy can be accessed at: http://www.mercury.org.au/ownership.html ).
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admin
632 Posts |
Posted - 11 Jul 2009 : 06:13:39
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Leveling differences; raising spirits?
Prevention Action, 9 June 2009
From: http://www.preventionaction.org/reviews/leveling-differences-raising-spirits/1261
Sex education for potential teenage mothers; free gym membership for the obese; cognitive behavioral therapy for badly behaved children – all are inadequate, piecemeal solutions to the symptoms of a wider social malaise – inequality – says a new book by UK researchers.
The Spirit Level argues that the difference in earnings between richest and poorest in developed societies is the source of a catalog of social problems.
What is more, the authors insist, these problems cannot be solved without first addressing the underlying structures of inequality.
Richard Wilkinson, Professor Emeritus at the University of Nottingham and his co-author Kate Pickett at the University of York argue that throughout human history the most effective way of increasing well-being has been to increase material wealth.
But we have reached “the end of that historical journey”.
The starting point of The Spirit Level is the suggestion that when average income levels reach a certain level – comparable to earnings in countries such as Chile or Poland – increases in wealth cease to have any impact on well-being.
The book charts how inequality, not average income, is the more accurate predictor of signs of distress in developed countries - poor mental health, drug abuse, obesity, low educational performance, teenage parenting or violence.
Thus, in the US, one of the world’s most unequal societies, one in four people have mental health problems. By comparison, in more equal societies such as Germany, Japan and Spain, the rate is lower than one in ten. This is just one of countless examples, backed up by compelling data. Across the 50 US states the pattern is the same: more equal states do better.
The common explanation for this is that unequal societies have proportionally more poor people. But Wilkinson and Pickett argue that although these problems affect the poor more seriously, the rich still suffer. This is why the super rich in the US, UK and Portugal – three unequal societies – do not live as long as the rich do, for example in Sweden, which has a more equal income distribution.
And this applies across the board. A rich child in the UK will not achieve as much educationally as children do in more equal European states like Belgium or Finland. On the face of it, the message is clear: we all suffer from inequality.
Wilkinson and Pickett draw on a range of evidence and theory, hypothesizing that more inequality leads to greater “status anxiety” – our concern about our standing in the world, whether we are going up or down, if we are winners or losers. Our self-image is forever in need of external praise to accept ourselves. Greater status anxiety leads to negative reactions like stress and violence, and their knock-on effects.
In offering a solution, Wilkinson and Pickett consider how some countries may have succeeded in achieving more equality. It seems that there is no single solution. Sweden and Japan for example, two of the most equal societies, operate by entirely different models.
Sweden has high taxes and redistributes wealth through a large welfare state; Japan, with some of the lowest public spending in the developed world, achieves the same by having much greater income equality before tax.
They also look to solutions already flourishing within unequal market democracies, turning to the success of the not-for-profit sector and workers co-operatives for inspiration.
Almost an outcomes agenda for the economy
A chapter is dedicated to suggesting how this philosophy can link up with current debates about environmental sustainability. Discussing the reduction of carbon emissions, they advocate a system that would make the rich – who inevitably expend more through greater consumption – pay their fair share.
But a more radical approach is needed. They question the entire ethos of consumerism and never-ending economic expansion that, they claim, is fueled largely by status competition. According to their research, cutting economic growth does not mean reductions in real quality of life. It almost sounds like an outcomes agenda for the economy.
Publishing of the book coincides with social activism in the form of The Equality Trust to carry the findings further. The trust is promoting employee-owned businesses; it commissions research on equality issues, lobbies politicians and policymakers, and engages with the media.
Were they to be widely corroborated, the conclusions of The Spirit Level would have potentially far-reaching implications for prevention and early intervention efforts. The authors acknowledge that governments can dampen the impact of some of the privations of growing up in poverty, for instance through social housing, health care and high quality early childhood education.
However, they are forthright in their criticism of interventions to tackle social problems one-by-one, on an individual basis.
“The unstated hope is that people – particularly the poor – can carry on in the same circumstances, but will somehow no longer succumb to mental illness, teenage pregnancy, educational failure, obesity or drugs.” They are in no doubt that tackling inequality should be the priority before turning to intervention programs.
They question how far we can go by assisting the poor financially, without reining back the earnings of the rich. Far from being an asset, it appears the super rich are actually a burden on the rest of us. Salary caps and more progressive taxation are one way forward. Although this may horrify supporters of neo-liberal economics, Wilkinson points out that, in a curious twist of logic, equality is actually in everyone’s own self-interest.
Addressing inequality is, in some ways, far simpler. It provides a universal remedy for many of society’s ills. But it implies a much grander task. Rolling out a program of parenting classes for kids with conduct disorder is hard enough. Taking on inequality implies altering the values of entire societies.
The Spirit Level: Why more equal societies almost always do better by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett is published by Allen Lane. It is also available as an ePub and an eBook.
Matthew Jonas
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admin
632 Posts |
Posted - 11 Jul 2009 : 08:24:39
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Employee Ownership Makes You Live Longer
The review below was published in May Edition of Community Cooperative Connections eNews (which can be seen at: http://www.business.uts.edu.au/cacom/news/newsletters/may2006.html )
Dr David Erdal - the author of the research report reviewed - manages the UK employee buyout fund Baxi Partnership (http://www.baxipartnership.co.uk/index.html).
The UK Financial Times in reviewing the research report used the term "Employee ownership makes you live longer". You can see more on this research report - including the Financial Times article - at: http://www.richarddonkin.com/x_italian_cooperatives.htm
"Is employee ownership good for your health?
At least one UK researcher believes they are! Dr David Erdal contended that people will flourish in more egalitarian communities, such as those with widespread employee ownership and large numbers of workers cooperatives. To test this thesis, Dr Erdal examined three towns in an area of northern Italy near Bologna: 26 % of the workforce in one town were employed in co-ops, in another there were 13%, with no co-op workers at all in a third town. The three municipalities were prosperous, with successful businesses and low unemployment. They were all within 80 kilometres of each other and in the same valley, so their physical and cultural environments were similar. They were also about the same size, with their populations in the range of 40,000 to 80,000.
The following factors were measured:
Crime: victimisation, policing, confidence, feelings of security, domestic violence
Education: level attained, age leaving school, truancy, post-school training, perceived importance of education
Health: physical health, emotional health, mortality
Social Environment: perceived gap between rich and poor, helpfulness of authorities, supportiveness of social networks
Social Participation: membership of clubs, voting rates, blood donation
The results were in line with the prediction: the greater the proportion of people employed in workers co-operatives, the more positive were these measures. The town with the most co-operatives rates significantly higher than the town with no co-operatives. The town with an intermediate level of co-operatives was in-between. "
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admin
632 Posts |
Posted - 16 Jul 2009 : 10:53:40
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Employee Ownership and Social inclusion: Margaret Elliott on Sunderland Home Care Associates
From: http://www.socialenterprise.org.uk/pages/margaret-elliott-sunderland-home-care-associates.html
Margaret Elliott is a veteran of the social enterprise movement, having launched two co-ops in the 1970s - the Little Women shop and nursery and Little Women Household Services.
In 1994 she set up Sunderland Home Care Associates (SHCA) which has grown into a massive success (Social Enterprise Of The Year at the 2006 Enterprising Solutions Awards), finding work for almost 200 disadvantaged local residents while supplying care to over 500 elderly and disabled people.
The company has a turnover of 1.75 million pounds and is fully employee-owned, with staff receiving above market pay and conditions as well as having a say in all major decisions. Though many lacked formal education before joining, more than 150 employees have now gained NVQ Care and Business qualifications and all the others are currently undergoing courses.
This commitment to their employee-owners has helped the company achieve very low levels of staff turnover, better relationships with clients and a higher quality of care overall, evidenced in consistently high scores from the Commission for Social Care Inspection.
Margaret spoke to the Social Enterprise Coalition about how and why she became a social enterprise leader: "In 1973 I was 23 with a five-week old baby and a little girl as well - and then my mum died just before Christmas. It really knocked me senseless, I don't know if you can imagine. It took me a year to pull myself round and the thing that really got me through it was finding out about co-operatives - a type of social enterprise - and how they really change peoples lives, and it gave me this idea to start a shop.
"So I got a group of women friends together who were in the same boat as myself with no qualifications, hardly any money and all of us with small bairns. We began to meet and share ideas and we decided to start a food shop that would have a little nursery upstairs to put the bairns and it just developed from there. "It took us two years to get the money together and get the social enterprise started but then it took off.
Over time I really noticed a positive change in the women involved and in myself and it had a massive effect on me. We were just ordinary women but we were managing to run a successful business. We were earning money and standing on our own two feet and it made us stand taller. I've been absolutely enmeshed in social enterprise ever since.
"Most of the people who come into the SHCA offices have a couple of bairns, they might be single parents - or not, but they'll have no qualifications, no self-confidence, no job. Theyll start getting their training and that lifts them up a bit. Then they get their NVQ and the change is amazing. They really start to feel better about themselves as they feel valued and you can see the result in how hard they work. They feel like theyve got a real stake in the company. You can see it at the AGM when we announce the shares and what the value is and how much we can afford to give out and everybodys like 'wahey!'.
Helping these people lift themselves up to this level of confidence - its the same buzz as when I was 25.
"I was in Hong Kong last year and a group of Chinese people kept asking me 'why didnt you just do it all for yourself and become a millionaire?' and I said that's just not what its about. I dont think 'd have as much passion if it was just about making money. You do get paid of course, we all have to live, but thats not why you do it. You go into it for totally different reasons, because its the right thing to do, because you're changing people's lives.
"But to start one up you have to have staying power because you can so easily be knocked back, you just have to be, not ruthless, but really, really tenacious. You also have to be willing to take a leap of faith, just take a risk and go for it. In Sunderland we grew the business because we wanted to show people that social enterprise is not about playing around the edges, it can be big and still help people change their lives.
"You also need to be married to the ideals because it changes your life. My daughter says Ive got a bug because Ive never considered giving up And its true Ive never thought of doing anything else - why would I?"
Margaret Elliott will be presenting at the Social Enterprise World Forum ( http://www.sewf09.com/ ) in Melbourne in early October 2009.
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admin
632 Posts |
Posted - 22 Jul 2009 : 10:11:47
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Cooperative Home Care Associates in the US Wins Innovation in Employee Ownership Award
One of the four companies named as winners of the NCEO/Beyster (US) Innovation in Employee Ownership Awards for 2009 was the South Bronx, New York based Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA), a worker-owned cooperative that provides home care services throughout New York City. With 1,550 employees, CHCA is currently the US's largest worker-owned cooperative.
CHCA has worked closely with SEW Local (Union) 1199 in creating a formal labor/ management committee as a strategy to involve more employees in organizational decision-making. This initiative complements the company's efforts to provide home care workers with high-quality jobs characterized by above-market wages and benefits, full-time hours, opportunities for promotion, as well as extensive training and support.
CHCA was launched by the Community Service (New York's largest charitable organization) in 1985 largely as a way to put pressure on other home care providers to improve the terms of employment for this traditionally very poorly paid and difficult, yet vital, service.
It developed such a good reputation for quality that it grew from a few dozen people to its current size and, in the process, changed the industry in New York.
You can see CHCA's web-site at: http://www.chcany.org/
From: Employee Ownership Report, NCEO (US), July/August 2009.
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admin
632 Posts |
Posted - 06 Sep 2009 : 09:34:09
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Social Enterprise Discovers Employee Ownership.
AEOA Public Officer, Alan Greig has been invited to present at a workshop at the Social Enterprise World Forum (SEWF - http://www.sewf09.com/ ) in Melbourne on 7th and 8th October. The presentation will be on the topic “Why Share Ownership? It's the Right Thing to Do. People Respond to Inclusion".
Employee ownership champion, Margaret Elliott, OBE of the employee owned Sunderland Home Care Associates (SHCA) will also be presenting at the SEWF about the business form that SHCA takes. SHCA is wholly owned by an Employee Benefits Trust (UK version of the ESOP). For a discussion on the SHCA structure, see the report by the Employee Ownership Association UK “Caring and Sharing: The Co-owned Route to Better Care” at: http://www.employeeownership.co.uk/publications.asp ).
For an excellent article on Margaret Elliott's work with employee ownership and social enterprise, see: http://www.socialenterprise.org.uk/pages/margaret-elliott-sunderland-home-care-associates.html .
This invitation provides a good opportunity to raise the profile of employee ownership and to highlight the potential benefits of the ESOP in social service businesses (one of the fastest growing industries in Australia).
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admin
632 Posts |
Posted - 06 Sep 2009 : 09:36:45
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Luncheon Discussion in Sydney with Margaret Elliott of the UK ESOP owned company, Sunderland Home Care Associates.
The AEOA is pleased to be able to host a luncheon meeting with Margaret Elliott while she is visiting Australia, on Friday, 9th October, 2009 at the Royal Exchange Club of Sydney, commencing at midday. Cost: $60. Booking details for this event can be obtained by contacting the AEOA President (see "Contacts' page).
Margaret Elliott set up Sunderland Home Care Associates (SHCA) in 1994. SHCA has grown into a massive success (Social Enterprise of the Year at the 2006 Enterprising Solutions Awards), finding work for over 250 local residents while supplying care to over 500 elderly and disabled people.
The company has a turnover of 1.75 million pounds and is fully employee-owned, with staff receiving above market pay and conditions as well as having a say in all major decisions. Though many lacked formal education before joining, more than 150 employees have now gained NVQ Care and Business qualifications and all the others are currently undergoing courses.
This commitment to their employee-owners has helped the company achieve very low levels of staff turnover, better relationships with clients and a higher quality of care overall, evidenced in consistently high scores from the Commission for Social Care Inspection.
Margaret was awarded an OBE in the 2008 New Year’s Honours List for her services to employee ownership and the City of Sunderland. Margaret is also a Director of the Employee Ownership Association UK.
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admin
632 Posts |
Posted - 26 Oct 2009 : 06:09:00
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Trading for change
From: The Age (Melbourne) October 8, 2009 , By MIKI PERKINS
See: http://www.theage.com.au/national/trading-for-change-20091007-gn9h.html
IN THE mid-'70s British resident Margaret Elliot found herself with a "bairn", no money and no qualifications.
Times were tight in the coastal city of Sunderland but Margaret knew she wanted to emulate the co-operative where her bricklayer husband worked, which she thought was a "brilliant", and fair, idea.
So she gathered a group of seven women — all with young children, no money and no higher education — and over two years they scraped together £8500 to buy a corner shop.
They used the room upstairs as a nursery and shared the childcare, and sold food and supplies downstairs — Little Women Limited was born.
Ms Elliot and dozens of other pioneering social reformers are in Melbourne for the Social Enterprise World Forum, to encourage the emerging Australian social enterprise movement and bring together innovative ideas from around the world.
"The change in the women, their confidence, the way they felt about themselves because they were working made me realise that co-operative work and social enterprise could be a powerful tool," Ms Elliot said.
More than 30 years later Ms Elliot, an OBE recipient, is still involved in social enterprise — organisations that trade for social, rather than monetary, benefits.
Other "social entrepreneurs" visiting Melbourne include Jimmy Pham, who after 22 years abroad was shocked by the poverty and hopelessness facing the country's youth when he returned to Vietnam.
He opened KOTO — Know One, Teach One — a small sandwich shop in Hanoi and employed nine street kids, an enterprise which has now grown to a two-year training course whose graduates are snapped up by five-star hotels overseas.
KOTO has moved to a 200-seat restaurant in Hanoi and a new operation is planned in Ho Chi Minh.
"Even though the whole social enterprise movement has been going on so long [in places like the UK], it's good to see the emerging social enterprises in Australia," Mr Pham said.
Delegates include Benny Callaghan, chief executive of the School for Social Entrepreneurs Australia, which will open a branch in Melbourne next year, and Tamra Ryan, head of the Women's Bean Project in the US, which trains long-term unemployed women how to develop the skills to work again.
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admin
632 Posts |
Posted - 31 Oct 2009 : 10:50:51
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Fair Go Nation Has Gone
By Peter Wilson, The Australian, May 9, 2009.
Australia may have built its reputation as a society that offers a 'fair go', but a recently released book challenges this self-perception. And what's more, it says our lack of equality may be bad for our health.
The Spirit Level. Why Equal Societies Almost Always do Better, by Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett, has already stirred up debate in the United Kingdom. Now, this book has come to Australia.
The Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, personally gave a copy to Prime Minister Kevin Rudd when he was visiting London,The innovative, analytical approach that underpins the book is epidemiological,The authors argue that unequal countries suffer a greater level of disease at all income levels compared to more economically equitable nations. They present data on mental illness, obesity, cardiovascular disease, drug abuse, teenage pregnancy, and violence ranging from school bullying to murder. And the results? Higher rates of each of these social ills are recorded at all levels in those societies which have less economic equality.
Wilkinson and Pickett theorize that acute status difference has a psychological and hormonal effect that contributes to health problems. Australia - in contrast with its self image - is identified as one of the most unequal societies out of the twenty three largest developed nations. This would have a consequence for the current government which has built a policy platform around the idea of social inclusion.
The book posits that the scale of income differences has a powerful effect on how citizens relate to each other and the pressure that is felt by those along the entire length of the spectrum. Of course, critics have pointed out that differences in rates of disease among nations could be described by more complicated interplays of cultural and social behaviours. Inevitably, there is disagreement about what the data can actually prove.
At the very least, Wilson points out, the book shakes Australians' notion that it remains a `fair go' 'nation.The authors' "argument for equality [is] not a plea for fairness but a warning to the rich and middle classes that they will end up worse off unless they ensure that the poorer members of society are doing well."
In contrast to Peter Singer who writes about the logic of giving, Wilkinson and Pickett believe that contributing to a more equitable world can be better for your health.
This is a review of the article. The full article can be seen at:http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,,25448645-28737,00.html
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admin
632 Posts |
Posted - 01 Dec 2009 : 04:24:33
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Economic empowerment - building social capital and social inclusion
(First published in "Community Enterprise Connections", Edition 6, May, 2008 (see: http://www.communityenterprise.org.au/news.html ) under the heading "Social Enterprise and Social inclusion").
"There is developing debate on the role that profit distributing social enterprises can play in adding to social capital and social inclusion. This debate is arising from the fact that the winners of the "Social Enterprise of the Year Awards" for 2006 and 2007 in the UK were both for profit, community owned companies.
The 2007 winner, Divine Chocolates Ltd is a private company (incorporated as an unlisted public company), part-owned by a number of fair trade agencies and a Ghanaian cocoa farmers’ cooperative. Dividends are paid and distributed to the participating farmers.
Although half-owned by the Ghanaian farmers coop, Divine Chocolates has a very innovative "social enterprise" ownership structure for making and selling chocolate using the Ghanaian sourced cocoa, which involves an NGO, a private foundation, a charity and well-known public company, The Body Shop as shareholders. This social enterprise has performed so well that it has recently attracted significant social investment from an international financial institution.
Australia could do well from social enterprises developed along these innovative community ownership/social investment lines. Hopefully, the social inclusion agenda being developed by the Australian Government will not exclude them from being counted "in".
In 2006, the Social Enterprise of the Year Award went to Sunderland Home Care Associates, a private company owned by an employee benefits trust (or an ESOP - employee share ownership plan - as it is known in Australia). These successful examples of social enterprise add a new element into the social inclusion debate in Australia - that of "economic empowerment".
Current debate in the community sector is revolving around whether the "community building" approach to social inclusion is encouraging social enterprises in Australia to only concentrate on a narrow band of social ventures that are primarily on about the social welfare of their participants rather than the economic empowerment of their participants. This latter aspect is an important social enterprise objective elsewhere in the world and one that the new Minister for Social Inclusion, Julia Gillard appears to be very keen to address in Australia.
The debate is attempting to link the policy issues arising from Julia Gillard's speech on social inclusion to what can be delivered by for profit, community-owned or employee-owned social enterprises. On this aspect, note especially the UK Minister for Social Exclusion's "Foreword" to the Report "Caring and Sharing: The Co-owned Route to Better Care" for the breadth of vision that she displays on this issue, which is way beyond understandings on this topic in Australia.
What do these examples demonstrate in relation to the key issue of building social capital?
The key to social capital is building "trust" within communities. These social enterprises build social capital by providing "a stake in system". A stake in the system builds faith in the system. Increasing faith - that things are going well and you are 'included' - builds trust and participation, not only in the social enterprises concerned, but also in the affairs of the wider community. Social capital can be built in quite unique ways as shown in these financially successful social enterprise examples.
Unfortunately, many social capital advocates in Australia see social capital in an adversarial relationship with financial capital, rather than complementary to it - or as is shown in these two examples, social and financial capital can be completely intertwined and grown with each other.
From the evidence presented, it is clear that you can build both social capital and financial capital together with genuine social enterprise development. However, there is a need for those involved in social enterprise development in Australia to focus on broadening "ownership and participation" as an important new means for building social capital.
Social capital might not be the exclusive preserve of the "not for profit" sector, as many in the charitable sector are arguing.
Alan Greig
Director, Ownership Strategies, The Mercury Centre
(The Mercury Centre is a member of the Australian Employee Ownership Association.)
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admin
632 Posts |
Posted - 19 Jan 2010 : 09:04:33
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British Conservative Shadow Health Minister Proposes Employee Ownership in National Health Service; Other Parties Agree
British Conservative party shadow health secretary Andrew Lansley has proposed that the country's National Health Service would be recreated under a Conservative government along the lines of the employee-owned John Lewis Partnership, one of the largest retail operations in the U.K. Britain will have elections in the next several months, and the Conservatives currently are well ahead in the polls.
In response, both the Labour Party and Liberal/Democratic Party said they too would favor a version of the plan, and extend it to other services, such as schools, as well. The Labour plan would also include local communities and nonprofit groups.
Article from: The Employee Ownership Report, January/February, 2010. NCEO (US) www.nceo.org.
For the British Labour Party's policy on this, go to: http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2009/nov/11/labour-manifesto-public-services-sector .
For a useful UK research report on the topic, see NHS Mutual. This report was funded and published by the Nuffield Trust. The report is a study into the scope for engaging and motivating health service staff using employee ownership and other social ownership models. The report, on which UK Employee Ownership Association advised, concludes that employee ownership of the kind pioneered by Central Surrey Health has a valuable role to play but needs support from policy makers. Publisher: Nuffield Trust. Authors: Professor Chris Ham and Dr Jo Ellins. Published July 2009. The report can be viewed at: http://www.employeeownership.co.uk/publications.asp
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admin
632 Posts |
Posted - 28 Jan 2010 : 10:14:40
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The Social Inclusion Agenda in Australia - Keeping Poor People Poor?
A glance at the program for the forthcoming "Social Inclusion Conference" in Australia at the end of January, 2010 (http://www.socialinclusionconference.com.au/) will show why many are saying that the social inclusion agenda is aimed at "keeping poor people poor" because it does nothing about savings and the ownership of the kind of capital assets that really tackle individual and family poverty.
Below are a couple of news articles on the situation with "savings" of the working poor which tend to highlight the problem. Only Government "asset-based" policies will seriously address the twin issues of social exclusion and poverty. The core idea of asset-based strategies in welfare policy is to facilitate individuals’ experience of ownership and provide opportunities to make decisions about building resources and capabilities for the future.
Living Pay by Pay
Research undertaken by the IOOF investment group shows that 44 per cent of Australians are now living "pay to pay". Only 38 per cent are able to regularly save money. Of those surveyed, 47 per cent say they borrow money to pay for education costs. "The availability of credit cards and loans has meant that generally Australians don't see saving, before spending, as a priority," says Renato Mota, IOOF Investor Solutions general manager.
Savings slump brings crisis closer to home
Sydney Morning Herald, May 18, 2009
Almost 30 per cent of NSW residents have no savings, according to a new study that shows many have been caught unprepared for the recession and rising unemployment.
A survey by Bankwest to be released today also suggests men are better savers than women and generation Y members are more likely to be setting aside a larger share of their pay than other age groups, including baby boomers.
"The report is a sobering snapshot of how the unprecedented downturn of the past six months has hit home," said the chief executive of Bankwest retail, Ian Corfield. "Millions of NSW residents are failing to put sufficient money aside to cover life's setbacks."
He said nearly 60 per cent of those from NSW who took part in the six-month online study of 1144 people had not adjusted their finances in response to the recession, 29 per cent admitted they had no savings and 40 per cent saved none of their pay.
One in four said they saved less than 5 per cent of their pay, another quarter saved between 5 and 15 per cent, and just over one in 10 banked more than 15 per cent.
"In years gone by the prudent thing was to save for a rainy day, yet today it's pouring cats and dogs yet few people are putting enough, if any, money aside to see them through unexpected financial emergencies," Mr Corfield said.
Bankwest and other banks, including its owner, the Commonwealth Bank, would benefit if more people put more savings into a bank. But the report provides a useful report card on household finances after last week's federal budget said the economy would get worse.
The Government forecast that unemployment rate would rise from 5.4 per cent to 8.5 per cent by June 2010, but the report found 56 per cent of people would struggle financially if they were made redundant.
"Not only would most people be in dire trouble if they lost their jobs, but our report found that half of Australians would struggle with simple things like a rise in household bills or major repairs to their car," Mr Corfield said.
Twenty per cent said they could not afford an expensive operation, 26 per cent could not pay for major house repairs not covered by insurance, 12 per cent could not meet a sudden increase in household bills or be able to replace a household appliance, and 13 per cent could not pay for major car repairs.
In most cases a further one-third said they could just manage to meet those costs, but it would be a struggle.
Mr Corfield said women were more likely than men to struggle with a financial emergency as only 36 per cent had three months' salary saved up, compared with 50 per cent of men. Forty-two per cent of women made no regular monthly savings compared with 33 per cent of men.
He said 25 per cent of generation Ys, typically those born in the 1980s and 1990s, were saving more than 15 per cent of their pay compared with 13 per cent of baby boomers, 14 per cent of Generation Xers and 16 per cent of retirees.
"In sharp contrast to their carefree and free-spending image, the report found that many gen Ys appeared to be carefully insulating themselves against the downturn," he said.
The study was taken between September, when the global financial crisis began, and March.
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admin
632 Posts |
Posted - 06 Feb 2010 : 16:20:34
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Helping Low-Income Employees at Employee Ownership Companies Manage Finances
Employee-owned Cooperative Home Care Associates (CHCA), a national model for home health care in the Bronx, New York, and an NCEO 2009 Innovations Awards winner, has generously volunteered to share its model for helping low-income employees achieve greater financial stability. Like many lower-income workers, CHCA employees often lacked bank accounts, causing them to rely on expensive alternatives like check cashing services. They often had: a) little experience with financial planning, b) often failed to claim the earned income tax credits for which they qualified for, and c) trouble paying unexpected expenses were ill-prepared to deal even with what other people might consider very minor financial bumps. CHCA has worked to change this, in the process making it easier for people to stay with CHCA and provide the kind of continuity of care to clients so critical to their well being.
Aside from a strong benefits package, CHCA helps make sure low-income employees can claim their Earned Income Tax Credits by offering free income-tax preparation services. The credits average $3,100 per employee and yet are often not claimed if employees do their own taxes. CHCA has negotiated with local banks to offer banking services at lower costs and direct deposit of paychecks, saving many employees from expensive check cashing services. It also provides small no-interest loans, and access to free legal advice through a local legal clinic.
Another employee ownership company with such a program is Staples, which piloted a program offering free tax preparation for up to the first 500 low-income employees who participated and $30 for those coming after that. The average participants got an additional $522 in tax credits. At the same time they were getting help with their taxes, the providers offered help in explaining other benefit programs they could sign up for, including the 401(k) plan and the employee stock purchase plan, which offered a 15% discount. Staples' employee ownership program is an employee stock purchase plan (ESPP); participation in the Staples ESPP increased 15% as a result of the assistance to low-income employees. Turnover among those who participated dropped 32% compared to those who did not.
From: NCEO (US) Bulletin, February, 2010 at http://www.nceo.org/main/column.php/id/353
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admin
632 Posts |
Posted - 06 Feb 2010 : 16:23:36
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Saving and Asset-Building in Low-Income Households
Author: Tony Dolphin
Price: Free
Publication Date: 23 December 2009, Institute of Public Policy Research (IPPR), UK.
Having a store of ‘rainy day money’ can increase a low-income family’s resilience and enable it to cope better with an unexpected shock, such as the breakdown of a washing machine or even the loss of a job. Storing up assets can increase opportunities, by, for example, providing the funds to support children when they go to university or to pay for training. But most low-income families find it very difficult to save, other than for specific events already on the horizon.
This paper reports the results of research designed, in part, to examine how low-income families manage their budgets. It presents some of the findings from a study of the income, expenditure, saving and borrowing of a sample of 58 low-income households, and from interviews with those families to discover what drives their behaviour. It examines what lowincome households understand by ‘saving’; how low-income households save; and how the economic events of the last two years might have affected their saving behaviour.
Four case studies were published alongside this report.
You can view the full publication at: http://www.ippr.org/publicationsandreports/publication.asp?id=722
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admin
632 Posts |
Posted - 13 Feb 2010 : 12:12:01
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Why "Community Capacity Building Programs" hinder social inclusion.
The conclusions made about the "failures" of the Blair Government's "community capacity building" programs in the UK can be summarised along the following lines.
1. There is no balance between centralised executive decisonmaking and local control over project or service administration and delivery.
2. As a result - instead of taking pride in their communities and using their talents to improve it - citizens retreat into their family unit.
3. State intervention impoverishes the relationships that are central to a good society.
4. Local people and local businesses need to take more responsibility to improve their situations.
5. Government might need to act as a catalyst for this to occur (though this introduces pessimism about the ability of people to make the right decisions).
6. It is "more equal distribution of opportunity" that has to be tackled rather than "more equal distribution of income".
7. The social services sector has difficulty in coming to terms with these lines of thinking as they are dependent on the "culture" of top-down, provider driven service delivery which breeds a startlingly risk averse form of excuse making as to why "social outcomes" are not being achieved.
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admin
632 Posts |
Posted - 04 Mar 2010 : 03:41:20
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Co-op businesses offer a model to empower workers
By Melissa Hoover and Lillian "Beadsie" Woo, Baltimore Sun, January 12, 2010 at: http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.cooperative12jan12,0,524676.story
Seldom do the United Steelworkers, the United Nations and film director Michael Moore express the same idea at the same time. But all have, in their own way, promoted the benefits of cooperative businesses in recent months.
The Steelworkers Union, North America's largest industrial union, has signed an agreement with a 100,000-member European co-op to help U.S. workers gain an ownership stake in their workplace.
The U.N. has declared 2012 the International Year of Cooperatives. It's urging governments worldwide to collaborate with the co-op movement to reduce poverty and create more productive societies.
And Michael Moore sent a valentine to the co-op movement in his latest film, "Capitalism: A Love Story." As a form of economic democracy, he said in an interview, co-ops are "the patriotic thing to do."
In hard times like these, the co-op model makes sense. After all, public confidence in corporations, banks, and the larger financial system is at low ebb, while unemployment is at its highest level in 25 years. Homeownership has been rocked by foreclosures. People are looking for other ways to do business and save money.
Turning workers into investors isn't new. We're all familiar with dot-com employees whose vested stock options turned them into overnight millionaires. And Employee Stock Ownership Plans have long allowed workers to invest in their companies. But worker-owned co-ops are unique because employees own 100 percent of the business, so they have a voice in how it's run.
Many people think of co-ops as the hippie-dippy grocery store that sells organic goods. In fact, a 2009 study by the University of Wisconsin Center for Cooperatives found more than 29,000 cooperatives in the U.S.. They make $500 billion in annual revenue, support 83,000 people, and pay $25 billion in wages and benefits. They include national firms such as credit unions and local businesses such as the Alvarado Street Bakery in Petaluma, Calif.
Cleaning ladies in the San Francisco area and home-care workers in New York have banded to pool resources as worker-owners of profitable enterprises. White-collar workers are getting involved, too: One of the most successful cooperatives is Isthmus Engineering, a Wisconsin firm where engineers bought the company from its owner.
For low-wage workers, owning a business cooperatively can play a particularly important role in helping them climb out of poverty and build savings. Cooperative Home Care Associates in New York's South Bronx lets its 1,600 members save money toward a $1,000 stake in the co-op, entitling them to annual dividends. The business offers them affordable health insurance, retirement plans and other benefits.
In America, most families build wealth by buying homes, investing in businesses, or putting money into employer-sponsored retirement accounts. The federal government subsidizes this wealth-building to the tune of $367 billion a year. But most low-income families don't have the money to buy a house or start a business. And they don't have jobs that come with 401(k) plans.
Mass unemployment and widespread poverty in Spain's Basque region spurred creation of the Mondragon co-op in the 1950s. Today it's the region's economic engine. At Mondragon, workers make the investment and the decisions. They share the profits and the risk. The Steelworkers say the co-op structure empowers workers and makes business more accountable. They envision converting an existing site or starting new ventures, a natural extension of the union's role in giving workers a voice with owners. Except this time, the workers would also be the owners.
There is plenty America can do to help cooperative businesses flourish. The Small Business Administration could make clear that it guarantees loans to worker co-ops. Congress could set aside money for an urban co-op development initiative. State and local governments could provide tax breaks and loans to co-ops that create new jobs. They could also fund an employee-ownership bank to support these ventures. Charitable groups, too, could help develop and expand the co-op model as a strategic approach to creating jobs and building assets for working families.
A model based on human values rather than the unbridled pursuit of profit might be just what we need to create jobs, rebuild wealth, and support our communities.
Melissa Hoover is executive director of the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives. Lillian "Beadsie" Woo is a senior associate at the Annie E. Casey Foundation in Baltimore. This article is distributed by The Christian Science Monitor.
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admin
632 Posts |
Posted - 20 Mar 2010 : 03:18:31
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Co-operatives show the way forward
Peter Hartcher rightly commends the micro-lending pioneer Muhammad Yunus for lifting millions out of poverty, but he is not the founder of ''social business'' (''Wondrous vision of capitalism with a conscience'', March 17).
Such a model already exists. It is the co-operative, and it serves a billion people worldwide. Most are found at the local level to meet local needs, through banking, micro-lending, health, childcare, food production or retailing.
Australian social businesses are not "nascent" nor is the sector's size "bugger all", as Michael Traill of Social Ventures Australia says. Co-ops, mutuals and credit unions have been serving members for well over a century. NSW alone has 1.5 million co-op members.
Private businesses with serious corporate social responsibility targets should be applauded, but that is no match for the scale of co-operatives nor for the sustainability and productivity of businesses that put ownership and control in the hands of the people who use the service.
Trent Bartlett,
Chairman,
Social Business Australia, Perth (www.socialbusiness.coop )
From: Letters, Sydney Morning Herald, 18th March, 2010
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admin
632 Posts |
Posted - 31 Mar 2010 : 14:00:13
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Welfare recipients feel stripped of their adulthood
Sydney Morning Herald March 27, 2010.
A survey has found many shamed by the indignities of Centrelink, writes Adele Horin.
Far from enjoying their life on welfare, the unemployed, single parents and disability pensioners are more likely to feel shame and humiliation and to be treated with little respect, a study shows.
Going to a Centrelink office was ''like going into an STD clinic'', said Sharleen, a 42 year-old Newstart Allowance recipient.
Interviews with 150 welfare recipients aged 18-64, by researchers at the University of Melbourne, provide poignant insight into their experiences.
Many had surprising views about the system, with one-third believing the rules and regulations should be even tougher to deter ''other people'' who might be rorters.
But their own experiences with Centrelink, with their friends and with wider society left many shorn of dignity, feeling like outcasts, or children.
Simone, a university-educated woman in her late 40s and on the disability pension, said: ''You're treated like a naughty little schoolgirl because you're not well … I'm not faking it and my husband's not faking it; we have documents to prove this but you're constantly under suspicion and constantly feeling the pressure to prove it.''
Gayle, 44, on the Parenting Payment (Single), strongly believed everyone should work, and had supported herself for many years. But when she needed income support, and
filled out the Centrelink forms, she felt ''like a child''.
Rhianna, 35, on the disability pension, said the process of applying for welfare left her feeling ''like a wrung-out limp rag … you're treated as crap and the scum of the earth''.
Others talked of feeling as if they had ''ceased to be human'' or like ''a scrunched-up handkerchief''.
The lead author of the report, John Murphy, associate professor at the Australian centre at the University of Melbourne, said that on first receiving income support many participants felt as if they were ''suddenly falling down the scales of society''.
He said in a culture that valued independence and self-reliance, dependence on others was seen as ''less than adult and not to be respected''.
Kathleen, 47, a sole parent, said: ''Somehow, all of a sudden you shrink, you actually have attached to you a whole series of labels that are about a really deep-seated prejudice.''
Justin, 47, who had worked for an airline for 20 years, said: ''I'm not a beach bum, do I look like a surfie to you?'' He had told no one he was on the dole.
Some of the recipients felt judged by their friends, as if they had ''to justify [their] very existence''. Another with severe psychiatric illness had kept her disability pension status from her father because he had once said that no child of his would ever become a dole bludger. Others had acquaintances tell them, ''It's my taxes that's paying you to stay home.''
The report, 150 Low-income Australians: A Group Biography, is part of a bigger study to be published soon.
Asked their views of the welfare state more generally, the recipients split into four groups. Nineteen per cent thought welfare was a right, ''what makes us a civilised society''; 22 per cent argued it was a simple necessity: without it, ''it would be like America''. Twenty-six per cent thought the right to welfare came with responsibilities ''to try your hardest''. The remaining third had an unforgiving view, believing the rules should be tougher to force people ''to get off their arse''.
Dr Murphy said the stories revealed a much more complex picture than simplistic assumptions that people enjoyed welfare ''dependency''. Few ''could ignore the indignities of the welfare receipt'', he said.
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admin
632 Posts |
Posted - 26 Jul 2010 : 16:10:13
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The Levelling Spirit: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better
Presentation to Communities in Control Conference, Melbourne, 1 June 2010 by Emeritus Professor Richard Wilkinson, University of Nottingham Medical School and Professor Kate Pickett, Professor of Epidemiology, University of York
See the full speech at: http://www.ourcommunity.com.au/files/cic/2010/Wilkinson&Pickett.pdf
Extract
“The take home message is we need to stop thinking about improving the quality of our lives or the strength of our communities by more economic growth. That is not what we need. Indeed we know we’re running into the environmental limits of growth and we have to rein in consumerism.
“You can improve the psycho-social wellbeing of whole societies by reducing the scale of the income differences between us, the status differences that people have always intuited are divisive and socially corrosive. That’s all our data shows, that that intuition is absolutely right and truer than we ever expected.”
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SOCIAL INCLUSION - MORE THAN A JOB
