Resource type: Case Studies

Case study: workers.coop

Who are we?

A federation of worker led co-ops. Our purpose is to motivate, educate and organise people to start, strengthen and grow great worker co-ops.

What do we do?

  • Create learning opportunities for members via emails, webinars, events and peer learning.
  • Collate the best resources, templates and policies relevant to worker co-ops
  • Help people start-up and grow worker co-ops
  • Host member meet-ups, establish regional and industry networks
  • Campaign for worker co-operation and build links globally and with other social movements

Quick facts

Websitewww.workers.coop
Industry Campaigning
Founded22/10/22
Turnover£100,000
Workers35+
Members55+
Who are the members?Worker co-ops + Workers
GovernanceSociocracy
PayEqual pay
Legal formCo-operative Society

How do we operate?

We are a multi-stakeholder Co-operatives Society made up of two types of members: Member Co-ops and Worker Members. We have a Board of Directors, but day-to-day management and delivery takes place through sociocratic structures. We have seven working groups delivering activities on behalf of the co-op made up of over 35 worker members.

Where did we come from?

Although the idea of a federation specifically for worker co-ops had been around for years. We were inspired to start at the May 2022 “Worker Co-op Weekend” and incorporated in October of that year. The Worker Co-operative Council of Co-operatives UK became our founding members and interim Board of Directors.

Why are we a co-op?

We believe in a world where everyone has access to rewarding, meaningful and sustainable work.
Made possible by an interconnected and highly inclusive worker cooperative movement.

Lessons learned

As an organisation, be mindful to not go at the speed of the slowest, or to race ahead with the fastest. Take enough people with you.

Further reading

workers.coop Limited Handbook

Case study: Calverts

Calverts logo

Who we are

Calverts North Star Press is a worker co-op in graphic design and commercial printing, based in Bethnal Green, east London.

Checking a proof at Calverts

What we do

Expert print designers creating high impact publications, visual identities and brands. We’re also London’s leading boutique print manufacturer, producing digital, offset litho, giclée and risograph print in house. Working with a large network of binders, finishers, and paper engineers, our mission is transform creative ideas into perfect printed objects.

Calverts collaborated on the development of the first fully recycled graphic quality papers to be marketed in the UK, and use vegetable oil based inks. We work with clients to deliver print and design that’s socially and environmentally responsible, as well as beautiful and effective. We’re Forest Stewardship Council FSC® certified, and hold ISO14001 environmental certification.

How we operate

Quick facts

Websitecalverts.coop
Industry Commercial printing and graphic design
Founded1977
Turnover£1.1 million
Workers13
Members12
Who are the members?Employees
GovernanceSociocratic democracy
PayEqual hourly pay
Legal formCo-op Society

Calverts employees own and control the enterprise in common, putting into action the cooperative values of equity, solidarity, democracy, self-help, self-responsibility and equality. Like Suma and Unicorn Grocery, we are an equal pay co-op. All workers get the same hourly rate, from the cleaner to the finance officer. Our full time hours are 35 per week, with 7 weeks’ paid holiday a year and good policies on flexibility and unpaid time off, so people can work their jobs round their lives instead of the other way round.

It typically takes 10 months for a new Calverts worker to be inducted into membership, which is open to anyone contracted to work 14 hours a week or more. We run the co-op collectively, in other words all members are also directors. Individuals have a high degree of job autonomy and accountability within work teams. A monthly full meeting is used to review finances, as well as strategic, whole co-op and membership matters.

Further reading: Calverts workers handbook

How we started

Calverts came out of an industrial dispute and worker takeover of a bohemian arts press called IRAT services, in 1976. The workers engineered a confrontation with the private owner, while setting up the co-op to be ready to occupy IRAT’s workshop in Clerkenwell, central London. With no capital – only goodwill from customers and suppliers – the founders had no wages for the first six months. Key turning points were getting recognition and support from the printing industry’s craft union, the National Graphical Association, and borrowing £500 from ICOF to buy some of the former owner’s printing kit.

The founders called the new co-op ‘Calverts North Star Press’ after the North Star pub in Finchley Road, where the first co-op meetings were held, and Elizabeth and Giles Calvert, radical printers from the 1640s, whose workshop was close to Calverts first premises.

Through periods of growth and glory, as well as moments of crisis and reorganisation, Calverts has transformed itself from a basic skills community printshop into an industry leader and high end producer, through continuous upskilling and reinvesting surpluses in better tech.

Like many co-ops and collectives from the 1970s period, Calverts and its members were part of a growing ‘movement of movements’ that needed its own means of production to produce information and propaganda – the womens’, LGB, ecology and anti nuclear movements; Anti Apartheid and anti racism; and above all a revitalised workers’ movement, which was rediscovering worker co-ops.

What we learned

Solidarity will get you through times of no money, better than money will get you through times of no solidarity.

Skill sharing and flexible working across teams is the key to resilience, high productivity and individual worker development. Calverts has never made a forced redundancy.

How you start out is very likely how you’ll go on. For instance, it’s much easier to begin as a collective, flat equal pay co-op and stay that way, than it is to start unequal and try to equalise later.

Being a worker co-op is a powerful selling point, if you know how to project it smartly and authentically.

Worker co-ops aren’t walled gardens of peace and equality, but to be more efficient than private businesses, dispense with disciplinary management and provide truly decent jobs, we have to be continually breaking down divisions of labour, status and reward rooted in gendered, racialised and other codes such as working class v middle class, intellectual v manual, college v school educated, technicians v administrators.

For a mainly B2B trading enterprise, word of mouth marketing has proved by far the most cost effective way to get more and better business – but being a good word-of-mouth marketer takes skill and discipline.

Customers can be your friends, but trade suppliers are family.

Worker cooperation points towards the possibility of a better world, but we’re still capitalist enterprises. Even without internal bosses or outside owners, we give a big chunk of our labour value to landlords, financiers and trade creditors, and still trade for profit. One day, when we can produce everything in response to peoples’ real needs, in full association and under community direction, we might be able to say we’ve gone beyond capitalism.

Case study: Agile Collective

Who are we?

We are a worker-owned agency that designs, builds and supports websites for purpose-driven organisations. We believe in making things better together. We’re based in the UK, Italy and Sweden.

We’re agile, reliable and responsive. We love open source software, and we’re a worker co-op because we believe that’s a fairer way to do business. We take our work seriously and deliver great results, but we know how to have fun, too.

What do we do?

We are a tight and dedicated team of digital strategists, designers, developers and project managers. We work with organisations that value environmental sustainability, social responsibility, equality and human rights and share our vision of a better world for everyone. We are a company with a conscience.

Every project is different, but the building blocks remain the same: with a shared understanding of your strategic objectives and user needs, together, we can create something special.

Quick facts

Websiteagile.coop
Industry Digital, Media and Communication
Founded2011
Turnover£1 million
Workers17
Members11
Who are the members?Employees
GovernanceSociocracy
PayVariable pay
Legal formCompany

How do we operate?

The workforce at Agile Collective consists of employees, members and directors, with individuals who work with us on a less formal basis classed as freelancers or contractors.

Employees

An employee is anyone with an employment contract at Agile Collective. All members and directors are employees of Agile Collective, but not all employees are members or directors.

Members

As a worker co-op, members ultimately own and control Agile Collective. We hope that all employees will want to become members.

Directors

Directors are legally responsible for the company, but otherwise there is no discernible distinction between director members and non-director members. Only members can become directors.

Freelancers and contractors

We also work with a number of freelancers or contractors from time to time. Freelancers and contractors are not employees and cannot be members or directors.

Our governance

We use principles and practices of Sociocracy to manage the company on a day-to-day basis.

This consists of two main elements:

  • Circles (similar to departments) with a defined remit and powers
  • Decision-making within circles based on consent rather than consensus

Circle Structure

Our current circle structure is flat, with all circles reporting directly to the General Circle, which in turn reports to the Members Circle.

When we started to use Sociocratic principles we found that the quality of our work and relationships improved dramatically.

You can find resources on Sociocracy on our website.

Where did we come from?

Like all the best projects we were born out of a lively pub discussion amongst kindred spirits. Four of our founders (Finn, Luke, Jed and Aaron) had a cooperative web agency they wanted to expand. Richard was a freelance project manager, designer and developer looking to find additional developers to work with. Hedley, who came up with our name, had worked with Richard on some Drupal-based projects and wanted to find more Drupal enthusiasts to work with.

They immediately hit it off over beers and open source conversation at the Oxford Geek Night in the Jericho Tavern. It was techy, designery, problem-solving love at first sight. Within three weeks, Agile Collective was a registered cooperative with six worker members.

We all brought our existing clients with us, including many clients in the environmental sector, such as Eden Project, and several colleges within the University of Oxford, and so were able to hit the ground running. Since then, we’ve never looked back (apart from at our project retrospectives).

Why are we a co-op?

  • We love the worker-cooperative model.
  • It made total sense to us when we set up.
  • Those who do the work own the business. It’s a simple idea but a very powerful one.

Working as a co-op, we can live the change that we want to see in society. We’re a democracy and we embody openness.

These core values come through in our work, the way we work, and the organisations we work with. We’re very fortunate to have worked with some incredible ones over the years, helping them to improve their digital presence and achieve their missions.

We’ve built sites for and worked with Oxfam International, UNICEF, WHO, Action Aid International, Freedom for Torture, War on Want, Co-operatives UK, the Fundraising Regulator, LocalGov Drupal, Ethical Consumer magazine, British Association of Social Workers, Child Poverty Action Group, councils from Croydon to Cumbria, and many more.

The model also means that we can more easily adapt to suit the broader economic and social environment.

For example, we are doing more work around accessibility and usability at the moment because our members have demonstrated there is a need for this that aligns with our mission. The cost of living crisis has meant that clients’ budgets are tighter but at the same time they want to ensure that every penny is creating value for their users; as such we are being more and more for consultancy in the areas we are experts in. We’ve also been more easily able to adapt to UX principles and design thinking and generally keep on top of the changes in our industry in an agile way (pardon the pun).

Lessons learned

One of the most important things we’ve learnt is to stick with your principles and don’t be afraid to shout about them.

In our early days, we were asking questions about the ethics of who we worked with but our processes weren’t well defined and we took on some work for MTV Russia. We admitted it was a bit of a stretch but felt that MTV had had an important role in music and popular culture in the 1980s and we went ahead. It quickly became clear it wasn’t the right client for us. The developers struggled and found it quite stressful.

For example, seeing so many adverts pop up all the time wasn’t what got us (or gets us) going. Since then, we’ve been much more strict about the ethics of those we work with.

We’ve also learnt that talking to clients (and potential clients) about who we do and don’t work with should be a central part of fulfilling our mission. Recently we met a potential client that had links to big pharmaceutical companies. We explained to them that this might be an issue for us. By being a cooperative we don’t have such a pressure to make a profit that is taken out of the company; this gives us more autonomy, and so influence than other startups. Supplier pressure, just like consumer pressure, can be an important tool

Someone once asked us “If I’m BP and I come along with a huge project and I want you to do it, you’d turn me down?!”

Without any hesitation we told them “yes”. The disbelief that they registered shows that we have a long way to go to show just how liberating and powerful being a worker coop can be.

Further reading

https://handbook.docs.agile.coop/