Worker Ownership Is Not Enough

This post is from a series written by our Chief Coordinating Officer Joseph Cureton.

I believe that worker-ownership is a critical tool in the struggle towards equity.

February marks a time for celebration of Black History and is personally a chance to reflect on the history of cooperatives as a form of solidarity for Black people in this country. My ancestors, like so many, came out of slavery, fought to free themselves, and carved out a life for their children. I believe that tradition, one of striving for equity, is second nature for people closest to systems of inequity. At this point you might even say it is my “family business.” If you have a chance, check out the amazing work my siblings do in the Bay Area.

But I also believe that worker-ownership alone is not enough.

Broadly defined worker-ownership, to me, is a right to the fruits of your labor. Structurally speaking, this can happen through many different forms (ESOPs, Cooperatives, Trusts, Etc). I think all are viable in the right context and all have their utility. If you have looked at our structure at Obran, you will notice that we definitely are not “purist” by any stretch of the imagination. We did however architect the Obran model with several key outcomes in mind: scale, participation, and equity.

Foundational to the model is an experiment in shaping an enterprise that has the ability to capture the inherent value that comes from achieving meaningful scale. Participation, to us, means healthy democratic engagement within the cooperative. And equity is our continued recognition of systemic barriers and the struggle to build structures that allow people to overcome them.

And we all fall short. 

Central to the idea of worker-ownership at Obran is also the belief that workers across companies and industries can build solidarity while serving their customers and communities. But we must not forget that the cooperative movement is not immune to the market nor is it immune to the forces of systemic racism and other oppressive systems. In the article Diversity Regimes in Worker Cooperatives: Workplace Inequality under Conditions of Worker Control, authors Joan S. M. Meyers and Steven Peter Vallas look at two similarly situated cooperative businesses and discuss their findings on how race, gender, age, and ethnicity play a critical factor in the structure of the firm and how they grapple with issues of equity. There is of course no “right” answer, but as we trumpet the case for worker-ownership, I believe we must continue to question the structures we create and “inspect what we expect,” as my mother would tell me. 

So this month, as I reflect on the structures we have started to build at Obran, I would like to invite you to do the same. Whether you buy a copy of Collective Courage by Jessica Gordon Nembhard to understand at least a piece of how the tool of cooperatives fit into the tradition of Black economic struggle, read the article I mentioned above, or just question what systems you are creating in your own life and work, I believe we owe it to our ancestors to continue the struggle.

In Solidarity,
Joseph Cureton