How Worker Co-ops Work

Summary

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Stuff You Should Know – "How Worker Co-ops Work"

Podcast: Stuff You Should Know
Hosts: Josh Clark & Chuck Bryant
Episode Date: April 9, 2026

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Episode Overview

In this episode, Josh and Chuck dive into the history, structure, and real-world examples of worker cooperatives (“co-ops”). They break down the philosophy and practicalities behind co-ops, discuss their global rise, and explore why they remain niche in the U.S. Through engaging banter, they connect the dots from utopian communities to billion-dollar modern collectives, busting myths about co-ops as just “fringe hippie” ventures.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Defining Worker Co-ops and Their Origins

• What is a Worker Co-op?
  • A business owned and managed by its workers, who share profits and decision-making power equally or according to shareholding.
  • Josh (01:44): “Worker cooperatives, which you might be more familiar with as co ops, not coops. That's why they put the hyphen in there, because it can get pretty confusing.”
• Mainstream vs. Fringe
  • In the U.S., co-ops are often seen as fringe or “hippie operations” and rarely the default mode of business.
  • Example: Atlanta’s Sevenanda, a vegetarian grocery co-op.
  • Chuck (04:29): “You kind of look at them as...these little hippie operations.”

2. Historical Roots: Utopian Societies & Early Cooperatives

• Robert Owen & Owenism
  • Early 19th-century Welsh mill owner who experimented with utopian communal living (e.g., New Harmony, Indiana, 1825).
  • Emphasized education, shared responsibility, and found increased productivity.
• Socialism & Co-ops
  • Early co-op ideas heavily influenced by socialist principles, though not in the centralized, planned-economy sense.
  • Josh (07:01): “[Co-ops are] socialism in its purest form. It's not like a planned central government...it's more just like, hey, let's all take care of each other.”
• The Rochdale Pioneers (UK)
  • Began in 1830s Manchester; flannel weavers who opened a co-op store.
  • Created the basis for co-ops worldwide, emphasizing shared ownership and profit distribution.
  • The Rochdale society ultimately evolved into today’s multi-billion-pound “Cooperative Group.”
  • Josh (10:26): “[Rochdale] was the first co op store that existed in the world...the basis of all co ops.”

3. The Spread of Co-ops in America

• Post-Civil War Black Cooperatives
  • Driven by exclusion from white-owned businesses, Black workers in Baltimore (Colored Caulkers Trade Union Society) bought shipyards, created their own enterprises, and formed large alliances like the Colored Farmers National Alliance and Cooperative Society (1M+ members by 1891).
• Labor Republicanism & Unions
  • The Knights of Labor (1880s) sought to base the U.S. economy on co-ops and collectives but were ultimately supplanted by more business-friendly unions.

4. The Nuts & Bolts: How Worker Co-ops Operate

• The Rochdale Principles (Adopted by International Cooperative Alliance, 1995)
  1. Voluntary, Open Membership: No discrimination; anyone fitting the criteria can join.
     • Chuck (21:34): “You have a membership that is voluntary and anyone can join as long as they fit the bill.”
  2. Democratic Member Control: Usually one member, one vote; sometimes weighted by shareholding.
  3. Economic Participation: Members collectively control and benefit from capital.
  4. Autonomy & Independence: No contracts can undermine democratic member control.
  5. Education & Training: Co-ops train members and inform the public.
  6. Cooperation Among Co-ops: Support each other to thrive.
  7. Concern for Community: Give back and participate in social good.
• Membership Process
  • May involve probation periods, financial buy-in, and a member vote.
  • Larger co-ops have managerial structure and councils for efficiency but retain democratic oversight by worker-owners.

5. Global Perspectives: Co-ops Around the World

• Spain:
  • Mondragon Corporation (Basque Country): The largest worker co-op (80,000 employees, 95 co-ops). Features a famously small wage gap between top/bottom earners (now 6:1).
    • Josh (30:37): “If you look at a regular capitalist American corporation, that number is about 350 to 1 rather than 6 to 1.”
    • Profits shared among member-owners; layoffs are rare—pay cuts are distributed during tough times.
• India:
  • Oralungal Labor Contract Cooperative Society (Kerala, 18,000 members): Focused on public works and infrastructure since 1925.
• Italy:
  • Strongest government support for co-ops; financial incentives and legal facilitation of worker buyouts.
• Argentina:
  • National Movement of Recovered Companies: Workers took over failed businesses during crisis; 400+ still operate.
• Mexico:
  • Well-known for fishing cooperatives, enforcing sustainability within the co-op structure.

6. Co-ops in the U.S. Today

• Numbers & Reach
  • Only 7,000–10,000 workers in U.S. co-ops out of 360+ million people.
  • Co-op workers report higher satisfaction and trust in management.
• Prominent Examples:
  • Cooperative Home Care Associates (NY): 2,000 worker-owners (mostly women of color & immigrants), offer buy-in after training.
  • Maximum Fun Podcast Network: Transitioned to worker ownership after initial founder Jesse Thorne stepped down.
    • Chuck (41:09): “Three years ago Jesse was like, you know what, I don't want to run the show anymore. And I think Maximum Fun could transition to a co op.”
  • Island Employee Cooperative (Maine): Three stores now worker-owned after owners couldn’t find buyers.
  • Publix (ESOP): Employee Stock Ownership Plan, not a co-op but the largest employee-owned company in the U.S.
  • Ace Hardware: Franchise model where stores are independently owned, offering some co-op-like benefits, though not strictly worker co-ops.

7. Other Types & Alternatives

• ESOPs (Employee Stock Ownership Plans): Share ownership, but usually without democratic operational control.
• Nonprofit/Platform Co-ops:
  • Subvert (musician-owned) as a Bandcamp alternative.
  • Fare (rideshare, worker-owned).

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

“There's an alternative worker cooperative...it's just a different way of doing things. And the idea that it could have been the way things went is really surprising and interesting.”
— Josh (03:24)

“Here's your socialist kit: Here's mediocre everything. Just open it up and enjoy your mediocre life with mediocre things.”
— Chuck (08:04)

“You don't have to go all socialism, you don't have to go all capitalism. You can take the best of everything and put it together if you want to, you know.” — Josh (07:50)

“If you're honey makers, you wouldn't want to use your profits to invest in like an up and coming bee extermination outfit. Doesn't make sense.”
— Josh (22:54)

“They all agree to take a pay cut to spread the pain around so that no one person has to take the brunt of it and lose their job.” — Josh (31:13)

“If you look at a regular capitalist American corporation, that [CEO-to-worker wage] number is about 350 to 1 rather than 6 to 1.”
— Chuck (30:37)

“What you're doing is creating a social good. It's not just about maximizing profits.”
— Josh (40:32)

“If you work for a co op, the chances of you getting laid off are pretty low...co op workers tend to actually be more productive and happier and less slack than workers who are...just wage labor.” — Josh (47:44)

“Should we end on a few pros and cons?”
— Chuck (45:34)

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• [01:44] Introduction: What are worker co-ops?
• [05:14] Utopian roots: Robert Owen & Owenism
• [08:04] Socialism vs. Capitalism commentary
• [09:05] The Rochdale Pioneers & cooperative principles
• [13:03] Co-ops take root in the U.S.; Post-Civil War Black co-ops
• [16:08] Labor Republicanism; relationship to unions
• [21:25] “Nuts and Bolts”: The Rochdale Principles explained
• [27:00] Global giants: Mondragon (Spain), Oralungal (India), Italy, Argentina, Mexico
• [38:07] Co-ops in the modern U.S.: Challenges & examples
• [41:00] Maximum Fun as a modern co-op example
• [43:58] ESOPs and big U.S. employee-owned businesses
• [46:28] Pros and cons of co-ops
• [49:18] Conclusion and listener mail

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Pros & Cons of Worker Co-ops

Pros

• Pay Equity: Narrow wage gap between highest & lowest paid.
• Job Security: Rare layoffs; pain is shared through pay cuts during downturns.
• Empowerment: Workers have real decision-making power, promoting accountability and satisfaction.
• Longevity: Co-ops tend to outlast traditional startups thanks to careful, collective decision-making.
• Social Good: Emphasis on benefiting community and members, not just profit maximization.

Cons

• Slower Decision-Making: Democratic processes (voting, consensus) can slow responsiveness in crises.
• Scaling Challenges: Larger co-ops require more complex management structures, sometimes diluting pure worker-control.
• Limited Reach in the U.S.: Support infrastructure and incentives trail far behind countries like Spain, Italy, or India.

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Other Memorable Banter

• Contractor Jokes:

  • Chuck (14:34): “Caulk and paint will make it what it ain't.”
  • Josh: “I can't see it from my house.”

• Pop Culture References:

  • Murder, She Wrote, Maximum Fun, and classic hardware store mishaps.

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Conclusion

This episode of Stuff You Should Know offers an engaging, comprehensive tour of worker cooperatives—dispelling misconceptions, exploring their surprising historical roots, and showcasing their practicalities and potential. If you ever wondered what a fairer workplace could look like (and why you don’t see more co-ops), Josh and Chuck’s research and trademark humor make it all crystal clear.

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Transcript

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[Podcast Announcer]

Welcome to Stuff youf Should Know, a production of iHeartradio.

[Josh]

Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh. And there's Chuck. And Jerry's here, too. And this is stuff you should know. And it turns out that this is stuff you should know about worker cooperatives, which you might be more familiar with as co ops, not coops. That's why they put the hyphen in there, because it can get pretty confusing.

[Chuck]

Yeah. In fact, I went back when I titled this episode for Jerry and added that hyphen because Jerry would say, what is this thing about coops?

[Josh]

Yep. Yep. And I'm sure Aaron Cooper's like, but don't get your hopes up, Aaron. We're not talking about you. Wait, we just did. It's finally happened. So, Chuck, just let me lay the scene Here for a second. Okay. Because co ops, especially for those of us in the United States, they're like. I can think of one, and that is in Atlanta and it is called Sevenanda and it is one of the few vegetarian grocery stores in the entire country. That's my experience with a co op. Right.

[Chuck]

Yeah, Sevenanda. Legendary store.

[Josh]

It is. And it's great, great, great grocery store. So they're kind of like this almost like fringe thing, especially in the US and, you know, basically everywhere. They're not really mainstream, but there was a time where there were people who were like, this is the way to go. This is how industry should develop. And it all just like most things that have to do with labor and capital stemmed from the industrial revolution. And it was a path that people that we could have taken. And we so took the capitalist route.

[Chuck]

Yeah.

[Josh]

That it's. We don't even question the idea that people with money buy a mill and all the equipment and they hire you and put you to work, and in return for your work, they give you a wage and they manage things and they say, go, do this, do that faster, stop doing that and do this instead. And again, we just don't even question it because it's so normal. But there's an alternative worker cooperative that it's just. It's just a different way of doing things. And the idea that it could have been the way things went is really surprising and interesting.

[Chuck]

Yeah. Well, you forgot the last part of that little descriptor, which is they get the money, the profit from that said business because they're the owners.

[Josh]

Yeah, that's true. Yeah. And we don't really question that. Although that's a little more easily questioned, you know.

[Chuck]

Yeah. But you know, that pushed co ops now in the United States to this fringe area where you might have a. You know, you kind of look at them as. Or at least I do, as like these little hippie operations.

[Josh]

Sure.

[Chuck]

Like Sevenanda, like this little vegetarian grocery store that has been in Little Five Points since. I mean, it's gotta be since the 70s, don't you think?

[Josh]

It sure seems that way. Yes.

[Chuck]

Yeah. I mean, some of the stuff on the shelves looks like it's been there since the 70s for sure.

[Josh]

It's definitely got that. That well lived in feel for sure.

[Chuck]

Yeah, it's great. But that. Yeah, it's on. It's a fringe thing for the United States. And I guess we could go back in time a little bit and talk about where these, where this idea was sort of born. And I know we've talked about Owenism before, haven't we?

[Josh]

I don't know if we've talked about Owenism, but we've definitely talked about the Chartists. But I mean, we've talked about so many utopian societies from the 19th century. Who can keep track?

[Chuck]

Yeah, I guess you're right. Or maybe I'm thinking of, I don't know, one of those other ones. But yeah, this was a utopian sort of philosophy, Owenism, named after a guy named Owen, Robert Owen. He was a Welsh mill owner and he had this vision that you were kind of talking about. Like, hey, it's. It's early on, it's in 1825 and there's a way forward that could be great for everyone. He tried this out in New Harmony, Indiana, like I said, in 1825 for the first time.

[Josh]

Yeah, it didn't really live very long. New Harmony, Indiana is still there. It's not a utopian society any longer, although it looks like a nice town based on its website. But his whole idea was like, what happens if everybody kind of takes care of everybody else in this? Again, mill. I think he was a mill owner to where like your children are schooled and fed and you have opportunities to. For education outside of your work. And he found that productivity goes through the roof in those situations. So that was. It wasn't like this is the first worker cooperative. But he helped lay the groundwork for this and he inspired a lot of other people through Owenism, both in the United States and the uk.

[Chuck]

Yeah, for sure. I don't know if they were using the S word back then. I don't know how much we're going to use the S word. But it's impossible to, I think, not use the word socialism at some point when talking about at least some of these early ideas because they were very much sort of socialist ideas of let's, let's take. Like you said, let's take care of everyone. Let's have all boats rise and everyone chip in. Sort of in a hippie commune kind of way initially.

[Josh]

Yeah, and I was, I was thinking about that. I read something that was basically like, this is socialism in like its purest form. It's not like a planned central government or planned society. It's more just like, hey, let's all take care of each other, let's all contribute, let's all benefit. That's about the extent of it. And I was thinking about socialism too, the way that you just basically danced around it, like we do in the United States here, trying to if you're trying to explain something to somebody that has like socialist tinge to her socialist in nature, look out. You can't. Yeah, exactly. Like you can't use that word. And it occurred to me that, like, it's just basically approached like it's a brand. You got socialism, you got capitalism, right? And when you, if you buy into socialism, it's like you're buying a kit. And here's your socialist society, right. Like, like you can't just kind of pick and choose what makes sense. And you don't have to go all socialism, you don't have to go all capitalism. You know, you can take the best of everything and put it together if you want to, you know, yeah, here's your socialist kit.

[Chuck]

Here's mediocre everything. Just open it up and enjoy your mediocre life with mediocre things. Because nothing is awesome. Because capitalists aren't in charge of making things perfect or great.

[Josh]

Right.

[Chuck]

All right. So we talked briefly about Robert Owen with this short lived sort of hippie commune in New Harmony. And you mentioned that that inspired people at least overseas and in England and here in America. But the first real cooperative. A lot of people talk about the Rochdale pioneers, which is near Manchester. Rochdale is. And they were flannel makers. They wove flannel. It was a big seed of flannel manufacturing for like hundreds of years. And they started staging. The workers there started staging strikes kind of when industrialization hit. Because you mentioned that the beginnings of co ops were kind of lockstep with the beginnings of the Industrial Revolution.

[Josh]

Yes, for sure. Because there was this idea that, like, okay, you, like, you don't have to submit yourself to wage labor. Your work is valuable. You should own your own work and lease it out as you see fit. That was kind of the way that they were thinking. And so the weavers ended up forming, I think 60 of them got together and formed the Rochdale Friendly Cooperative Society.

[Chuck]

Sounds so.

[Josh]

And I'm sure, I'm sure just based on experience, we're mispronouncing it. It's probably like Riddell in the uk, but it's spelled R O C H D A L E. And it was a retail store. Right. It was basically, you could get flour and butter and all this stuff. And this is where the basis of cooperatives come from. This is the first co op store that existed in the world. And the whole idea was you got all these people who make this stuff coming together, selling it, dividing the fruits of their labor up evenly and then taking the profits and like reinvesting it and making this business better. But rather than one rich person, you have a bunch of non rich people who can conceivably come up with the same amount of money as a rich person. And, and if you do that, all of a sudden you own the factory and it's just divided equally among all the people who put in for it and are working for it. That's where that's the basis of all co ops.

[Chuck]

Yeah. This one, the Friendly Cooperative Society, didn't last long. That store was just a couple of years. I think it was 1830 when it opened. And about 14 years later they got together and they tried it again. There were some people from that original society, they got together with other people who were, you know, unemployed or facing poverty or hungry. So some of those Owenites and they said, hey, let's give this another go. And this time it was called the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers. And they had to. And you'll see that this is kind of a. It's not always because all co ops, you know, operate in their own way, but they had to pay to be a part of it. So everybody chips in a little bit of money. In this case for the Society of Equitable Pioneers, it was just one pound each. And they got it going and said, hey, we're gonna do kind of the same thing. We're gonna have kind of like a general store basically. And we'll use the profits from that to build housing for people who are members of the co op and we can buy up some land. And if you're not, if you are a co op member and you're not working, you could like farm there and grow crops for everybody. And it was very much in that Owenite model.

[Josh]

Yeah. So they went from just being a co op store to trying to get a whole utopian community formed. And again, that didn't go very far. I don't know that there is any utopian community that's still around today. They don't seem to last very long. Maybe there's no such thing as utopia. Yeah. But that store model became like just what all co ops were based on after that. And in fact, the Rochdale Pioneers Cooperative Store mushroomed into what's now called today the cooperative group, which is a multi billion pound operation, a bunch of different co ops and a bunch of different sectors that are all part of this larger co op. The cooperative group in the UK that it grew from the Rochdale Pioneers, not, not like inspired from it. I believe it actually grew from that.

[Chuck]

I think so yeah, group. Yeah, yeah. And you know, you'll see that as a common thing too. Where the largest co ops in the world, and we'll talk about some later on in Spain and India, are groups of co ops that have formed larger co ops. Because the whole idea is that, you know, there's a lot more you can get done with a lot more people, obviously.

[Josh]

Yeah. Or a lot more companies. Like different companies can stand in for different individual workers. You know, I think that's neat.

[Chuck]

So in the United States, it was really post Civil War when things started to boom. And in particular black Americans after the Civil War were the ones who kind of got this idea going because they were obviously, you know, post Civil War, having a hard time with white owned businesses being treated poorly, obviously. And they were like, well, why don't we get our own thing going? And one of the places that. One of the earlier ones was started in Baltimore when black trade unionists, they were led by a guy named Isaac Myers, founded what was called the Colored Caulkers Trade Union Society.

[Josh]

Yeah, Caulkers were the people who worked in shipyards that waterproofed the ships, made sure they didn't leak. Right. And it was traditionally a black dominated profession, but black people were starting to get edged out in shipyards. So this Colored Caulkers Trade Union Society just decided to buy a shipyard themselves so that they could employ black caulkers. And they did exactly that. They also bought railways and just started founding this huge essentially cooperative empire of black workers and artisans.

[Chuck]

Yeah, I think they're also the ones who coined the contractor's term caulk and paint. We'll make it what it ain't.

[Josh]

I've not heard that one.

[Chuck]

Have you never heard that?

[Josh]

No. Did you make it up?

[Chuck]

Oh, no, no, no, that's it. Oh, really? Yeah. There's two contractor terms that basically mean you're getting kind of shoddy work.

[Josh]

Right, Right.

[Chuck]

Caulk and paint will make it what it ain't. And my favorite one, which is I can't see it from my house.

[Josh]

Oh, that's an F for that one.

[Chuck]

That one really stings.

[Josh]

Yeah, it does. Especially when they're talking about your work.

[Chuck]

Yeah, exactly.

[Josh]

Well, at any rate, yes, the Caulkers did come up with that.

[Chuck]

I believe that's right.

[Josh]

Support your initial statement.

[Chuck]

Yeah. Things got going on a larger scale after that when farmers started banding together. And in this case, post Civil War black farmers were excluded from the Southern Farmers alliance and they formed the Colored Farmers national alliance and Cooperative Society, which had a million members or more by 1891. And this wasn't sort of a strict definition of a co op. It was more like, hey, we're all farmers, so let's all sort of just cooperate with one another and share information and, you know, lift each other up.

[Josh]

Yeah. And because they were dealing with the Jim Crow south, post Civil War south and all of that, they were basically faced with an option like just submit yourself to like really bad treatment or, or figure out how to come together. You don't have to know about co ops throughout history to come up with your own co op. It's actually like a general idea that any group would stumble upon. Typically when they're being mistreated or when they don't have the resources to improve their lives. They realize like, well, wait a minute, we're in the same boat, let's just put our resources together and improve our lives that way. Together.

[Chuck]

Yeah. And this was like, this is spreading as a philosophy more so than like all these concrete examples of like literal co ops that would come a little bit later. But one of those other sort of ideas that was spreading mixed in with this was something called labor Republicanism. And that was just, you know, aligning with this sort of the idea that, hey, you know, if you want real freedom, then you need to be able to control your work and not just be a wage laborer.

[Josh]

Right. You own that work. That's what I was talking about earlier. You own that work, you lease it out as you see fit. You're not submitting yourself to wage slavery. Like that's what that's all about. And apparently there's a debate going on still today between labor republicanism and just universal basic income. Which one is actually the way to actual freedom from being dominated by some boss?

[Chuck]

Yeah, for sure. It's also tied into the rise of unions and unionism for sure. Don't you think?

[Josh]

Yeah. There's the Knights of Labor, which were basically the first massive union in the United States that came close to a million members by the 1880s. Their whole thing was essentially setting up worker cooperatives, like creating an economy in the United States based around co ops, collectives, things like labor republicanism. That's exactly what they were about. And they were pretty successful to an extent. I think we can see today that they weren't actually successful at all. And instead they were supplanted by a much more business friendly union, the American Federation of Labor, which became even more massive.

[Chuck]

Yeah. And that was less like, hey, let's get rid of these bosses and make a co op. And it was like, let's try and find a way to work with them. And in true union style, like get fair pay and all that kind of stuff, which is great, but just sort of strayed from that co op idea a little bit more. And I think in 1895 was when finally the International Cooperative alliance was formed.

[Josh]

Sure.

[Chuck]

And that was, you know, this is like a worldwide organization, obviously. International.

[Josh]

Sure. What if they were just based in Topeka with no connections outside of Topeka, but they're shooting for the sky.

[Chuck]

Yeah, that'd be fun.

[Josh]

You want to take a break?

[Chuck]

Yeah, we'll take a break and we'll talk a little bit. Just sort of how these things work right after this.

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[Chuck]

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[Josh]

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[Chuck]

All right, we're back to talk. Who helped? This is Libby, I think, and she called this section nuts and bolts, because that's exactly what it is.

[Josh]

Sure.

[Chuck]

These are all sort of listed under the Rochdale Principles of cooperation, which the ICA, the International Cooperative alliance, adopted in 1995. And it's a series of bullet points basically, of generally how co ops can work. But like I said, they all have their own nuances. But the first one is probably true across all cases. You have a membership that is voluntary and anyone can join as long as they fit the bill. Like, you can't discriminate.

[Josh]

Yeah. There are some slight differences among co ops that as these bullet points start to spread out, that one seems to be like, that's the. That's a common. A universality, you know.

[Chuck]

Yeah.

[Josh]

There's also another one. They need to be run democratically with one vote per member.

[Chuck]

Mm.

[Josh]

There's another way to do it that some co ops choose where the more shares you have, the more votes you have. So one share equals one vote rather than one worker equals one vote. So one worker can amass 10 shares and they'll have 10 votes opposed to the other workers who just have one share each, for sure.

[Chuck]

And that capital that you have is also controlled democratically and should serve the organization's goals and not just, you know, the CEO or whatever.

[Josh]

Right. Like, if you're. If you're honey makers, you wouldn't want to use your profits to invest in like an up and coming bee extermination outfit. Doesn't make sense.

[Chuck]

Yeah.

[Josh]

You also want to be autonomous. I love this one too. Like, it doesn't matter who you sign a contract with, whether it's a government contract or with another business, a corporate vulture, who cares? There's nothing in that contract that can basically undermine any of this, the workers democratic voice, the sharing of profits, it being open to all, nothing can undermine that. And I love that one because they're autonomous. They're like, we don't need you.

[Chuck]

Yeah, that's great. Another thing that you have to do is you got to train up your folks, got to coach them up so they can all be contributors. And then another part of that is just letting people know what's going on, that you're. You're not some weird fringe group, but educate the people on what sort of the benefits of cooperative work.

[Josh]

Right. And then they're like, all co ops smell like this.

[Chuck]

Yeah.

[Josh]

And then you want to work with other cooperatives. That's a big one too. I mean, supporting one another. Because even in societies where they really support co ops, they still have the Dex stacked against them. So the more they can rely on other co ops on each other, the better off each co op is going to be, you know.

[Chuck]

Yeah, for sure. And they always give back to the community. It seems like, you know, that's part of getting the word out is doing like good work in the community. And so they, so people see like, oh, this is that co op that's doing, you know, the park cleanup or, you know, any. Anything sort of like that. And here's the deal. You know, we said there's a lot of different ways you can structure these. Not, you know, if you see there's a co op, it doesn't mean every single person that's working there that day is a member owner. Because a lot of times you have to kind of prove you're in it for the long haul. Like there's a probationary period. Sometimes you have to buy into it financially, but not always. And also sometimes you're either buying in financially and. Or being voted in by existing members.

[Josh]

Yes, by Biff.

[Chuck]

That's right. And sort of the final thing is how it works, the structure at the top. Because, you know, even though it's a co op, you still need to have kind of people near the top in charge of the higher, you know, upper management sort of decisions, especially if they're, you know, larger co ops. Because, you know, you can have some smaller co ops that are a little more like, you know, probably like 7 Onda, where you have workers that are voting directly on just about everything that happens with a co op. But the bigger you get, the more you might see a structure where those workers aren't voting on everything directly, but they're electing some of their own to sort of act as the executive Branch or maybe who like, you know, go out and hire a leadership staff or form a board or something like that. But they're voting on the people that do that. And you know, ideally, and I think usually in most cases they're. They're bringing in the people that are going to want to serve the co op well. It's not like all of a sudden they're like, oh no, we got this board in there that's now taking over and changing it to a more capitalist structure.

[Josh]

Right. We're going to bring in a young hotshot fresh out of a private equity firm to take over.

[Chuck]

Not a good idea.

[Josh]

And again, it's like some co ops face easier goes of it. Depending on the country you're in and depending even on the state, it can be easier than others. If you're in the Pacific Northwest, you can turn to the Northwest Cooperative Development center and Cooperative Fund of the Northeast. It just keeps going. And they'll essentially tell you how to convert your business into a co op, which you can do if you have an existing business, how to start a co op from scratch, all the ins and outs, that kind of thing. And again, this is highly necessary to have somebody who has expertise and understanding on how to navigate co op operations in the United States or in other countries too.

[Chuck]

Co op ops. Yeah. So you know, there are definitely some efforts in the United States to assist people that have these ideas. It's just not as robust as like in other countries. And speaking of other countries now we talked about Spain early on and that is the home of the largest and most prominent co op in the world basically, which is the. I'm gonna say Mondragon.

[Josh]

That's what I would say too.

[Chuck]

Not the Mondragon, even though that's way cooler.

[Josh]

It is. And that's how I want to put it too. Yeah.

[Chuck]

But the Mondragon Corporation is a collective. Again, this is one of those. It's a bunch of co ops that got together to make a larger co op in the Basque region of Spain. And it's named for the town of Mondragon.

[Josh]

Yes. And it was founded by Jose Maria Rizmondiarieta. That is quite a name.

[Chuck]

Nice.

[Josh]

Believe me, I know he is a priest or he was a priest who actually started out as a journalist writing against the fascists against the Franco regime in the Spanish Civil war in the 30s. After the war he became a priest and he was assigned to the town of Mondragon in 1941. And he said, hey Mondragon, we are going to go Capital S word all the way in this town.

[Chuck]

Yeah, he, you know, doing good stuff like, hey, let's create a medical clinic, let's get some housing going for these people. What about technical schools and education to like lift everybody up. And in 1956 there were five workers who had been part of this, you know, plan with him and they created a cooperative company to make kerosene heaters. That's how they got their start. The biggest one in the world started out making kerosene heaters initially, yeah, for sure.

[Josh]

And then it just started to grow from there. They created their own pension and health care systems. Essentially every time the town faced a problem, they needed something like funding for a new co op and they couldn't get it from the outside world, they just did it themselves. So each new problem, each new obstacle saw a co op founded to address it. And it just kept growing and growing from there. And eventually it became the Mondragon Corporation, which is enormous. It employs something like 80,000 people today. And it's made up of again, like you said, 95 different co ops coming together as a co op themselves.

[Chuck]

Yeah. And how it works for them. They are one of the ones that has one of those probationary periods before you can become a member. And once you've done that, you are a shareholder, you are a worker and a shareholder in that company and you're voting on all the stuff it takes to run a corporation, business strategies, what kind of money people make. Everyone gets an equal vote. They do have a governing council in that one because it's a big unwieldy one. So they need sort of a higher up council. There's a managing director and they sort of act as like a CEO but and this is super awesome and kind of one of the keys is the highest paid person there. They have like a wage cap basically for what you would call a CEO. And the highest paid wage earner can be paid no more than six times the salary of the lowest paid. If you look at a regular capitalist American corporation, that number is about 350 to 1 rather than 6 to 1.

[Josh]

Yeah, it's pretty impressive. They also share the co ops profits, the member owners, and they have to make difficult choices. This is something that co ops are good at. Like this is why co ops are pro worker. Like if there's a hard time, an economic downturn or something like that, and sales are down, profits are down. Most capitalist companies just lay people off. They ramp up a lot of workers in fat times and then they just cut them in lean Times co ops don't tend to do that. Instead they tend to all agree to take a pay cut to spread the pain around so that no one person has to take the brunt of it or no one group of people have to take the brunt of it and lose their job.

[Chuck]

Yeah, for sure. And they've had to

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

change things a

[Chuck]

little bit over the years. That ratio I think that I said was 6 to 1. That's an increase. It used to be a 3 to 1 ratio of the highest paid to the lowest paid worker. So they've had to roll with the times a little bit. But 6 to 1 is still way different than 350 to 1 for sure.

[Josh]

So this is far and away the largest. The second largest is nothing to sneeze at either. The Oralungal Labor Contract Cooperative Society, founded in Kerala, India has about 18,000 employees and it was founded back in 1925 while the Brits were still ruling India as a colony. And some of the workers from the lower castes, I think 16 of them got together to pool their money and said, hey, we're going to start repairing roads. Government give us some contracts. And that's where the whole thing started.

[Chuck]

Yeah, for sure. The first prime minister of India, Nehru was basically very much into the idea of these workers co ops and farmers co ops and did a lot to encourage and incentivize these popping up over there. I think there are a ton of Indian cooperatives and this is just the biggest one at like 18,000 employees, right?

[Josh]

Yeah, yeah. Nehru also encouraged people to rethink their jackets.

[Chuck]

Oh man, those are good looking. I can't get away with those, but those are cool.

[Josh]

Okay, so that's India, I guess that's kind of second to Spain like we said, at least as far as the largest co ops go. But Italy I would say is possibly the country that supports co ops the most on a societal level.

[Chuck]

It seems like there's that, that s word streak still running through Italy to a large degree.

[Josh]

Sure, yeah, yeah. So the Italian government gives financial incentives to start and run a co op. There's laws that say if you don't run a co op you have to give up one of your kids. They're really pro co op. They also. This is another thing too that some co ops come out of where a company will be failing and the owners will be like, well that's it for me, I'm ruined. And the employees will be like, well we still have some money that we can put together. Let us buy the company from you and the owner will sell the company to the employees. And the government of Italy helps facilitate this kind of thing to make it more likely. And that makes so much more sense than just letting a company fail. Let the workers buy it if they want to and run it as a co op. Let them all own the company.

[Chuck]

Yeah, that's a big thing that happened in Argentina. And I sort of remember this. In the early 2000s, when Argentina was having such a rough time, a lot of workers were laid off in the industrial sector. And they did what you were just talking about. They were like, well, hey, this factory is going out of business. So let's, as employees, get together and buy these things. And it became known as the national movement of recovered companies. And there are about 400 of these still going strong.

[Josh]

Yeah. What's cool about the Argentinian model, too, is I think they actually took over these companies. They were all laid off. And they're like, oh, yeah, watch this. I think that's pretty neat. Yeah. Mexico is well known for fishing cooperatives. This happens around the world. But Mexico has some pretty strong ones. And one of the cool things is that there's often lax enforcement of things like sustainability and catch quotas among fishermen in Mexico. So these co ops tend to support sustainability themselves by essentially paying attention to one another and making sure everybody's acting fairly. Sustainability just grows out of that.

[Chuck]

So you want to take another break?

[Josh]

Oh, yeah. I didn't see that coming.

[Chuck]

All right, we'll come back right after this, and Josh will speak first, because that's how we do things.

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[Josh]

Yeah.

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[Josh]

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[Chuck]

let me tell

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[Chuck]

Oh yeah.

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[Josh]

And if a question comes up, you get unlimited expert help, even nights and weekends during tax season at no extra cost. So yeah, taxes don't have to be a time suck. Let a turbo tax expert handle it for you. Visit turbotax.com to get started. Real time updates are available on the iOS mobile app. So Chuck, it's probably not a surprise. As we've seen, compared to other countries, the United States is not exactly up to speed as far as co ops are concerned. There's potentially 7 to 10,000Americans out of what, 360 something million who are employed in co ops in the United States? That's not a very significant number, but the people who are employed there are happier than you will ever be in your entire life.

[Chuck]

Yeah, probably so the largest one in the United States is the Cooperative Home Care Associates was started in the Bronx in 1985 when 12 home health aides came together and said, hey, there's gotta be a better way. And they started recruiting people and they've got, wow. Out of that 7 to 10,000, 2,000 of them work for the UCHCA.

[Josh]

Yeah. And then they also typically hire women of color and immigrants, usually low income, and train them to be home health aides. And then eventually with $1,000 payment, you can buy in and become a worker member owner. And they tend to have. People have compared this model to actually this company to other home health aid companies, and the workers tend to have greater job satisfaction. They trust management more because they're talking about themselves in a lot of cases. But even the workers who aren't member owners tend to have a higher trust in management. And this is where people are like, I don't get it, like, why would you do this? Because what you're doing is creating a social good. Like it's not just about maximizing profits. And I believe Cooperative Home Care Associates is a for profit company. And co ops can be for profit. They don't have to be nonprofit. But they're proving that you can still promote a social good. You can still make society a better place and still turn a profit. It's just not, you know, you're not going to ever set the stock market on fire. That's not the point. The point is more to create the social good. And that's one of the things that the Cooperative Home Care Associates does.

[Chuck]

Yeah, for sure. There are some other cool examples here I'm going to jump to. I know you know where I'm going. Because Livia included the podcast company Maximum Fun.

[Josh]

Yeah.

[Chuck]

Longtime supporters of stuff you should know. Maximum Fun was had a single sole owner and Jesse Thorne.

[Josh]

Yeah, mogul.

[Chuck]

Yeah, he was mogul very early on. He's the guy that set up Marc Maron initially in his garage with equipment and was like, here's how you do podcasting. So Jesse's a pioneer in the business itself. Obviously does judge John Hodgman with our pal.

[Josh]

Yeah.

[Chuck]

And Jordan, Jesse Go and Bullseye with Jesse Thorne. A great interview show. But Maximum Fun was his. He started it as a very sort of forward thinking young guy. Geez, I don't even know how many years ago. It had to be 20ish years ago at this point. And three years ago Jesse was like, you know what, I don't want to run the show anymore. And I think Maximum Fun could transition to a co op. We've got these great employees who are heavily invested and why not see if they'll go all in? And they did. And. And Maximum Fund became a worker owned co op.

[Josh]

Yeah. Which is pretty cool. I mean, even before that, he had basically transferred ownership of the individual shows to the show creators. And then so it was a, I guess, kind of an easy ish leap into a co op from there. So hats off Jesse Thorne and all the peeps at Max Fun.

[Chuck]

That's right.

[Josh]

If you happen to be up in Maine along the coast, and you're an island hopper. I could not find exactly what islands, but there is a trio of stores. The Galley VNS Variety and Burnt Cove Market. And all three of them are worker owned and operated. And they were. It was one of those situations where all three stores were being sold and the. The owners couldn't find any buyers and the workers were like, we'll buy it. So now 70 people off the coast of Maine are part of the island employee cooperative, which is, again, pretty cool.

[Chuck]

Totally. I don't think Maine has many islands, so I'm surprised you didn't find out

[Josh]

what the deal was. I saw that the thing was headquartered in, I think, Stonington, Maine, but I didn't see what island that was on. And who knows, could be the mainland for all I know. I'm not up nor'. Easter. An up Easter.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

A Mainer.

[Josh]

Yeah, I'm from across the pond.

[Chuck]

You're from away, I think is what they say.

[Josh]

Yeah, I know. I cannot tell you how much Murder She Wrote I've seen in my life. And I still was that Maine. Picked up the lingo. Oh, yeah. Cabot Cove, Maine.

[Chuck]

Yeah. I never, as you know, never saw a single episode of Murder, She Wrote. Very sad about that.

[Josh]

I didn't know that. And I see you differently now.

[Chuck]

I need to check it out. I know. It's a classic.

[Josh]

It's a great show.

[Chuck]

I think my delivery might have been so dry that we're going to get Germany as landlocked emails.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

I know.

[Chuck]

There are thousands of islands off of Maine, by the way.

[Josh]

Oh, okay. You got me. You fooled me.

[Chuck]

Chuck, we should talk. Just at least mention ESOPs or employee stock ownership plans. Yeah, this isn't the same as a co op because you're generally not getting like a vote on things and how things run. Yeah, but it's employees owning the business. And our beloved Publix supermarket chain is easily the largest employee owned company in the United States. I think they own about employees of Publix own about 80% of the company, which is a lot.

[Josh]

Yeah, it's like they have stock, but rather than being publicly traded, you have to be in a Publix employee to buy and own public stock.

[Chuck]

And pretty cool.

[Josh]

A lot of people retire pretty well to do because of the public stock that they've accrued over their career. And it's great. For sure.

[Chuck]

Yeah. Ace Hardware, that's another kind of cool one. They're independent retailers and I think most people know that because your local Ace Hardware is. Is owned and operated by somebody who lives there, which is kind of a cool model.

[Josh]

Yeah, like try buying something at one Ace and then taking it back at the other Ace. You're going to be sorely disappointed, my friend.

[Chuck]

Is that true?

[Josh]

Oh, yeah, they.

[Chuck]

Oh, I didn't know that.

[Josh]

I bought something. I should say Yumi bought something at an Ace and I took it to the other Ace owned by the same company. And because we bought it online, they could not return it.

[Chuck]

Oh, interesting. I don't think I knew that. Okay.

[Josh]

Yeah, be careful. You have to go back to the same mace. It says it like on the sign.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Yeah.

[Josh]

Ace is the place and the only place.

[Chuck]

The helpful hardware folks.

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

Isn't that it?

[Josh]

Yep, it is.

[Chuck]

Should we end on a few pros and cons?

[Josh]

Oh, I just real quick want to shout out a couple of co ops that are non profits. Subvert is an alternative to Bandcamp. It's musician owned and then fare, which I think is a clever use of the term. It's F A R E. They're an alternative to like Uber and Lyft and they're co ops.

[Chuck]

Oh, okay.

[Josh]

Yeah, there you go.

[Chuck]

Yeah, I mean that's. I gotta check out and see. Fair's in Atlanta.

[Josh]

Okay. Okay.

[Chuck]

I don't use Uber, I use Lyft. But I've heard they're bad now too. So it's. I just don't even know who to get rides from when I've had too

[Sponsor/Ad Voice]

much to drink anymore.

[Josh]

Yeah, I used to do Lyft because supposedly they treated their people better. And I was talking to a Lyft driver once. He's like, no, Lyft. Lyft is terrible now. Uber's nice to their drivers and it's like, who can keep up with this? So I guess, yeah, just take fare.

[Chuck]

All right, I'm going to check that out. Pros and cons now.

[Josh]

Yes.

[Chuck]

All right, well, we've mentioned some of these along the way, but one pro

[Josh]

is

[Chuck]

one we touched on, which was that ratio between the highest paid worker and the lowest paid worker, they're definitely, you know, co ops. You're not going to see things just so out of whack in terms of wage earning.

[Josh]

No, that's huge. Another one that's a pro in favor of co ops. Not all of them are pros in favor of co ops. There are some cons too. Like you said, pros and cons. But if you work for a co op, the chances of you getting laid off are pretty low. Which you would think like, okay, well, does. Or co ops is run and work staffed by lazy people. It turns out. No, because as an owner, a part owner of this co op, of this company that you're working for, you are a manager. So if everybody's a manager, they feel emboldened and empowered to police other workers. Everybody's just kind of keeping one another honest because they all have such a stake in this that co op workers tend to actually be more productive and happier and less slack than workers who are essentially just wage labor.

[Chuck]

Yeah. Or what do they call it? Quiet quitting.

[Josh]

Oh, I hadn't heard that, but that makes sense.

[Chuck]

Yeah. Quiet quitting is when you're like phoning it in and just doing the bare minimum to not get fired.

[Josh]

Yeah, for sure.

[Chuck]

Which is, yeah, no good. Everybody. One con is, or I guess you would say it's a pro for a non co op is they tend to be able to move a little quicker and act quicker on stuff if there's a crisis or if there's anything that needs like really fast attention, they don't have to sweat, you know, taking votes and asking everyone and debating what they think. So that can definitely sort of slow down in times of crisis. If you're in a co op, yes.

[Josh]

But that said, you can make quick decisions and be more agile as a traditional capitalist company, but you can also make the wrong decision and go down the wrong road. So with a co op, because it's moving slower, it's not trying to be on the Fortune 500 or anything like that, they can take their time a little more. And so they actually tend to outlast a lot of other companies. I guess compared to other startups, co ops tend to last beyond the first five years, say against a tech startup or something like that, because you can take your time making decisions and have to be like, now, now, now, you know, yeah, for sure.

[Chuck]

And yeah, just job satisfaction. And we talked about this a few times, but overall, people that work for co ops tend to report much, much happier lives. Basically when it in terms of their jobs.

[Josh]

That's right. I guess that's it for co ops, Chuck.

[Chuck]

I think so.

[Josh]

Well, we both agreed that that's it for co ops, which means it's time for listener mood.

[Chuck]

Yeah, this is a follow up on the West Kowloon Walled City episode, which I thoroughly enjoyed personally.

[Josh]

Yeah, me too.

[Chuck]

Hey guys, just listening to the episode, it reminded me of the Ponte, I guess P O N T E or Ponti City Tower in Johannesburg. Ponti City was completed in 1975 and originally intended to be a luxury development for the city's rich white folks. However, it quickly descended into decay for various reasons and is widely regarded as becoming the world's first vertical slum. By the late 80s, it's said that at its worst, the vast central core of the building was filled with trash, including human remains all the way up to the fifth or sixth floor. When I was visiting friends in JOHANNESBURG Back in 2013, I did a tour of the tower with one of the residents. It's a truly astonishing building with a super interesting story of grandeur and rapid descent into chaos and looks to be coming back again. Ponte has been used for sets of several sci fi films. Neill Blomkamp is a big fan and was also the inspiration for the tower setting of the questionable 2012 dread reboot. Thanks for the great stuff. That is from Bobby. Bobby sent in a picture from the interior of the city tower and it is indeed super sci fi and interesting looking.

[Josh]

I got to check that out. Man, I hadn't heard of that at all. That was Bobby.

[Chuck]

Yeah, Bobby.

[Josh]

Well, thanks a lot Bobby. That was a great email. We appreciate it. And if you want to be like Bobby and tell us about something that we didn't know about, we're always welcoming those. You can send it off to stuffpodcastheartradio.com.

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