211–220 of 472 posts
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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.
Sure, but that's not a problem unique to worker owned businesses, any business without enough revenue to pay its bills is going to fall over.
It reminds me of when people complain about stuff like Electron apps. If you hate it, go do it yourself. You’ll either a) succeed and solve your problem or b) develop a much more complete understanding of the problems being faced by someone in a different role. I think every worker would benefit from being more involved in the business operations, or really any other jobs that help their company/project function. (of…
> If you hate it, go do it yourself. Exactly right. All large enterprises I have worked give full freedom to devs to develop alternative to any SAAS product they dislike. As simple as that.
To be clear I don’t mean to take your ball and go home the moment people aren’t doing things your way. Everyone has a responsibility to communicate and raise concerns productively. But if one finds themselves constantly thinking everyone else is a clown and they could actually do it better… go do it!
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 inh…
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 side…
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 o…
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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 responsib…
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.
This is not the first decent workers owned restaurant I've known, so I'm going to answer: yes, it can work.
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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?
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.)
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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?
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 t…
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