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Dear Mr. Wheatcroft,
One of the innovations under the new federal
co-operative acts in Canada is the creation of stakeholder co-operatives.
The key to this innovation is the ability to incorporate a co-operative with
several classes of members. For example one might have a day care
co-operative that has parent members, worker members and representation from the
community. Each class of member might have different rights and
privileges. Worker members might choose 40% of the board, Patents 40% of
the board and the community 20%. Parents might be required to buy 2 shares
at $100 each and workers 10 shares at $100 each. The worker and parent
members might each elect their board members and the community board member
might be appointed by the elected board members or elected by community members
or some other arrangement. In this way the stake of each group is engaged
and they engage in mutual self help on a democratic basis and no one group
with a key stake in the daycare business is exploited by another.
This new type of co-operative arrangement is not
part of our tradition and its flexibility makes it more complicated. If we
are to make the best use of these new possibilities for more co-operative
businesses we will need to do a lot of thinking about them and a lot of
experimentation and innovation. They clearly however provide an
opportunity to structure a co-operative much more in line with co-operative
values and principles.
Alas, co-operative law in the UK as I understand it
does not allow this kind of arrangement.
Best regards,
Tom Webb
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, October 30, 2002 8:46
PM
Subject: EOnation: Collective Ownership
and EO
Dear all
In the UK we recognise the merits of both
collective and individual ownership.
One model we use is a hybrid that accommodates
both ideas. In this model expect at least 51% to be owned collectively and
democratically controlled, while the other 49% would be available for
individuals to own and therefore encouraging incentives.
As a matter of fact the huge retail coops in the
UK which have always had a traditional collective ownership structure are now
looking at this model to romaine competitive as the other large retail stores
like Tesco and Asda (wallmart) give their employees the chance to own
shares.
I am at present working as an advisor on a
conversion from a home care coop to a share based company that will also use
this model if you would like more details on the model I could elaborate
more
Regards
Dave
Wheatcroft
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