MADISON AUMENT: For 91.9 KVCR News, I’m Madison Aument, and this is Economics IE. Kelley Bader is the former board president at Slow Bloom Coffee Cooperative and is now program manager for co-op development at the Inland Empire Labor Institute. Last week, we talked about Slow Bloom’s creation and success as a worker-owned co-op. You can find that episode on our website. In part two of our interview, Bader delves further into cooperatives and what they mean for workers. So can you maybe pitch the idea from an economic standpoint of a co-op to someone that doesn't get it? Basically, for the skeptic.
KELLEY BADER: OK, this is like a “hear me out” moment, because the skeptic — some of those points are valid. It is more work, and you are less likely to become rich. At the same time, you and your co-operators — the people that you are owning the business with — are way, way more likely to have stable jobs with a higher income than anyone else in the same industry as you are.
That, in itself, I think should sell the co-op model to people who are trying to figure out how to build a durable living in this current climate — in this current, especially this current, economic climate. Like, how do we brace ourselves against capitalism together?
When we co-own a business, we can build wealth over a long period of time. We can build jobs that we control. So if the economy does go through its fluctuations, our jobs aren't going anywhere. They're going to be stable.
And so I think that the economic benefit is that it works for more people than any other model would.
AUMENT: Seems like — and correct me if I’m wrong — that it also gives economic opportunity in industries that don’t have a lot of job security. Like, I know, like a lot of restaurants, you’re an at-will employee. They can just fire you.
BADER: Most places in California, and most states in the U.S., when you’re employed, you’re an at-will employee, and you can be fired for any reason at all. It doesn’t matter. But co-ops, I think, offer that stability — especially in this — there’s, I think, a lot of untapped potential in this gig economy that is really kind of taking over the U.S. right now. By pulling together a lot of these independent workers and independent contractors, you can have them form a worker co-op, and that entity is way stronger than anybody is on their own. You know, leverage that collective power for better prices. You can find better access to benefits as a group. So there's actually a really good example in the IE. It’s called Allied Up, and they are a worker co-op — and they’re a staffing agency for medical professionals, mostly LVNs — so, licensed vocational nurses. But the staffing agency is a co-op. So you get hired as a member-owner of the staffing agency. So you’re an owner of the company. And then you are, you know, paid by the company instead of by all these little contracts. And they line up all the contracts for you, so you have steady work. You make above market rate, because you have a union in the picture as well. And it’s beautiful and amazing. And I’m like, this is the future. We have to figure this out. There’s a lot of interest in the IE, in like other types of home care. There’s a lot of interest in ride-sharing models like Uber, but worker-owned sort of taxi services.
AUMENT: Do you think the Inland Empire is, like, a good place, I guess, to start doing something like this — like recruiting people to build their own co-ops?
BADER: Yes. I don’t think there is a better place in the country than the Inland Empire. I think that, especially for young people in the IE, their options are thinning out. I mean, most of the people that grow up here, you know, go to college and do that route, and then they leave to go find jobs that are no longer here. Or they stay here and eventually get sucked up into the logistics industry, working in warehouses — which are terrible jobs — and the turnover is so high. And it just feels like it is so hard to make a life for yourself in the Inland Empire. And it feels like no one is looking out for anybody here in the Inland Empire. But co-ops are the community looking out for itself.
AUMENT: Can businesses that are already in existence shift to the co-op model?
BADER: Businesses that are already an LLC can incorporate democratic principles into their LLC without converting to a different legal entity. Businesses convert to co-ops. It happens regularly. And conversions are a really big area of promise for co-ops — especially where there might be a small manufacturing company in the Inland Empire, of which there’s several. If there is an owner who wants out of the picture — they want to retire — they can convert to a co-op, and it would really benefit the workers. And there’s some tax incentives for the owner to do that as well. But I think few people know about it. I think that it’s not that well known of a thing.
AUMENT: Cool. Thank you.
BADER: You’re welcome.
AUMENT: You can find this segment at kvcrnews.org/econie. Support for Economics IE comes from the Nowak family. For KVCR News, I’m Madison Aument.
