Partners in Enterprise: The Worker Ownership Phenomenon

Vincent di Norcia is an associate professor of philosophy and business
ethics at Laurentian University.

Quarter and Melnyk have edited an excellent discussion of co-operatively
owned enterprises and community development. Their anthology goes well
beyond the usual left-wing ideological nostrums about worker control. It
offers a significantly critical view of any such panacea and even shows
some sympathy for small business.

The book covers a broad territory. Melnyk reviews agriculture
co-operatives in western Canada and Quebec. Judith Brown describes how
co-ops can help the disabled. Alain Bridault and Ginette Lafreniere
summarize the Quebec co-operative scene—notably in farming, resources,
small business, and credit unions—a phenomenon that exists in some
tension with the current recrudescence of nationalist statism there.
Gregory Baum offers a Christian view of the ethical background to
co-ops, largely based on papal teachings.

Jack Quarter presents a critique of employee stock ownership plans,
more popular in the United States than in Canada. The current recession,
Quarter and Jo-Anne Hannah write, provides opportunities for workers to
gain control of their firms and create co-ops. While such co-ops
overcome labor/management conflicts and increase productivity as long as
the stock increases in value, they do not help workers very much in
problem times. Nor do they provide significant control of the firm, even
with a few workers on the board. Worker/owners usually support good
management, but they tend to ignore market forces. Consumer co-ops are,
however, notoriously unstable. Financial co-ops or credit unions tend to
be too similar to regular banks. Housing co-ops are stable and
successful, and even enjoy some support from the present Conservative
government. This list of critiques shows the importance of
multistakeholder co-ops, as John Jordan explains. The great Basque
Mondragon co-operative community system, Greg MacLeod adds, shows that
co-ops not only must be pluralist in internal structure but must also
have an external community network for financial support, education, and
stability. Despite Melnyk’s optimistic conclusion, the book as a whole
shows that Canada’s socioeconomic environment is not especially
supportive. Nonetheless, co-ops offer a challenge to the human spirit
that many Canadians have successfully met. The future will likely bring
more co-ops rather than fewer.