Linda Bratcher

Cooperative: Total Coverage
City: Southampton
Country: United Kingdom
Sector: Design and Communications
Founded: 1988

I am just heading into my eighth year at Total Coverage. Prior to joining the graphic design co-operative, I’d worked for over 10 years in a number of different roles in the commercial print industry. I didn’t really feel that involved in any of the businesses, it felt as if was just there to work and for someone else to reap the benefits. It wasn’t till I started working at Total Coverage, I realised just how much management information in all the previous companies I’d worked for had been kept private, even though the majority of it was important to my work and my future career.

Our co-operative has a flat management structure, so I am involved in, and responsible for, all the major business decisions for the company. By working this way I have more control over my employment, I understand the decisions I make, directly affect my and my colleagues well-being.

Sometimes it’s challenging being both an employer and an employee. In a co-operative you have to look at your position from both an employees’ and an employers’ perspective. The best decision for the business may not be the best option for the employee and vice versa. You may want that wage rise but you might not get it. No point earning more money one month if it sends the business into receivership the next. The decisions we make are ours, and we are not just told what to do, it is up to us for the survival of the business, and when all the team have this as top priority, we would be extremely unlucky to fail.

I believe a vast number of people are looking for opportunities to take more responsibility for themselves in their working life, so a worker co-operative is an ideal business model to allow this. I hope they become more and more popular. However it is really important that all the members have the same vision and goals and put in equal effort.

Running a co-operative is like running any other business, it is hard work, in fact probably twice as hard – you have to be committed and passionate about what you do - and you need to enjoy it.

It has made me push myself much further than in other jobs and when something goes really well, I can give myself a pat on the back and be very proud, as I know I have been responsible for it happening. It’s great to know that I am working with people who have the same ethics as I do and that we make our own decisions about our own company our own jobs and the way we want to do business.

I love it!

www.totalcoverage.co.uk

Cooperatives a sustainable employment solution!

A cooperative is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise.

Enterprises represented by CECOP are enterprises in which workers unite to satisfy their needs in terms of creation of sustainable jobs. They can be industrial enterprises or services rooted in the territories and having a long-term strategy. They are a genuine solution for sustainable jobs in Europe: they are broken down into workers’ cooperatives, social cooperatives and other types of enterprises owned by their workers.

Workers’ cooperatives: Workers’ cooperatives are enterprises subject to the same restrictions of competition, management and profitability as other companies. Their originality lies in the fact that their workers hold the majority of the shares, at least 51%. In doing so, the workers decide jointly on the major guidelines of their enterprises and appoint their leaders (managers, boards of directors, etc.). They also decide on how to share the profit with a twofold aim: to give the preference to the workers of the enterprises, in the form of refunds based on the work done and to consolidate the enterprises with a view to handing it over onto the future generations, i.e. creating reserves to reinforce the equity and ensuring thereby the sustainability of their enterprises. In all cooperatives, the internal democratic control is based on the principle of “one man, one vote” whatever the capital share held by the respective workers. Finally, the cooperative spirit promotes its employees information and training, a prerequisite to develop the autonomy, the motivation and responsibility, accountability required in an economic world which has become insecure. (Source: www.scop.coop)

Social cooperatives: Social cooperatives are specialised in the provision of social services or reintegration of disadvantaged and marginalised workers (disabled, long-term unemployed, former detainees, addicts, etc.). A large number of such cooperatives have been set up in Italy but also in other EU countries. Most of them are owned by their workers while offering the possibility or providing for the obligation (according to the national laws) to involve other types of members (users, voluntary workers, etc.).

Other types of enterprises owned by their workers: There are other types of enterprises owned by their workers such as for example the “Sociedades Laborales” in Spain which are real driving forces of economic and social activities which have contributed to lower the unemployment level and to revamp a sustained growth in Spain.

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Linda Bratcher

Cooperatives a sustainable employment solution!