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.)
[WS:] Could you explain how these provisions achieved the stated rationale of promoting cooperation and provide secure environment? In my experience, they tend to work to the opposite end: they protect disruptive individuals at the expense of the collective.
Take, for example, expulsion. In our coop, expelling members is possible, but extremely difficult. We have one member who has some sort of informal subletting agreement with her relatives/friends who in turn use the facility for illegal drug dealing. Other members, mostly elderly people, are harassed and intimidated by these thugs. Since most of it is going indoors (all you see is foot traffic in and out), the police really do not give a shit, so there is not much than can be done about the situation law enforcement wise. As a result of this situation, we already lost three members who gave up their membership and moved out for that specific reason. So could you explain to me how the inability to expel this particular member contributed to the spirit of cooperation?
Or take the veto principle. Giving an individual the right to veto the decisions made collectively seems to me like individualism and libertarianism going wild, rather than a mechanism promoting cooperation. I can understand a mechanism that allows members, acting collectively, to veto a Board's decision, but giving that right to every individual who can exercise at a drop of a hat looks to me like the end of the collective.
It is one thing when the collective is small, everyone knows everyone, and there are many informal mechanisms that prevent people from violating shared norms. But this is not going to work in a large urban cooperative such as ours (200+ dwelling units). Most of our members (and I think this holds for most coops) are interested primarily in inexpensive housing and a peaceful and quiet neighborhood, not in the cooperative principle. They elect the Board to do whatever it takes to achieve that goal, and they vote with their hands and eventually feet if the Board fails to do so.
Wojtek