>I know Bill has complained on here of being poor as
>sin as well,
Sure I'm as poor as a churchmouse, but I wasn't complaining.
> and although laws in Australia are
>undoubtedly different than the US, the fact that he
>incredibly has this thing up and going means he is
>probably as good a source for this type of information
>as anyone.
It is a bit tricky to negotiate the legal, taxation and constitutional aspects. I don't have any kind of grasp of US law, so my experience is only useful in a general sense.
Big picture though, relying on professional legal advice can be problematic, unless you can afford the very best. You really have to get a reasonable grasp of the broad legal context.
For instance. At the beginning a couple of the important things we wanted our co-op to be was managed by members and secure. That is to say to exclude the possibility of infighting and political numbers games making life insecure for member tenants.
To achieve this we amended the model rules removing any provision for expelling members. We made provision that all members were automatically entitled to a place in the governing board. We then provided that any member of the Board who wasn't delinquent on rent could veto any resolution of the Board. We figured that would make numbers games pretty pointless and so far it has. (Though numbers games still go on as a sideshow, they aren't threatening as they can be in organisations where going up against someone with the numbers can be suicide.)
In 2000 a new Co-operatives Act came into force. You had to be careful, because there were some tricky bits in there to navigate. The Act explicitly provided that a co-op had to be governed by a Board of Directors, that the Board had to be elected and (the trickiest bit) that members of the Board could be removed by a majority vote of members. Basically it was a provision adopted from the Corporations Act without much regard to the particular needs of co-ops.
Implementing that would have undermined our entire organisational strategy. So what we did was implement that in our rules, but then provide that any board member removed by majority vote could simply nominate themselves to fill the vacancy and automatically resume their seat.
A bit silly of course and the registrar of co-ops did question this provision. But I explained that this was consistent with the provisions of the Co-operative Principles which had been incorporated into the Act. I argued that our set-up was designed to create the environment for members to work co-operatively, rather than competitively. So, given that the Co-operatives Act paid lip-service to co-operative principles and in fact explicitly provided that the letter of the Act should be interpreted wherever possible to give effect to the principles set out in the International principles of Co-operatives, our rules were within the Act.
The registrar approved the rules. Probably just couldn't be bothered arguing with us. ;-)
Frankly, I can't imagine many lawyers would have even seen a problem, let alone had the grasp of co-operative principles to work out a solution. Plus it helps that my co-operative had the services of someone with an obsessive/compulsive personality. So look out for your very own "Rainman". ;-)
>You said "leftists can't exactly point to them as a
>model if they don't live in them" -- but I don't know
>why leftists or anyone else couldn't point to them --
>housing co-ops of the kind Bill is involved in -- as a
>model, just because they don't live already in them. I
>don't live in an anti-capitalist society, but I could
>point to various post-capitalist models as something
>I'd like to exist in, even though I don't exist in
>them now. We don't already have to be there to propose
>it as a good for the future.
One of the things you have to be very careful of is taking into account that Co-operatives aren't non-capitalist. They operate in a capitalist environment and you can't escape the consequences so its very dangerous to get too utopian. How many mutual societies have de-mutualised lately? Greed and insecurity and all the other evils of capitalism are still there, you have to take all sorts of precautions like the couple I've briefly touched on above.
And you do have to get the legal stuff right, because the bottom line is that in this capitalist society the courts are ultimately the only guarantee against gangsterism taking over. No use having rules and a carefully designed structure if there's no way to enforce it in an environment (capitalism) that creates strong incentives to do so.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas
PS: web site address for the co-op has changed, now http://www.dchc.org.au
>-B.
>
>
>Chuck wrote:
>
>"Co-ops are one model of an alternative, but leftists
>can't exactly point to them as a model if they don't
>live in them or help create more housing options. I've
>been working on a cooperative housing project for the
>past two years with friends here in KC. We want to buy
>an apartment building in midtown KCMO and turn it into
>a cooperative. Unfortunately, it's probably easier to
>go get a professional job and get a morgage for single
>family home than it is to set up a limited equity
>co-op."
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