[HN Gopher] Can a worker-owned restaurant work? ___________________________________________________________________ Can a worker-owned restaurant work? Author : georgeoliver Score : 73 points Date : 2023-08-27 06:16 UTC (1 days ago) (HTM) web link (southseattleemerald.com) (TXT) w3m dump (southseattleemerald.com) | [deleted] | aaronbrethorst wrote: | The Seward Cafe in Minneapolis has running successfully as a | "cooperatively owned, collectively operated restaurant and | community-oriented venue" for 49 years. | | https://www.sewardcafe.com | TylerE wrote: | Green on pink is now my new least favorite color combo. Thanks, | I hate it! | | Edit: I encourage downvoters to actually try to read the linked | page before downvoting me. It's incredibly unreadable. | dsr_ wrote: | MacBook M1, afternoon sunlight behind me but not directly | glaring. Brightness is at about 60%. | | It's readable. It's not great. I've seen a lot worse | (slightly dark grey on lighter grey, faded tan on medium | blue, cyan on bright green...) | TylerE wrote: | What about the background pattern that is nearly the same | as the text color? | ccheney wrote: | also Hell's Kitchen (since 2020), downtown MPLS | | https://www.hellskitcheninc.com/#about-us-employee-owned-sec... | PartiallyTyped wrote: | I love the vibes :D | amelius wrote: | Not in any successful way, because the entire profit margin is | being eaten by delivery companies like Uber Eats. There is no | financial future in restaurants, worker-owned or not. | kristopolous wrote: | Is intentional "no delivery" a thing? It should be. | SoftTalker wrote: | Of course. There is no requirement for a restaurant to | provide carry-out. Or to lose money providing it. I don't | know why they let Uber push them around on that. | willyt wrote: | There's a whole chain of department stores and supermarkets in | the UK that's 'worker owned' John Lewis which also operates | Waitrose supermarkets. It's a partnership, everyone that works | there becomes a partner in the firm after a probation period. | It's a successful business; there's a John Lewis in every big | city in Britain and Waitrose is in many large towns and cities. | realjhol wrote: | [dead] | wahnfrieden wrote: | Toronto has a good and popular seafood restaurant downtown that I | understand operates as a worker-owned cooperative. | | Of course hierarchy is unnecessary, but there are a lot of people | with resources and vested interest in it appearing otherwise. | | The group in the article take the approach of consensus-based | decision making. For high velocity work like in a software | company, I am more interested in the consent-based decision | making processes pioneered by the Quakers and formalized in | frameworks like Sociocracy. | lnxg33k1 wrote: | Also in Italy there is a region where a lot of "companies" are | cooperatives, (Emilia-Romagna), I'd say it's one of the | wealthiest regions in Italy, I've lived there and was one of my | happiest time in my life. I'd say a restaurant owned by workers | can work, but as everything depends who do you work with, more | than class, is personalities that make the difference, that's | why I don't like these kind of articles, I think they are most | useful to push a narrative and please a segment of the people, | some "newspapers" would find a restaurant going bankrupt due to | being owned by people, some other one would find a restaurant | working being owned by people, they're just cases, people are | diverse. In the end regardless of what happens to businesses | funded by workers or by rich daddyskids we need better wealth | redistribution, more taxes and better worker protections | seanmcdirmid wrote: | Switzerland has a retail/grocery chain called co-op, I always | wondered if it was an actual coop or not, I'm guessing it is. | astrange wrote: | It's probably a customer co-op. A funny thing about this is | that every kind of alternative ownership structure is | considered leftist and somehow "publicly owned". | | But in a customer co-op that doesn't include the workers | and in a worker co-op that doesn't include you. | orwin wrote: | Actually, customer co-op often include the workers, at | least in France. They either get the same share as | customers once they start working, or they have | preferential price to get bigger shares. | | You can even have co-op without workers (there was one in | Stain, northwest of Paris when I lived there) with really | good food at really good price, but you had to work there | like 4-8 hours a month to be customer. | vidarh wrote: | _Many_ countries have co-op grocery chains or other | outcrops of the cooperative movement using that name, but | most of them (including in Switzerland) are member | (customer) owned rather than worker owned. | wahnfrieden wrote: | Sometimes coops are customer-owned which still subjects the | workers to wage labor, such as REI. Customer-owned coops | are not aligned with the anarchist principles that inspired | OP | Archit3ch wrote: | Wouldn't a family-owned business also qualify? | epgui wrote: | Answer: yes. It's what teamshares.com does. | theogravity wrote: | San Jose and Sunnyvale in California has "A Slice of New York" | which is a co-op pizza operation: | | https://asliceofny.com/about/ | | Video about the co-op | | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhbupz-iuhU | skavi wrote: | Had no idea. They've got great pizza with very reasonable | prices. (and some huge sizes) | reducesuffering wrote: | Very reasonable prices are $40 + 8% coop fee for a standard | large pizza? That's almost $50 after tax. | | https://asliceofny.com/sunnyvale/menu/ | dragonwriter wrote: | A "standard large pizza" is 14", the size of their _small_ | ; 16" is a common extra-large size, their large is 18" | (1.65x the size of a "standard large pizza", by area.) | | $43.20 ($40+8%) is quite reasonable for an 18" multiple | topping pizza. | reducesuffering wrote: | Thanks for helping remind me of the Bay Area / tech | wealth bubble. Meanwhile the first pizza place I find | with good reviews elsewhere in the country has a 18" | multi topping for $25, and two 16" for $37. | laweijfmvo wrote: | A large cheese is $25, and 18" is quite large. Expensive | maybe but it's legitimately good pizza as other have said. | syedkarim wrote: | As a reference point: An 18" Whole Foods pizza is $15 at | full price and $10 on Fridays. | reducesuffering wrote: | Sure, i'm not commenting on the tastiness. Just that I | remember balking at the $40 I spent for a pizza there, | and am surprised that anyone thinks the prices are | "reasonable" when it's likely one of the most expensive | pizza places in the entire country. | magicalist wrote: | I mean: http://www.pizzamyheart.com/menu/ | | Maybe there's more to the prices than the co-op | structure? | thatoneguy wrote: | Awesome, that's so good to see. IIRC the founder was ex-Cisco. | I haven't lived in San Jose in over a decade but Slice of NY is | the only thing I miss other than my friends. | jeffbee wrote: | Why doesn't the word "rent" appear in here anywhere? If the | landlord becomes aware that the restaurant pays way above | industry norms, it will raise the rents at the earliest | opportunity to squeeze that money back out of the business. | Either they own the building or have an existing long-term lease. | ARandumGuy wrote: | Why would that be different in a worker-owned business compared | to any other business? Wouldn't a landlord be equally likely to | jack up the rent on a company that posts high profits? | | I'm not an expert on commercial leasing, but I suspect a | landlord who tried to do that would quickly find themselves | with no tenants. | burkaman wrote: | The landlord could also just not do that. | FredPret wrote: | Those evil landlords and their infinite pricing power. If only | there was competition among landlords (ie, build more). | | In all seriousness, businesses can move (easier said than done | for a restaurant) and commercial leases are very long, 5-10 | years. | freitzkriesler2 wrote: | Curious how the average lifespan of a restaurant just happens | to be 8 to 10 years. | | Couldn't be a coincidence, just couldn't. /S | scotty79 wrote: | That's the exactly the same reason why basic income can't work | if it's introduced on its own. This money will immediately land | in the hands of landlords who'll just increase rent. | tech_ken wrote: | Doesn't any landlord who defects from colluding stand to gain | though? Like how Georgists argue that their land tax won't | get passed directly on to renters because if it's applied to | the whole market at once then absent perfect and universal | collusion on behalf of the landlords renters will arb out | those with the highest rent spikes. | ajkjk wrote: | Not if they wait to raise the rent until after they have a | tenant who has a large cost to move already. | tracker1 wrote: | Considering a handful of companies already control most | rental pricing, and already extract "maximum value" from | those properties, I'm not sure it would be any different in | any direction. | | I don't get why there isn't some level of Trust Busting going | on regarding the rental property pricing management at all. | astrange wrote: | Because it's not true. People only think this because of an | innumerate article from ProPublica. | | Almost all landlords are small time, only own one or two | buildings, and can't organize a cartel. Except there's one | way they can - by changing the law to favor them by banning | new construction. | mordae wrote: | They don't need to collude explicitly. They just watch | posted prices in their region and match that. Since the | posted prices are always above average (you start higher | than the old rent and keep lowering it until somebody | takes it), rent keeps going up for everyone. | astrange wrote: | Rents don't always go up even nominally; you've just | listed the upward pressures without the downwards ones. I | believe they're still down in SF compared to last year. | | Posted prices can be misleading because they prefer to | give discounts (X months free) rather than lower the | sticker price, so it also depends how you count. | CJefferson wrote: | If a landlord becomes aware a company pays it's managers above | industry norms, do they raise rent? How does any company make a | profit in such a world? | ralfd wrote: | An company can more easily switch offices. But for a | restaurant the location is very important. | astrange wrote: | Commercial leases tend to be much longer to prevent the | landlords from raising the rent. Which of course, also makes | commercial landlords picky about who they rent to. | | Land value tax would solve this. (We have property taxes, but | they're not as good, and in California they're capped.) | werewrsdf wrote: | That is generally not how things work. Your same argument could | be made if they realized the restaurant was very | popular/profitable (with low empoloyee wages). Rents have to be | somewhat in line with market. They can't just increase rents | ignoring the rest of the market. If you are arguing that switch | costs are high, so they can. That may be somewhat true, but I | know of multiple restaurants in my area that have moved. It's | not that high and commercial real estate is not in the best | place, so landlords aren't looking forward to vacant property | giraffe_lady wrote: | This is like _the_ contemporary example of rent seeking and | during my years of experience in the industry was absolutely | a key factor in the long term success or failure of many | restaurants. | | When you hear of a popular, well-reviewed, by all accounts | successful place closing after 5+ years with no whiff of | professional scandal or business partner discord, this is | usually the reason. | tristor wrote: | > That is generally not how things work. Your same argument | could be made if they realized the restaurant was very | popular/profitable (with low empoloyee wages). Rents have to | be somewhat in line with market. They can't just increase | rents ignoring the rest of the market. | | No, that is actually pretty much exactly how things work. | Successful restaurants get higher rents on lease renewal | which is why they're incentivized to sign longer lease terms. | The restaurant is usually paying for all the necessary | renovations to kit a property out with their equipment, | decor, and branding, so the switching costs are very high, | and the landlord is heavily incentivized to squeeze them. | It's one of the largest, most common, and most existential | issues for restaurants as a business, and a major reason why | the largest and most successful chains usually operate on a | franchise lease-back model where the corporate entity owns | the free-standing building, preventing mis-aligned landlords | from making the business unsustainable and eating into their | profit-margins. Have you ever wondered why an Applebee's or | similar is a free-standing building even on a mall property, | even though it doesn't need a drive-through? Because Darden | Restaurant Group, just like McDonald's, is as much a real- | estate investment company as it is a restaurant company, and | it understands that both the franchisee/operator and their | primary corporate entity benefit from cutting out landlords | that are incentivized to be a rent-seeking as possible. | | Your comment is deeply misinformed and it's clear you've | never been involved in running a restaurant as a business. | Rent is often the #1 factor that can drive a restaurant out | of business, because it's the thing you have the least | control over. You can often structure your menu to help | manage food/ingredient and staffing cost, but you cannot do | the same about rent. Restaurants are somewhat unique in that | for single-location entities, too /much/ success can actually | kill you because of asshole landlords. | fallingknife wrote: | How does the landlord know how much money the restaurant is | making? All they would know is that the rent is paid on | time and the restaurant "looks busy," which really isn't an | accurate picture of income at all. | mordae wrote: | They just keep raising it till the restaurant starts | rising the prices, slow down for a bit and then start | rising the rent again. | tristor wrote: | > How does the landlord know how much money the | restaurant is making? | | They don't. But when the local newspaper food reviewer | gives you a glowing review and there's lines out the door | waiting for a table when you have full covers for the | night, and they happen to drive by /their/ building and | see this, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure | out you're doing well. The unfortunate reality of | restaurant economics means you could have booming | business and still making little or no excess profits | though, depending on how adept you are at controlling | other business costs, but since the landlord can't see | your books they use these other indicators to decide to | fuck with you instead. | | There is neither a legal nor inherent natural requirement | that a landlord choose a reasonable or accurate metric to | decide to raise your rent. In fact, in most parts of the | country (world?) raising your rent is an entirely | arbitrary decision in their full discretion. You seem to | be under the impression that the just world fallacy is a | truth, when in fact it's not only untrue, most landlords | are scum who will happily do as much financial harm as | possible to you to the very edge of the limit for what it | takes for you to go out of business. The landlord doesn't | want you to go out of business or move, which is the only | incentive tempering their greed at all. | peterashford wrote: | This is why Adam Smith hated rent seeking behaviour and I | think its the biggest flaw in how we do capitalism: the | wealthy create wealth by controlling stuff - especially | natural monopolies like land, not by doing any actual | work. It's parasitic. | giraffe_lady wrote: | That's literally the capital in capitalism. There's not | some other way to do capitalism that's not like that: | it's inherent to the model and what you want is some | other system. | gamblor956 wrote: | The Applebee's location is also leased by Dardens (or | McDonalds) from the mall...the difference is that they are | leasing the plot of land and not a building, so they get to | build the restaurant to their own specifications. (For | franchised locations, Dardens/McDonalds then leases the | completed restaurant to a franchisee. Sources differ on the | %, but McDonalds only owns about 40-60% of the land, and | about 66-75% of the buildings, for its restaurant | locations.) | | Successful restaurants usually get higher rents because the | value of the location increases with the success of a | restaurant. This generally means higher costs for the | property owner. This is also why most successful | restaurants have long term leases, meaning 10 years or | more, and major chains like McDonalds can have even longer | leases; it's not unusual for an Applebee's location to have | a 30 or 50-year lease. | SamWhited wrote: | This makes me miss Blackstar Co-op in Austin, TX. Great | microbrewery with excellent food that has a hybrid | worker/consumer ownership model. If you're ever in the area (and | if it's still around, it's been years since I've lived there) | look it up! | IndoorPatio wrote: | - https://mirisata.com/ | | - https://www.bobsredmill.com/whole-grain-store.html | wcerfgba wrote: | Wonderful story, thanks for sharing. | | Do you know any worker-owned food businesses? Share in the | comments! | | In Preston, UK, we have The Larder. Not sure about the ownership | model but it is a social enterprise working on food justice: | https://larder.org.uk/ | colechristensen wrote: | Hell's Kitchen in Minneapolis does something along these lines | though the details aren't entirely obvious to me. | | https://www.hellskitcheninc.com/ | vector_spaces wrote: | In San Francisco, the Rainbow Grocery Cooperative has been | around since the 70s. While working in the food industry in San | Francisco, I had heard that employees there made in the | ballpark of 100k~ a year, but that's purely hearsay and I have | no idea how accurate it is. Before Bay Area tech workers chime | in with how even 100k~ is effectively unlivable out there, I'll | mention that I lived on about 25k a year in the Bay Area | between 2010 and 2017, and lots of people -- food and service | workers, teachers, warehouse workers, delivery drivers -- | scrape by on similar or less, with no benefits or equity. You | might be surprised how many restaurants and bars and grocery | stores in the Bay hire their cashiers, busboys, dishwashers, | and cooks as _contractors_ , or pay them cash under the table. | | Back on topic: there's also the Cheese Board in Berkeley, CA, | and Arizmendi Bakery but not sure if the salaries are as great. | There used to be a great bakery in South Berkeley that was | worker owned and fairly well known, but the name is escaping me | (edit: it was Nabolom Bakery). In any case, that one struggled | more with the business side and employee salaries were close to | minimum wage. | | Another aside: it's interesting to me how lots of tech workers | in the Bay Area live in an entirely different Bay Area than me | or most people I knew out there -- these two worlds seem to | scarcely talk to each other in any meaningful ways. | lotsofpulp wrote: | In the western US, Winco is a pretty large grocery store | owned by employees. | astrange wrote: | Publix is employee-owned in the South, but some own a lot | more than others. | TylerE wrote: | Publix is complicated. One family controls about 30% of | the shares, and the company has done things (like donate | lots of money to conservative PACs) that many employees | are unhappy with. | raybb wrote: | Since you mentioned social enterprises, I'll share this repo I | made where I keep track of resources for learning about social | enterprises. https://github.com/RayBB/awesome-social-enterprise | | Btw the definition varies a good bit around the world but | generally a social enterprise is more about the goal of the | organization and a coop (or worker-owned) is about who has | power the make decisions in the org. | epgui wrote: | teamshares.com | jeffbee wrote: | We have tons of worker-owned cooperatives in Berkeley, | including Cheese Board Collective that is successful, and one | block from that The Local Butcher, also worker-owned. A few | blocks down was the worker-owned bike shop but it went under | for reasons related to having admitted a notorious bozo into | the co-op. We also have Nabolom Bakery that failed after | decades as a worker co-op but survives today as an owner-owned | business. | yodon wrote: | Is Zachary's Pizza in the same category? (I seem to recall | being told there was something unusual about their structure | but I can't recall the details) | uoaei wrote: | You might be thinking of Arizmendi, which is a spin-off of | Cheeseboard. Zachary's is family-owned, not really an | uncommon setup. | jeffbee wrote: | Yeah. Cooperative pizza is an entire thing. Arizmendi is | also worker-owned, as is Nick's in Oakland. | dllthomas wrote: | I'm pretty sure it's impossible, and the several I've eaten at | are merely figments of my imagination. | SenoraRaton wrote: | One thing that I never understood was, if an employees wages are | tied to the success of the company, would that not incentivize | better work ethic as a whole? That is how it works in the start- | up world. You get equity, you have literally invested in the | company, and you know that your work should (in theory) directly | benefit you financially. | | Instead we end up in a system where the employee/employer | relationship is inherently antagonistic. If you work at | McDonalds, in is 100% in your interest to do the absolute bare | minimum possible to not be fired, and in your employers interest | to pay you as little as legally possible. This costs more | overhead and resources from managers, and dealing with angry | customers, and food loss/waste, which could largely be avoided if | the employees were invested in the success of the workplace. | avgcorrection wrote: | This is a concept that dumbfounds people today (at least many | on this startup incubator forum) but that Adam Smith explained | over two-hundred years ago. Yes, workers and owners end up | forming two distinct groups with two distinct class interests. | programmarchy wrote: | Ever done a group project in school? Free riders ruin shared | incentives. | moate wrote: | I never did a single group project at school that had a | legally binding contractual agreement or a board of | shareholders, so I imagine these are entirely different | situations. | SenoraRaton wrote: | But somehow having a freeloader at the top that siphons off | profits is totally fine? I would much rather have someone | that I quite literally worked with, and the rest of the staff | interacted with freeloading, than some franchisee owner who | literally does nothing for the business. Not only would it be | much easier to identify, it would be easier to socially | address, or remove this person. I couldn't fire my project | mates in school, in this scenario you could. | bluedino wrote: | >> If you work at McDonalds, in is 100% in your interest to do | the absolute bare minimum possible to not be fired | | Or: | | _If it 's flipping hamburgers at McDonald's, be the best | hamburger flipper in the world_ | | Ice Cube, or Abraham Lincoln, or Dave Ramsey said that. I | forgot which one. | pessimizer wrote: | Horatio Alger stories were about humble, brave, smart and | hardworking boys from troubled, deprived backgrounds who | found terrible, unrewarding jobs or situations, worked hard, | smart, or bravely at them, and were observed doing this by | successful, wealthy, and wise men who recognized that raw | merit, plucked those boys from their situations, moved them | into their businesses and homes, and gave those boys real | responsibility and a start on their road to inevitable | success. | | Horatio Alger was a pedophile who preyed on young homeless | boys and orphans. | | It is very easy for the best burger flipper at McDonald's to | remain the best burger flipper at McDonald's forever. His job | is safe. The harder he's willing to work without getting a | raise, the longer he will be working without getting a raise. | One day, he will probably become assistant manager, and his | promotion will mean a pay cut because now he's on salary, and | his responsibilities will become greater because he has to | show up when others don't. They know he will, which is why | they gave him the job. Meanwhile, he works under a series of | managers transferred from other locations, or hired from | other companies. Eventually he gets sick, and his awful | health insurance runs out almost immediately. He's demoted, | then fired because he can't keep up at the job anymore. Then | he's homeless, then he's dead. | | Goofus, however, did the least possible in order to keep from | being fired, and went to community college at night. He | eventually was able to wrangle a paid internship at a company | where there was a career path, and quit McDonald's. Everybody | was happy to see him go, because he was a person like them | who managed to get a good job, and also because he was | terrible to work with because he was always so tired from | school and didn't put a ton of effort in. Goofus is now | middle-class. | | postscript: Goofus later also got sick, his insurance ran | out, and he became homeless and died. US healthcare is | terrible. | SoftTalker wrote: | Have you worked at a McDonald's as a manager? Because I | have, and their insurance for full-time staff and managers | was the same as you get at most employers. Anthem, or | whatever major provider. Salaried managers also earn | middle-class incomes. Perhaps your experience was | different, or perhaps you are making it up. | 542458 wrote: | I think it would incentivize bailing out as soon as times get | slightly rough, and last thing you want is all your best (and | most mobile) employees quitting when you need them most. | | For example, if my company has a bad quarter and makes $0 net, | does everybody get paid $0? Most people wouldn't stand for that | and would start job hunting pretty quick. The "work for equity | at a startup" crowd does it because they can afford to take the | risk of $0. Most people can't or won't take that risk. | | > If you work at McDonalds, in is 100% in your interest to do | the absolute bare minimum possible to not be fired | | That incentive won't change much under this new system. Joe | Average at McDonalds has little to no power to significantly | increase the company's, or even their franchise's profits. | Sure, they could _maybe_ move the needle slightly, but working | (say) twice as hard to make 3% more is probably not a rational | move. | mikepurvis wrote: | Usually it's not zero though, like it's base pay + the | promise of a maybe-payout down the road if things go really | well. | | But part of it also hinges on the organization being small | enough that individuals can actually make a difference. | Otherwise it's back to just being a prisoner's dilemma / | shared commons, where the incentive is to slack off and let | everyone else carry you. | seanmcdirmid wrote: | > If you work at McDonalds, in is 100% in your interest to do | the absolute bare minimum possible to not be fired, and in your | employers interest to pay you as little as legally possible. | | Having worked that gig before, that isn't how it works. You | don't want to work hardish, you simply don't get hours. If | management doesn't want to give you more than minimum raises, | you leave for something else, and turn over is high. There is | still leverage to do good things (both on worker and management | side). | | A lot of people working there (mainly managers, but some crew) | wanted to be owners, McDonald's had a franchise system in place | to do that but you had a better chance of getting one if you | actually learned the ropes at another store for awhile. | TuringNYC wrote: | >> One thing that I never understood was, if an employees wages | are tied to the success of the company, would that not | incentivize better work ethic as a whole? | | It would probably incentivize you to ensure _everyone else 's_ | work was up to par. This doesn't seem that different from a | small startup with heavy equity comp -- everyone is | incentivized to work hard, but there are also plenty of times | where people want everyone else to work hard but not themself. | | In the extreme case, imagine two co-founders. It is common for | each co-founder to try and take distracting side jobs / | consulting or not quit their dayjob, while the other puts in | the hard work to grow the value of the startup. Generally this | is a hard-NO from an angel/vc investment standpoint, but | outside an external party clamping down, there is an incentive | to cheat. | wpietri wrote: | You might enjoy the This American Life episode called NUMMI: | https://www.thisamericanlife.org/561/nummi-2015 | | It looks at how Toyota took GM's worst plant and made it one of | the best using the same workers. And how GM's management | refused to learn lessons from that. | | I think the current antagonism is something that started with | management many decades ago. But now it has a lot of momentum, | such that people on both sides are used to it and will carry it | forward. I remember reading a great zine piece from a video | game tester who'd had a variety of shitty jobs. He finally | found one that was really good: good pay, good working | conditions, nice bosses. But he felt compelled to steal office | supplies in bulk because that's what he'd done at his shitty | jobs. He was sort of mystified by it, but he couldn't stop. | | However, there are alternatives. I live near an Arizmendi | bakery [1], which is a worker-owned co-op. It's great. The food | is really good, it's sanely run, and the people behind the | counter seem serene and present. It's inspired by the founder | of the Mondragon co-op [2]. | | Or you could look at companies that shift to employee ownership | later. Bob's Red Mill was actually started by a guy named Bob | who sold the company to his employees in 2010. [3] | | I don't think those are going to be utopias. But I do think | they lack some of the structural disincentives against sanity | and compassion that you find in the typical corporate | structure, where every dollar in a worker's pocket is a dollar | less in economic rents for the owners. | | [1] http://arizmendi-valencia.squarespace.com/ | | [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation | | [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob%27s_Red_Mill | corinroyal wrote: | Oh, I miss Arizmendi so much since I moved away. | | I heard about an Arizmendi customer who went to Paris and was | really excited to try real French bread. When she got there, | all she could find was horrible like you could find in any | supermarket. She told her French friend about her | disappointment and asked where she could get some real French | bread. The friend's reply was, "Berkeley." | | There are a lot of great worker co-ops in the Bay Area. | Here's a map from Network of Bay Area Co-operatives: | https://nobawc.org/map-of-nobawc-coops/ | tiffanyg wrote: | Good points and info, IMO. One suggestion, though: | | _I think the current antagonism is something that started | with management many decades ago._ | | I think the pattern goes back, well, as far as you want to go | back. There have always been individuals who think that | _they_ * should be in charge. There's a continual 'tug-of- | war'. | | For centuries, only a very few people were able to | participate directly - when the world largely consisted of | monarchies, empires, "hoards", and all of that**. Ancient | Athens, and more recent "Enlightenment" ideas about "natural | rights" and "mandate of the masses" etc. have generally been | unusual in practice until quite recently.*** | | The data strongly support much more shared power past a | certain level of technological and economic development, but, | even if aware of the myriad examples, people with power-lust | aren't going to stop. It's directly contradictory to that | worldview, ambition, etc. - in multiple ways. And, any given | person is likely to tack more towards or away from such | notions over time, depending on multiple factors. | | Right now, it seems there's much more interest, in multiple | realms, on consolidating power, again. | | Caveat populus. | | * Not consciously intentional play on "the royal we" | | ** Before that, there's a lot more variation, AFAIK, but also | a lot less confidence and evidence - though, ancient Egypt | and China (three kingdoms etc.) come to mind as particularly | early examples with solid enough information regarding ruling | over large numbers of people by individuals (and various | attempts &/ smaller "kingdoms" etc.) | | *** "Radical", some might say "insolent" | deegles wrote: | I (naively) think a restaurant would have an easier time | detecting people who are doing the bare minimum. The issue | becomes how to "punish" freeloaders who are also owners? | Imagine the nightmare scenario of a restaurant where every | employee is a part of the LLC that owns it. "Firing" someone | becomes an onerous legal process. | pc86 wrote: | You can handle it in advance by requiring "vesting" periods | where you are working but not an owner. The existing owners | then get the chance to offer you ownership, or not. This is | how most private physician practices work, and AFAIK a lot of | law firms as well. | | So if you're a lazy employee for your initial 2-year | contract, you don't get any offer when your contract expires. | If you're not, you might get a contract extension or an offer | to buy in as an owner. | mordae wrote: | I think coops just vote on it. | SenoraRaton wrote: | Does it? If the rest of the community doesn't want you there, | seems pretty cut and dry. There are no "managers" at Valve, | yet they fire people all the time. You would simply receive | your pay, and whatever your portion of the dividends owed to | you up until your date of firing. | pc86 wrote: | There is a lot more legal overhead to buying out an LLC | owner against their will compared to firing an at-will | employee. | username332211 wrote: | Should a worker-owned company be an LLC? An LLC[1] is a | union of assets put together for a common purpose. It's | not a union of people. A worker-owned company should have | a different legal structure, usually something created | specifically for such an organization, though one would | imagine partnerships would be suitable if the law doesn't | provide for a special structure. | | [1]Granted, I'm thinking of European definitions here, | because I get really confused when I try to educate | myself about American ones. An GmbH is more or less an AG | with stakes rather than shares, whereas an American LLCs | seem to behave somewhat differently (taxation, for | example is pass-trough). | singleshot_ wrote: | No. Taxation of an LLC is not pass through. Taxation of a | single member LLC that is a disregarded entity can be | pass through. LLCs can also opt for sub K, sub S or sub | C. | | I also would not refer to an LLC as a collection of | assets for a common purpose; instead I would say it is a | popular entity form that limits member or manager | liability. However you could take a different view. | mminer237 wrote: | Entity laws are all state-by-state in the US, but in most | (all?) states, LLCs and corporations are essentially the | same ownership-wise. A person buys membership | interest/stock in an LLC/corporation, and becomes a | partial owner. The organization is a separate legal | entity then owning the contributed assets and the | members/shareholders own the LLC/corporation. The bylaws | will lay out how to divest a member/shareholder of his | interest, usually involving the other | members/shareholders or a board of managers/directors | voting to buy out his shares. | | It's not really a union of assets nor people though. The | former would be a trust or arguably a non-profit, and the | later would be a partnership. And LLCs can elect to be | taxed as a C corporation, although I can't fathom why one | would. (And most small businesses can elect pass-through | taxation!) | fallingknife wrote: | And how does your remaining equity position work? If you | lose it on firing then you aren't really an owner in any | meaningful sense any more than a tech employee with | unvested RSUs is. | username332211 wrote: | Valve is still a corporation with a single majority | shareholder. | | And I can't imagine a restaurant could work the same way as | Valve. In a restaurant, you have to feed people day in day | out. You can't deliver a Michelin-quality meal when the | inspiration hits you and nothing when it doesn't. | | Valve also seems to have a strangely forgiving customer | base. I don't think I've ever seen anyone complain about | micro-transactions in their games, whereas other publishers | seem to get a lot of hate for it. (Then again, ever since I | stopped playing games, I've began to notice that each | publisher had their own unique method of fleecing their | customer base, so it may be that Valve got the players that | tolerate micro-transactions, whereas others would have the | ones who tolerate endless DLCs.) | jabroni_salad wrote: | If you hang out with the tf2 people you might not see | much in the way of good vibes towards valve. The | community in that game persists despite valve, not | because of them. | baby-yoda wrote: | Wages tied to success of the company, ie profit sharing; how | much more profitable could a restaurant become if every | employee gives it their absolute best labor output? A few | percentage points here and there? Certainly not orders of | magnitude. Maybe theres no improvement in some situations at | all? I don't see it as much of an incentive, especially if the | variable compensation is partly in lieu of fixed compensation. | | The startup scenario you mention offers the _potential_ for | huge payouts (of course this plays out wildly across a | spectrum). A far easier sell to employees, IMO. | FFP999 wrote: | [dead] | [deleted] | benjaminwootton wrote: | At the lowest levels, most employees don't stand to share in | any gains or upside attributed to their hard work. At best | there will be a small bonus if the company does well which will | be weakly correlated with their individual efforts. | | In white collar jobs and as you move into management then the | bonus programmes become more aligned with business unit and | company performance so maybe you can move the needle and get | paid for it. Companies also have the carrots of promotions and | pay rises. | sharts wrote: | Worker-owned anything can work. It's democracy in the workplace. | version_five wrote: | Democracy only works when just about everyone wants the same | thing. And even then leaders generally abuse power. The lower | the stakes, the worse it gets. | avgcorrection wrote: | Oligarchy only works because only what the 10%, 1% (or | whatever the cutoff) wants _matters_ so what everyone _else_ | wants is per definition irrelevant. | gochi wrote: | Democracy works when most involved disagree actually, that's | its primary function over other formats. Otherwise just go | with a king since everyone wants the same thing. | Swenrekcah wrote: | I think I agree with the point but people don't need to want | all the same things so I think I'd rather phrase it this way: | | "Democracy fails when the people and their leaders fail to | realise that the thing they want above all is peace and | general prosperity, and that neither of those is a naturally | occurring phenomenon." | | Because the peaceful transfer of power as well as respect for | the truth, and equality before the law is the absolute | foundation that any prosperous democracy needs. | version_five wrote: | Doesn't that just kick the problem down the road to the | definition of peace and general prosperity? If people have | irreconcilable differences over what those mean, they still | may not be able to find the common ground needed for | running a business or country. With something more nimble | like a business it's easy to imagine vastly different views | on how the business can prosper, which makes the benevolent | dictator (business owner) model all the more attractive. | xwdv wrote: | It's a hellish concept. The workers relationship to the company | becomes less transactional, and they get all the stress of | owning a business but without the outsized profits. | MisterBastahrd wrote: | Most restaurant workers would gladly take the stress of | owning a business over the stress of being paid 40 hours | worth of near-minimum wage for 80 hours worth of actual work. | leetcrew wrote: | > stress of being paid 40 hours worth of near-minimum wage | for 80 hours worth of actual work. | | which restaurant workers is this true of? tipped FOH | workers make a little to a lot more than minimum wage | depending on the shift. BOH workers are indeed getting | minimum wage or a little more, but wage theft to the tune | of 50% of a paycheck is incredibly rare. | disjunct wrote: | Have you worked at a worker-owned company? I think, largely, | a goal of worker-owned restaurants is to make the work | experience less transactional. Is there anything besides | stress (which is not mentioned in the article) that would | make transactionality and outsized profit a necessary thing? | raybb wrote: | If anyone wants to start a coop there is an accelerator for them | based in NYC called start.coop. I've joined a few of their calls | and it seems like they're pushing for pretty great stuff. | | https://www.start.coop/accelerator | | Also in NYC is "The Drivers Cooperative" which is Uber but owned | by drivers and they're doing pretty well so far (based on the | last annual report). | | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Drivers_Cooperative | e1g wrote: | "Approval of any proposal or purchase has to be unanimous. Either | the proposal is revised to be agreeable to everyone or it's | scrapped." | | RIP. | kepler1 wrote: | Like so many idealistic things, this kind of setup works only as | long as the people joining or taking responsibility for the thing | continue to have and practice the same ideals as what started it. | | Start to lose that just a little bit, where responsibility gets | diffuse, the original intention gets lost, or you start hiring | people who don't have the same understanding, and it all falls | apart. | | Not every worker wants to have an equal share of the grunt work. | Not every worker believes that they contribute equally to the | success of the restaurant and are willing to split the proceeds | in that way. Not every worker wants to have to live the | restaurant as if it's their life. | | Worker owned coops have as many failure modes as "evil" corporate | ones do. And in some senses are all the more disappointing | because of it. | tech_ken wrote: | >Because it can be hard to get everyone in the same room, most | votes are held via a Discord server. People respond to proposals | with a thumbs-up emoji for yes, a thumbs-down for no, and a | monocle to signal they want further discussion -- a closer look, | if you will | | I would love a retrospective on the role of Slack and Discord as | tools of revolutionary politics in the last decade or so. Seems | like no matter where you fall ideologically, there's a Slack | channel or Discord server for you and it's doing the emoji vote | thing. | wcerfgba wrote: | Thomas Swann's _Anarchist Cybernetics_ and Rhiannon Firth 's | _Disaster Anarchy_ both touch on this at points. | | https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745340463/disaster-anarchy/ | | https://academic.oup.com/policy-press-scholarship-online/boo... | candiddevmike wrote: | Is the crying laughing emoji a yes vote or a no vote??? | NoMoreNicksLeft wrote: | Is this a chain-style restaurant? Fine dining haute cuisine? Fast | food? | | What happens when they don't want to do the actual work anymore? | Do they still keep their partial ownership of the restaurant and | hire wagies? What if they can't work anymore? It's not easy to | step and fetch for 10 hours a day at age 50. What if they just | need to reduce their schedule to 10 hours a week (and not pull | their weight)? | | What if most people willing to do grunt work also aren't very | good at managing a restaurant? At menus, at book keeping? What if | people prefer to be served by the cute young things that you tend | to see at many chains (even if they're dressed more modestly than | those at Hooters)? You know, the same sort of people who are just | unlikely to want to become invested in such a place, where | they'll be tied down to it? | [deleted] | jebarker wrote: | Left Hand Brewery in CO is majority employee owned but not 100%. | | https://www.brewbound.com/news/left-hand-brewing-now-majorit... | (2015) | FFP999 wrote: | [dead] | hinkley wrote: | New Belgium Brewery (Also CO... what's going on in CO?) was | employee owned but a few years ago they sold and now Kirin owns | them now. | | Not sure how you can be employee owned and have a parent | company. I think the Wikipedia page needs some edits. | tech_ken wrote: | IIRC BeauJo's is going this way as well after the original | owner is retiring. | aogaili wrote: | Any good examples of something like that implemented in the | software domain? | the-smug-one wrote: | Igalia: https://www.igalia.com/ | | Works on open source stuff, like Linux kernel, GStreamer, etc. | wcerfgba wrote: | Yes, in UK we have a network of tech workers co-ops: | https://www.coops.tech/about | astrange wrote: | This is a bad sign. The UK is like Argentina - if they've | adopted an economic idea that means it doesn't work and you | need to run away from it. | | https://twitter.com/JosephPolitano/status/169124217640185446. | .. | the-smug-one wrote: | Burn your fiat money then, pretty sure they've got that | back in good ole Argentina. | toyg wrote: | Couple of notes: | | - the UK, or rather UK trade unions, basically _invented_ | the concept of modern cooperatives _150 years ago_. | | - by now, cooperatives have effectively been out of fashion | for decades. Even the flagship Cooperative Bank has | recently been de-facto "normalized" into a regular | business. | | - the cooperative model can, however, still be attractive | for small groups of artisans, _like software developers_. | Hence the link from parent poster. This doesn 't mean that | it's been "adopted" at large scale, or seen a mainstream | resurgence - it has not. | fallingknife wrote: | > The bylaws are 10 pages long and cover just about every | eventuality the group might encounter | | I predict they will find out this is very much not true. I have | seen 1000 pages fail to do this. | wcerfgba wrote: | It's less important to cover every eventuality, and more | inportant to outline the decision making process for handling | the unexpected. | exabrial wrote: | Yes, absolutely, but there are pitfalls: | | * Somehow finances have to work, which is usually a harsh reality | for some. Ex: Hey we can't pay workers $250/hr without raises | prices to above what customers are willing to pay | | * Consumers despite "Least common denominator" which is often the | result of "design by committee". Usually consumers are after | something niche, unique, artistic, and creative, which is the | inspiration or vision of an individual. | | > As for making business decisions, it's done democratically. The | entirety of the member-owner group votes on major decisions, and | the bylaws outline scenarios where employees are authorized to | act independently of a vote | | I don't see this working in the long term unfortunately unless a | majority of the workers have a lot experience with business, | especially something as cashflow-sensitive as a restaurant (which | typically operate on razor-thin margins). But I do wish them luck | in their experiment. | ska wrote: | > unless a majority of the workers have a lot experience with | business, | | That may be the wrong way to think about it. Vanishingly few | people have enough experience in all aspects of any business to | make good decisions without others inputs. So in many cases we | are reliant on someone's domain expertise, not to make the | decisions, but to get the the right decision point. Once the | pros and cons are laid out properly, anyone with a real stake | can contribute to the decision. | | The bigger the decision, the more people with a stake need to | be involved. In the typical business world this shows up all | the time: "that's a board-level decision", "we need all the | execs to agree on this one", etc. | | We don't know the actual implementation, but it's possibly it's | just a reasonable reflection of that practice into collective | ownership... | 8f2ab37a-ed6c wrote: | It would be interesting to see reports of long-term experiments | of this sort, see how businesses run this way fare over time | and whether this sort of model is unsustainable, or if these | people are onto something effective that stands the test of | time. Any other restaurants who have tried this sort of model | in the past and stuck with it? | kikokikokiko wrote: | The simple fact that you never ever heard about something | like that, tells you all you need to know aboit the long term | prospect of business owned by "the collective". In my part of | the world we have a saying " what fattens the cows is the | owner's gaze". A company that belongs to everyone working | there belongs to no one, and it will eventually become a | freeloader's dream. I have heard of one or two examples of | this things being tried, one even a restaurant close tomy | home town. It never lasts. | ska wrote: | >The simple fact that you never ever heard about something | like that | | actually there are lots of examples, so it can't be that | simple. | soligern wrote: | How do you fire people? Do you just get voted off the island? | There would need to be managers. | jancsika wrote: | > * Consumers despite "Least common denominator" which is often | the result of "design by committee". Usually consumers are | after something niche, unique, artistic, and creative, which is | the inspiration or vision of an individual. | | Dollars to donuts you wrote that bullet point without having | read the article: | | * the _extant_ worker-owned restaurant discussed in the article | is the epitome of "something niche, unique, artistic, and | creative," which was "the inspiration or vision of" the owner | making a pitch to the staff to become worker-owned. It even | mentions getting employees because of the unique approach. I | can't imagine they haven't drawn non-trivial consumers to their | restaurant for the same reason | | * pictures of the food exist in the article | | In short: I know "design by committee" food. I've worked with | "design by committee" food. That fried chicken sandwich, sir, | _is no "design by committee" food_. | willio58 wrote: | > Hey we can't pay workers $250/hr | | Unless those workers were looking to make half a million per | year I think that's okay. | p1necone wrote: | > Somehow finances have to work, which is usually a harsh | reality for some. Ex: Hey we can't pay workers $250/hr without | raises prices to above what customers are willing to pay | | If it was worker owned wouldn't you just pay everyone some | reasonable wage that the business can afford and then also | split profits evenly? | danielheath wrote: | It's challenging to retain senior staff at those rates; | there's a limit to how much of a cut I'll take to work at a | cooperative. | dnissley wrote: | Don't forget to split the losses evenly as well! | Nifty3929 wrote: | Yes, but only if there is enough money to pay the base wage | in the first place, which is far from a foregone conclusion. | Let alone having any profit left to distribute. | carabiner wrote: | What is "reasonable," what is "fair." These words signify a | death spiral in wage discussions. The reality is that | businesses cannot increase prices forever and have a market | that still wants to pay them. If I sell burgers for $10k and | they're shit burgers then I'd make no money and have to shut | it all down. Just like my friend who shut down his cabinetry | business because he was paying his employees more than | himself (doing the "right thing"). He is a one man shop | working out of his van and is doing much better, but his | employees' wages became 0. | kikokikokiko wrote: | Some years ago a burger joint opened in my neighborhood, a | very hispsterish kind of place. I went once, and saw a | message attached to the menu, saying that 50% of the | revenue obtained from every burger would be donated to some | cause du jour, probably climate change related, bla bla | bla. To me it signified that the burgers they sold were at | least 100% overpriced when compared to what they should | cost if they were trying to have a profitable business. Fun | fact: they were, and their burger joint went under in a | couple of months. Capitalism wins in the end, it doesn't | matter if you want to fight it, the sun always rises again. | fn-mote wrote: | The restaurant has been in business 10 years. I think that | evidence makes me dismiss your comment as pessimistic | hyperbole. If the wages really didn't work, the restaurant | would have been long gone. | | I acknowledge that you have seen something similar not work | out, first hand, but in this case it is apparently | different. | no_butterscotch wrote: | > What is "reasonable," what is "fair." These words signify | a death spiral in wage discussions. | | Another commenter commented on a burger-joint giving a | share to "climate" causes. What a share entails in this | case, whether it comes from profit, or whether they pass | the cost of this cause to the customer is unknown. | | Additionally I live in a place where there are reparations | discussions and where unions agreed that teachers of a | certain ethnicity would be eliminated first in the name of | equity if it came down to staff cuts. | | How does this play into the scenario if these types of | events happen more often, even discussing these things is | difficult and people could veer away from. I heard that | Amazon inserted "woke" discussions into union talks in | Georgia in an effort to de-rail them, not to engender | unity. | SamWhited wrote: | In my experience the opposite is almost always true: | | > Somehow finances have to work, which is usually a harsh | reality for some | | At most places I've been involved in the workers are more | careful with money _because_ they are standing together and | want the business to succeed. They have transparency into the | finances, so they know what 's possible and try to make sure | not to go overboard. | | > Consumers despite "Least common denominator" which is often | the result of "design by committee". Usually consumers are | after something niche, unique, artistic, and creative, which is | the inspiration or vision of an individual. | | All of the worker owned places I've been have been exactly | this: creative, interesting, and individual. These aren't giant | chains designed in a megacorp boardroom. | | > I don't see this working in the long term unfortunately | unless a majority of the workers have a lot experience with | business, especially something as cashflow-sensitive as a | restaurant (which typically operate on razor-thin margins). But | I do wish them luck in their experiment. | | There are many of these and though I don't know the success | rate compared to hierarchical businesses in the food industry | in particular, co-ops have a higher success rate than | hierarchical businesses in general and there's been a lot of | research into it, though I don't know if an exact "why" has | ever been established. I suspect it's that there's no handful | of individuals who can get greedy and ruin things by trying to | maximize profit. Even for-profit co-ops generally have a better | sense of balance since the workers don't want their business to | dry up and if one person gets greedy there are lots of other | people to keep them in check. | Avshalom wrote: | >> Usually consumers are after something niche, unique, | artistic, and creative, which is the inspiration or vision of | an individual. | | I mean, I feel like a quick survey of the american restaurant | landscape implies that consumers are mostly after something | reliable for their time and money. | | but also the idea that front of house having a say in the | business would mean the menu is anymore design by comittee than | any other restaurant is weird, especially because menus aren't | generally decided by the owner of the restaurant anyway. | saled wrote: | These points are solved by the workers electing an executive or | directors who makes those decisions, until the workers are sick | of them and replace them in an AGM or an emergency meeting. | | Works the same as shareholders. | toyg wrote: | In the long run, that is bound to generate a separate | managerial class, with all that it entails. It's how most | cooperatives eventually die: they turn into regular | businesses. | Affric wrote: | Well said. | | Good co-ops that last have the decisions made by those | working there. | | And it's a lot of work. | avgcorrection wrote: | > Somehow finances have to work, which is usually a harsh | reality for some. Ex: Hey we can't pay workers $250/hr without | raises prices to above what customers are willing to pay | | Somehow finances have to work, which is usually a harsh reality | for some owners. Ex: Hey we can't have collective payout to | investors totaling $10M this year without raises prices to | above what customers are wiling to pay. | spacebanana7 wrote: | This is one of the main advantages owner operators have over | PE funded or publicly traded businesses. | SoftTalker wrote: | Also a reason that at least some (perhaps many?) franchise | restaurants don't allow owner-investors, they must be | owner-operators. McDonald's is one, at least they were last | I knew. | markandrewj wrote: | The answer is yes. It has also been well studied | (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workplace_democracy). If you want | to understand more of the history, look at the IWW, or other | resources such as the Chomsky's book A People's History. Usually | the idea that it will not work is a capitalist view pushed from | the top down onto workers. I.E. You are not smart enough, or you | are too lazy, to be productive without a figure of authority | making decisions for you. Even the concept of what is considered | productive use of time can be a topic of discussion in this | regard. Anarchy is largely misunderstood also, it is a philosophy | that focuses on the collective making decisions, instead of a | central figure of authority. | | Ref: Noam Chomsky on Worker Ownership and Markets | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RafTFDwImrU ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2023-08-28 23:01 UTC)