Above Photo: From geo.coop
Editor’s note: Below are the stories of 10 democratic tech enterprises, collected by the Network of American Tech Worker Cooperatives (NATWC) for a publication they released in 2009. Although these stories and the larger report of which they form a part are now 7 years old, we thought they were worth highlighting again now, given the marked increase in interest currently being shown in tech cooperatives. While the full report is embedded below, we have re-ordered the sections to give pride of place to the first person accounts of worker-owners, and followed them with the “how-to” section (which was co-authored by Brent Emerson and long time GEO Collective member Jim Johnson
Brattleboro Tech Collective
By Jason Mott As a software engineer, I came from a corporate background. I gained my tech chops during the 1990’s tech boom. Over a span of nearly a decade I became a fairly accomplished software engineer. However, something was missing. I didn’t feel respected by those who employed me. I felt exploited. I began to remember my upbringing, and my early years in the workforce as a factory worker. I had always been aware of labor issues, but I finally became conscious of them. I started to realize that wealth was built on the back of cheap labor, i.e., exploited human beings not being paid what their time is actually worth. The reason my fellow tech workers and I were being juggled from job to job, layoff to layoff, was because there was a huge effort from corporate brass to pursue cheap labor. The biggest effort involved having us compete with the Indian labor market, which costs pennies on the dollar.
I needed to own my labor, but wasn’t interested in attempting any sort of unionization effort. I saw the union movement as only a step in the right direction, but not the actual realization of owning one’s own labor. The second option was starting my own business. However, I knew going down that path would mean I’d just one day be the bad guy pursuing cheap labor. No, I needed to own my labor, and never attempt to own anyone else’s labor. Also, I didn’t want to work alone.
Enter the worker-owner movement! Once I discovered it, I sought to join one. And that’s what brought me to the Brattleboro Tech Collective in Brattleboro, Vermont. BTC was a spin-off of a worker-owned company called Eggplant Active Media.
BTC writes and maintains open source web applications. It was born not only out of the passion for web technology and worker-ownership, but out of the interest in taking on the dynamics of the fragile and intimate interactions worker-owners must vigilantly maintain. The worker-owner structure is unique in that every member must equally share control of money, power, and the means of survival. This has the inevitable effect of causing conflicts, which when not properly processed can destroy the very thing every member is depending on.
To this end, BTC has created a culture of honest communication, of intense communication, and of respectful communication. Our structure includes a monthly all day meeting, where we discuss anything that’s on our minds which might be affecting the members, positively or negatively. This meeting is also where most of our important decisions get made, using the consensus model. We’ve also created a rule which is the foundation of every other: make it up as you go. This means, be agile enough to make a change when established norms become dysfunctional.
When BTC began, the two founding members decided there wouldn’t be remote members. All members had to live in or near Brattleboro, and work in the same office together. This structure was the foundation of the effective communication that was necessary to address the issues of interacting in a healthy way. In the spirit of make it up as you go, this rule has since been changed, and we do have a remote member. However, this was a member who had spent his first few years at BTC in Brattleboro working in the office. Additionally, he still comes in person to the monthly meeting. Given that, we still do require any new member to start out in Brattleboro working in the office, so we can get to know her or him well enough to communicate with the previously mentioned intensity.
Because of our structure, we’ve evolved an incredible worker-owned company with some solidly effective guiding principles. These principles include keeping a cap on the amount of hours we work in a day and week, charging the appropriate rate that respects the value of our labor, being very mindful of who we sell our labor to, and enjoying the work that we do. These principles not only allow us to produce high quality software for our clients, but they also allow us to own our labor!
Link To Other Nine Stories Here
Technology Freelancer’s Guide To Starting a Worker Cooperative