Promisingly, fledgling social movements are helping to build lasting economic institutions at the grassroots level and have succeeded in channeling city-government resources toward these more equitable firms ($1.2M in NYC last year). The $100,000 that had been donated to Occupy Sandy has created two worker cooperatives, one of which is the construction cooperative Roca Mia: The five members of Roca Mia have now been in business as a construction company for a year (longer, notes co-op member Carlos Lezama, than many new businesses survive). While making decisions cooperatively often means sitting through a meeting at the end of a long day, when they’re all tired from installing floors, hanging drywall and painting walls, the five say that the collaborative process is worth it. Working as a cooperative has allowed them to create their own jobs, rebuild their neighborhoods and keep the money they earn in their community. ... Co-ops, according to an FPWA report released last year, are one way to tackle New York City’s much-publicized inequality problem. The pay ratio between the highest- and lowest-paid worker-owners in cooperatives is between 3 to 1 and 5 to 1, says the report; that compares with a ratio of roughly 600 to 1 in traditional corporations. The housecleaner-owners of Sí Se Puede, one of about two dozen worker cooperatives in New York City, have seen their wages increase to as much as $25 per hour. (The median for the industry, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, was $9.51 per hour in May 2013). Without the middlemen or placement fees that other housecleaning businesses charge, more of the money goes into their pockets.
Posted on: Wed, 14 Jan 2015 03:25:50 +0000
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