Are you looking to do something subversive but you’re not quite ready to start lighting data centers ablaze? Would you like to do something that will make billionaires break out in a cold sweat? Something that would make your HR manager consider you dangerous?
It’s easy…
All you have to do is imagine what your company would look like as a worker co-op.
What? That doesn’t sound threatening.
Believe me, it is.
First, what’s a worker co-op? That’s a business owned by its workers. Employees own the place where they work and get to make all the decisions about who gets paid what - and how to split any profits. The workers own work.
There’s another name for that - socialism, when workers own the means of production.
There’s another word for that - communism. The dream is a society where there is no state, no class division, no money. But the way you get there is by having the workers own the means of production. Workers own work.
People may not realize, but it’s possible to have workers own the means of production even in a capitalist society. It’s not common - one of the key features of a capitalist society is that rich people own the means of production. But there are exceptions.
ESOPs, employee stock ownership plans are one. Even Harvard Business School has to admit that employee-owned companies weather recessions better and have greater worker loyalty than capitalist run enterprises. It’s not hard to figure out why. Employees have buy-in because they get to make all the decisions.
Imagine if you were part-owner of your workplace. Imagine if orders from “corporate” didn’t exist. Imagine how different your workplace would be if you and everyone you worked with had the ability to make important decisions about work hours, holidays, paid time off, bonuses, safety features. It seems like everybody knows about some change that could improve productivity or make life easier on workers - but those suggestions tend to fall on deaf ears.
Management does not have the same priorities as you or your coworkers.
What does management care about? Maximizing shareholder value.
The dominant attitude in American business for the last half-century is that shareholders, the people who pay money to buy stocks, own the company. They are considered the owners and it has become natural to put their needs first. Will laying off a bunch of workers make the shareholders happy and want to buy more stocks? If managers think yes, a bunch of workers will probably get laid off.
But companies do not need to put shareholders first. It’s actually possible to put the needs of workers first.
So if you like making billionaires sweat, use your imagination. Imagine how different your organization would look if you and your coworkers were in charge. Imagine what you would do differently if you had a say in how company profits were divided. Imagine how much more you would be paid if billionaires weren’t taking such a huge fat slice of everything for themselves. I bet it would be a lot different than things are now. Imagine being empowered at work.
Then start imagining how we make it happen. Because it is possible.
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Let’s make them pay.
Dear Reader, this is just a quick note to say thank you for taking the time to visit my Substack. I am just an ordinary working stiff like you, hoping to get closer to retirement before my industry dries up and blows away entirely. That’s a colorful way of saying that I write here in my spare time. If you enjoy my writing and would like to see more of it, please sign up for a paid subscription. It would be a blessing to leave the 40 hour grind and do this full time. Every dollar you give me is a thumb in the eye of the powerful. Let’s start gouging their eyeballs good, and as always, let’s make them pay…
