>Bill:
>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.
Its complicated, but the collective is made up of individuals who do deserve some protection. This is good for the collective in the sense that individuals who don't have a sense of security can do desperate things. Such insecurity is the material basis for many of the ills of our society.
>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?
In our circumstances, expulsion is completely inappropriate. My co-operative has most of the usual legal remedies available to a landlord, including eviction. The law here does permit a tenant to be evicted for egregious anti-social behaviour.
Of course we would have to be in a position to defend our actions in court if the tenant resisted. In fact we have come up against this issue a couple of times, and the co-op has had to issue warnings.
But the expulsion remedy would be a way of avoiding the usual legal protections available to a tenant, thus depriving a tenant of the minimum legal rights that even a slum landlord must respect. Since the co-operative's aims are to improve the security of its tenants, rather than erode them, it is necessary in my view to completely disavow the expulsion loophole. So that's what this co-op has done, right from the start.
Actually, there are a couple of local instances where another co-operative have actually used expulsion as a way of getting rid of dissenters. Earlier this year, a woman in a neighbouring co-op was expelled after she was accused of making complaints to the corporate regulator about deceptive financial reports being presented to meetings of the co-operative. She couldn't afford to defend the action in the Supreme Court (which has jurisdiction in such matters) because she was not confident of taking action unrepresented. I did offer to help, but she was intimidated and gave up. (The Supreme Court is a union "closed shop" for the legal fraternity, those not in the union, are not allowed to represent anyone in court) She lost her house, although she did manage to negotiate a limited extension on her tenancy in exchange for a letter of resignation.
They wouldn't have had any valid grounds for eviction though and if they had tried it it then any legal challenge would have been a lot less onerous for the tenant.
You might think that she was just a trouble-maker, but that isn't the point. People are entitled to be trouble-makers and, as the Late High Court Judge Lionel Murphy famously said, much progress in human affairs can be credited to trouble makers. Obviously, our neighbouring co-op has taught any potential trouble-makers a fearful lesson. The ruling clique demands absolute obedience.
There is no basis in our co-op for that kind of political rule by a ruling clique (whether it is a majority faction or minority faction). Everyone has to at least be listened to, because anyone can just say no to anything they feel strongly about. And there's no point in forming factions and playing a political numbers game, because a single member's vote can block all your scheming. That could be misused of course, but the thinking was that people would only be likely to exercise such a veto to protect themselves against a decision which materially affected them. The whole idea is to force the decision making Board to try to take everyone's interests into account in solving problems. Rather than taking the usual easy way out.
That's promoting co-operation, because the alternative (standard practice in a class society) is to look after the interests of the powerful at the expense of the powerless. In other words, competition.
Not sure I've explained it completely, but its a starting point.
>
>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.
Keep in mind that a co-operative is a purely economic organisation. In the final analysis, advancing the best interests of the co-operative as a whole should also be in the interests of its individual members. The idea of the veto is to try to make sure that happens in practice. What you are suggesting is that this would allow an individual to sabotage the co-operative. But why would any rational person do that, if it meant sabotaging their own interests in the process?
Also, keep in mind that our rules provide some exceptions, i.e. a person not in compliance with their tenancy obligations loses that right of veto. So it can't be used as a shield to protect yourself against the co-op taking a decision to enforce the collective rights (as set out in the tenancy agreement) against a tenant.
>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).
Maybe not. It would be cumbersome anyhow.
> 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.
Your co-operative has a responsibility to educate its members and others about co-operative principles of course and it should do so. But sure, members are there for the economic benefits primarily, that's how it ought to be as well. A co-operative is an economic organisation, if it was made up of ideologues who wanted to make it into a primarily evangelical organisation, then everything would go to hell in a hand-basket very quickly.
But this business of just electing a board and expecting them to do everything without you worrying seems a very irresponsible and frankly dangerous attitude. If circumstances dictate that you have to manage it with elected representatives then fair enough. But its quite another thing to take the position that your responsibility as a co-operative member ends with voting for someone else to do everything and you'll just leave if they bugger it up.
That's just asking for trouble.
Bill Bartlett Bracknell Tas