Slide 6 of 10

Decent Work in cooperatives

• Cooperatives can provide decent work because they allow members to determine themselves under which conditions they want to work (this includes the extreme of self-exploitation).
  
  
• Member control means that the members of a workers’ cooperative supervise its management, and that that all members participate in the decision-making process.
  
  
• The profit (surplus as it is called in a coop!) is shared according to the participation of members in the cooperative’s business; it is not based on the share capital.
  
  
• Concern for community is a coop principle that many companies are beginning to discover, too. The above is not a judgement of value.

There is much room for the cooperation of coops with other types of business (for example, cooperation between banks and credit unions).

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Posted: 19 July 2000