Can a worker-owned restaurant work?
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Can a worker-owned restaurant work?
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Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?
#2Toronto 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.
Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?
#3Why 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.
Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?
#4Wonderful 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/
Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?
#5One 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.
Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?
#6Toronto 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 dec…
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
Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?
#7One 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 inh…
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.
Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?
#8Left Hand Brewery in CO is majority employee owned but not 100%.
https://www.brewbound.com/news/left-hand-brewing-now-majorit... (2015)
Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?
#9Why 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.
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.
Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?
#10Why 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.
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?