hooverlunch

First at Gaiahost, which has since gone out of business. Now at gandi.net.

As of now we're only U.S. based, unfortunately. Adding international members adds a lot of complications that we don't have the scale to deal with.

No, it deliberately stays fixed to reduce barriers to entry for new member-owners.

We are about to roll out a blog! Check https://sassafras.coop in a month or two...

SamBam nailed it. For us, any large expenses must be approved by consensus of the whole group. For larger coops, they would need approval of a democratically elected and recallable board of directors.

We are developing a "thrivable" payscale that rewards each of the following:

- relevant prior experience (before joining the coop) - longevity (aka seniority) - dependent care responsibilities - membership (a small raise once you become a member)

The prior experience piece is determined with a points system, designed to take as much of the self-advocacy (with all of its race/gender/class pitfalls) out of the process as possible.

The system also includes annual cost of living adjustments.

Heh, you can't sell a worker coop. One of the key defining features is a "de-mutualization" provision in the founding documents. You can only sell your own share, which has, in our coop, a fixed value of $1,000. And you can only sell that share back to the coop.

There are lots of small tech worker coops in the U.S. and Canada. See https://techworker.coop.

I co-founded one, Sassafras Tech Collective, in Ann Arbor. It's been an amazing journey. I don't think I could ever go back to working in a non-democratic workplace.

Worker co-ops usually have provisions in their bylaws to ensure they stay co-oops. This is to guard against the issue you allude to here.

Join or start a tech worker co-op!

First, one of the best ways to do social good is to fight capitalism. Just by working at a worker co-op, you're doing this. Many tech co-ops are also built around resisting other oppressions like racism, patriarchy, etc.

Second, many co-ops (e.g. http://sassafras.coop, the one I work for) work on lots of social good projects.

Yet another reason to start or join a worker cooperative. http://techworker.coop