This describes most “partnerships” to a varying degree. Lots of professional firms operate that way, e.g. law firms, accounting firms, engineering firms, consulting
I know some experienced, socially adept, smart, etc. friends who have been doing this exact thing for about 8 months now.
> If I didn't like my working conditions, I would look for a different job.
What an odd comment.
gig work is popular because the people doing it are finding that it is the best of all alternatives available to them.
Gig work is "popular" because wealth-driven systemic pressure is replacing FTE with gig jobs in order to fatten the bottom line.
they have the choice - because they have agency. Slavery is literally taking that agency away. Having agency doesn't mean being immune to the consequences.
The consequences of a slave "choosing" to not work is punishment and death.
The consequences of a gig worker choosing not to work is to claim basic benefits (but hardly will die). It's uncomfortable, and i will bet most people will choose to work, but it doesn't mean someone is forcing them.
Most companies make decisions based on a list of priorities: they care about their shareholders/investors first, upper management second (upper management is usually bribed by the investors with equity, aligning their interests with the shareholders, so this is maybe a distinction without a difference), rank-and-file employees third, customers fourth, and anyone not involved with the company last.
The point of a cooperative is to flip this incentive structure on its head: the customers or workers are owners, so they get prioritized. The purpose of the company isn't to dominate the markets and become the biggest company ever, it's to make a better life for the people working for and patronizing the company, instead of just the people who own it.
> As an employee, I would prefer to work at a company where my equity does not have these restrictions placed on it.
Well obviously, if you're talking about equity in a company as something you can own and profit from without ongoing labor, you are definitionally a capitalist and you will be opposed to cooperatives.
> I would be very uneasy about investing anyone's retirement savings into such an organization.
The primary purpose of a cooperative is not to make profits for passive investors. This is like judging a fish on its ability to climb a tree.
That's perfectly fine, and also the reason why cooperatives are a pretty niche thing: they don't prioritize growth.
if this funding comes from the gov't, then you're just forcing taxpayers to subsidize a less profitable funding mechanism. It's merely a wealth transfer (from taxpayers to these coop owners).
People who claim funding co-ops is a "wealth transfer" ignore existing policies which already funnel taxpayer money upward. Redirecting a fraction of subsidies like bailouts and fossil fuel breaks and the endless war machine... instead to worker owned models that reinvest profits locally and tie wealth to labor... that isn’t a new transfer but a correction. Co-ops reduce reliance on exploitative private equity (e.g., hedge funds buying 40% of U.S. rental homes) and ensure economic gains stay with the people generating value.
I have the controversial opinion that people who work should get money, not the people who don't work.
and they do.
> not the people who don't work
and they don't. With the exception of some basic welfare payments, which i am not opposed to, what you mentioned is what currently happens.
But you're unilaterally classifying capital as not being work would be wrong. Capital is solidified work from previous/earlier times, but unconsumed and saved.
They're not talking about people who "don't work," and collect welfare.
You need to be cancer or a public corporation to think growth is the most important thing.
What would you consider to be successful, and what is marketplace naming here?
Cooperatives are going to be the main thriving organizational structure when the political agenda in place favors them, and the very same statement apply for resource omni-capture oligopolies. Look at who have hands on the political schedule, and that’s all nailed.
Living in France, I never worked for any structure that would provide any equity (not saying this doesn’t exist at all). But France still has a very different non-wage labour costs compared to US (or common-law in general I guess), so employment tradeoffs are very different.
https://inequality.org/article/5-workerowned-food-firms-riva...
For example, the Mondragon Corporation, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation, in the Basque region of Spain is pretty huge (70,000 employees) and I watched a short news documentary about Mondragon and in general the employees there sounded legions happier than corporate drones in other companies.
Therein lies the problem.
Capitalists believe these two things are exclusionary to one another. They believe that you cannot have an unsuccessful product line, or "status quo" and still be successful. They want to see comfy upward trending lines on their charts and graphs.
But nobody stopped to consider that;
1) If the business is operating with positive cashflow, and,
2) If the business is meeting it's commitment to consumers, shareholders, and employees, and,
3) If the business has no direct existential threat to it's market share, then;
That business is successful. By your own definition. Stop trying to take over the world. It's selfish, unsustainable, and pedantic. Support your workers. Well. Put value back into the economy. Stop being a greedy POS.
Who are you angry at? You are yelling into the wind.
Specifically the condition 3 is practically never true in well functioning market. If you're successful, you'll be copied and you'll have competitors, so you always have to be a step ahead. Maintaining the status quo is how you slowly become irrelevant
Not everything is a fight.
I currently watch the exact case from the comment above in our street - new coffee place showed up, and the old one, which kept the status quo for very long time is now left empty as people go to the new one instead.
It's also a good example of how growing and merging into larger chains is a working defense strategy for the market share threat.
If you separate revenue and control (employees get to vote on decisions, but investors get the revenue), then employees will be incentivized to maintain the status quo instead making decisions to make the company successful. The employees have almost no incentive to make difficult decisions like cutting unsuccessful lines of business etc. I would be very uneasy about investing anyone's retirement savings into such an organization.
If you keep revenue and control combined (a simple share structure, where each share gets a piece of the revenue and a vote, and employees get shares when they join), then you have other paradoxes. To make this work, you need to prohibit employees from selling their shares to investors, otherwise you're back to a conventional corporation. You also need to take the shares away from employees when they leave the company, otherwise former employees become a de facto investor class that you wanted to avoid. As an employee, I would prefer to work at a company where my equity does not have these restrictions placed on it.
You may say "but if we all just tried a little harder to believe in a better world it could be possible". But it is possible now. Cooperatives work easily under existing corporate law, and are even incentivized in some places. They just aren't very successful for the reasons above. The only widespread form of cooperative is doctor's and lawyer's practices, which are legally required to be organized as cooperatives through a limited liability partnership structure.
To make cooperatives work in the broader marketplace, you'd have to force employees to accept restrictions on their equity or force savers to put their money into cooperatives managed by employees who are not incentivized to invest it well.