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Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

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Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#431

Post by TylerE »

randomdata wrote: post #409
TylerE wrote: post #307

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, probably the most traditional way is to hire for approx market rate... and then given little or no raises/cost of living adjutsments. Bam, 5 years from now, you're well under market rate.

The market rate is established by observing the sales that have taken place. If the sale price continues to be the same five years later, the market rate hasn't changed. You would not end up being paid an "under market rate" just because five years have elapsed. You would still be paid the market rate. An under market rate would only be significant to outside interests. If I am paying someone $20 per hour and you wan…

You're getting paid the market rate from 5 years ago. Due to inflation, this is 99.9% certainly less than market rate today.

You're ignoring the time element.

You hire the $10hr guy when the market rate is $10... and then give him just enough crumbs not to quit. So in a few years when the market rate is $15, he's making maybe $12. See how that works? Obviously many will jump ship, but many won't or can't (e.g. can't afford a gap in pay/insurance coverage).

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#434

Post by randomdata »

TylerE wrote: post #431
randomdata wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The market rate is established by observing the sales that have taken place. If the sale price continues to be the same five years later, the market rate hasn't changed. You would not end up being paid an "under market rate" just because five years have elapsed. You would still be paid the market rate. An under market rate would only be significant to outside interests. If I am paying someone $20 per hour and you wan…

You're getting paid the market rate from 5 years ago . Due to inflation, this is 99.9% certainly less than market rate today. You're ignoring the time element. You hire the $10hr guy when the market rate is $10... and then give him just enough crumbs not to quit. So in a few years when the market rate is $15, he's making maybe $12. See how that works? Obviously many will jump ship, but many won't or can't (e.g. can't…

> Due to inflation, this is 99.9% certainly less than market rate today.

There is no market rate until the market has made a trade. If I traded an hour of my time for $10 with you five years ago, and I again traded an hour of my time with you for $10 today, $10 is still the market rate.

> You're ignoring the time element.

It is not ignored. It is in there.

> So in a few years when the market rate is $15, he's making maybe $12.

The market rate for the given person in this scenario is $12. Maybe someone else will pay $15, but they have to prove that for the market rate to adjust. Some drunk guy at the bar saying "Oh yeah, I'd totally pay $15 per hour for that guy" does not establish this person's market rate as actually being $15. Talk is cheap, as they say. An actual trade has to take place to prove it.

Perhaps what you are trying to suggest is that people are fungible? If Joe is paid $15, and his identical in every single way twin is paid $15, then Sue – no relation – must also be worth $15, and paying her only $12 is below what actual sales have shown what the market is paying for a person of her kind? We do often talk about commodities that way.

But my experience with people in general, as a coworker, and as an employer, says people are most absolutely not fungible. Even for the same job, no two people are going to fit in equally. I think we can agree that some workers are better than others. In fact, we agonize over resumes and interviews to try and find the best of the bunch. If people were fungible, you wouldn't need to care. Just pick one at random. They're all as good as each other.

Since people are not fungible, the market value of an individual rests entirely on the trades an individual makes. It cannot be observed any other way. Their pay cannot go below their market rate. Any time their pay drops, their market rate comes along for the ride.

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#435

Post by hot_gril »

MrJohz wrote: post #432
hot_gril wrote: post #422

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A business with stakeholders who aren't employees is not a co-op.

That is a very unusual definition of worker co-ops.

"A worker cooperative is a cooperative owned and self-managed by its workers" is what Wikipedia says. If investors are given stake in the company, it no longer matches that definition. It's not just a technicality, it changes the incentives to being for the profit of the investors.

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#436

Post by hot_gril »

randomdata wrote: post #419
sh34r wrote: post #275

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's amazing how many people have been brainwashed into supporting dictatorship in the workplace, isn't it? So-called free men, who find the idea of no gods and no masters to be unthinkable. You have nothing to lose but your chains!

Not really. Democracy requires an incredible amount of work. Most people don't want that work. Even in governments which are technically democracies, the vast majority of the population never participate and accept a dictatorial rule. Not because of brainwashing, but because they don't want to get involved. They just want to live out their life and let someone else make the decisions.

The big democratic govts are also usually not direct democracies.

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#437

Post by hot_gril »

disjunct wrote: post #111
xwdv wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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?

I like not being tied to a single job forever.

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#438

Post by hot_gril »

iamflimflam1 wrote: post #379

Very interesting reading the comments. My impression is that a lot of people saying this can’t possibly work are in the camp of “one day I’ll found a business and this kind of thing could ruin that”. It’s the same thinking that says “don’t tax billionaires - one day I might be one!”.

Hey, I'd be fine if the business next to mine were a co-op. I'd just not found a co-op.

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#439

Post by hot_gril »

alkonaut wrote: post #388
marcusverus wrote: post #213

This is a really fascinating idea. At its heart, it’s a charity in which the person risking their capital assumes all the risks, while gifting the potential rewards. Big kudos to the beautiful, big-souled gentleman who put it together.

> assumes all the risks, while gifting the potential rewards. Why would worker ownership be a charity and why would owners not be sharing the profits regardless of whether they also work there?

Because someone had to put up the original capital, and it's not necessarily the same people working there. And if non-workers hold onto ownership, it's not a worker co-op.

Re: Can a worker-owned restaurant work?

#440

Post by hot_gril »

theogravity wrote: post #77

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

I remember going there once in Sunnyvale. Decent pizza, but the price was too high even for the area, so I didn't return. There's also a funny "wall of shame" full of pictures of customers who were supposedly very rude, according to each description. Now I'm just there to kindly buy pizza, but I want 0 chance of somehow getting blamed for something and ending up on a public enemy list. There were like 20 paper signs telling me what to do cause of covid19 protocols, and maybe I'd miss one. I can appreciate quirky places that don't treat the customers like kings (cause they're not), but they're supposed to be cheaper as a result.

Next door is an Indian restaurant that makes very good wraps, and they're friendly. Easy decision.

My favorite pizza shop is a co-op too, Cheeseboard. Supposedly $2.50 for a slice or $20 for a pizza, idk if that's accurate but I remember it being reasonable either way, especially given the quality. Making exactly one kind of pizza all day is more efficient, so it makes sense.

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