Putting Democracy to Work: A Practical Guide for Starting and Managing Worker-Owned Businesses. - book reviews

Whole Earth Review, Winter, 1993 by Kathy L. Dalton

Rip up this book. It's a workbook: it should be dog-eared and copied. It's a well-selected toolkit for those trying to create democracy in the workplace. It belongs on shop floors, in committee meetings, and on the desks of hopeful worker/owners, I've recommended it to friends considering first-time business ventures. The section on developing a business plan is itself worth the price of admission: clear, jorgon-free, and designed to help worker/owners foresee some of the challenges they might face.

My experience with worker-owned and managed businesses is that when they fail, they are often felled by the some problems that plague other small businesses: they ore undercopitalized, there are big holes in the business plan, they lack financial expertise, their market is not well defined. Add the special problems associated with worker ownership: roles between workers and managers are poorly defined, low-income worker/ owners lock access to capital, a balance must be found between time spent managing the business (endless meetings) and getting the work done.

Putting Democracy to Work is a great road map. It asks provocative questions that will test the mettle, sharpen the focus, and bestow appropriate tools and expertise upon any group considering a new worker-owned business. --Kathy L. Dalton

Worker-owners face both ways like janus, the Roman god whose name perpetually turns the calendar. As workers, self-interest dictates a desire to govern the job. As owners, production demands that jobs be performed predictably, or managed, in accord with cooperative policy. At some point, sooner or later, nearly every worker-owned cooperative comes to terms with two impulses seemingly at odds with management: ownership nurtures th desire in individuals to directly affect workplace decisions and the desire to spread about authority for taking decisions.

For instance, Almarinda Souza, a seamstress at Darwood Manufacturing Company, in Fall River, Massachusetts, told fellow workers during a hectic workforce meeting called at a crucial moment in a buyout effort "I started sewing at this company nearly thirty years ago. Right after I got here I went to the boss and told him I had an idea I thought would save money. He told me, |Almarinda, you are paid to sew, not think.' So I have kept my mouth shut since. Now, if we buy this company, if I don't think, I don't get paid." Workplace democracy upends the traditional relationship between capital and labor, but, as well, forces changes in self-concept. Owners want to become owners.

Putting Democracy to Work Frank T. Adams and Gary B. Hansen, 1987, 1992; 324 pp. ISBN 1-881052-09-5 $19.95 ($22.95 postpaid) from Berrett-Koehler Publishers, 155 Montgomery Street, San Francisco, CA 94104; 415/288-0260