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DESIGN ACTION CO-OP SERVES PROGRESSIVE MOVEMENT

Our thanks to Innosanto Nagara of Design Action Collective for this article and the photos to go with it.

Design Action Collective is a graphic design studio in Oakland, California.  It is a mission-driven organization; formed to serve the visual communications needs of the progressive movement. But they are also a democratic enterprise, currently employing five full-time collective members and the occasional freelancer.

Design Action was formed in 2002 as a spin-off from Inkworks Press, a worker-owned print shop formed in 1973, which was also mandated to serve the movement for social change. When the desktop publishing "revolution" hit in the 80s, Inkworks jumped in and developed an electronic prepress department that very quickly added desktop publishing and graphic design capabilities. As graphic design became an increasingly important service to non-profits and activist groups, Inkworks was faced with the reality that the design and prepress workflows did not always mesh very well. After a number of discussions about how to provide both services well, it was decided that design department should be spun off as it's own shop.

Thus Design Action was born. Inkworks' two designers left and were replaced by two dedicated prepress operators. Initially operating as a two-person shop working out of a living-room Berkeley, Design Action quickly expanded it's services. In 2003, they moved to downtown Oakland to share offices with The Ruckus Society and Third World Majority. Then they started adding collective members.

While still working very closely with Inkworks (and currently trying to figure out how to develop an umbrella organization for both shops) each is now an independent worker-owned business. They serve many of the same organizations, but Design Action was also able to expand their services substantially into the area of web and multimedia, as well as other non-offset printing projects such as t-shirts and banners. Design Action is also able to now help organizations with full-ad campaigns, messaging, and strategic communications. All of which is proving to be of increased importance to the social justice movement. Without advocating for image over substance, it is also Design Action's assumption that we are not lacking good solutions, theories or even solid working models of how a better world is possible. Yet the other side spends billions of dollars every year bombarding people with the message that we have no alternative to the current system. Thus it is important for progressives to find a way to articulate their vision--and the visual communications piece of that effort is what Design Action seeks to tackle.

At the same time, Inkworks has been able to place a stronger emphasis on the technical side of it's prepress and printing--modernizing it's presses and soon launching an online print-ordering system. So the split has been a win-win for both shops.

As a collective, Design Action models most of its policies on Inkworks. It has a flat decision-making structure, and equal hourly pay. The collective candidacy period is 9 months, but there is no buy-in. The weekly collective meetings are off-the-clock and considered an ongoing investment to the shop as a political project. Design Action is incorporated as a cooperative following the model of Rainbow Groceries and the Arizmendi Cooperatives. Members are active in a number of different social movements, and the shop is a member of the Network of Bay Area Worker Cooperatives, The U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives, and their union, Communication Workers of America, AFL-CIO. It is also an Alameda County certified Green Business, and is majority woman-owned. And to top it off, Design Action is majority people of color, with native speakers of Indonesian, Spanish, Hindi and some Bengali on staff :).

For more samples of Design Action's work, check out the slideshow on their homepage (http://www.designaction.org) or their online portfolio, organized by political points of unity: http://www.designaction.org/portfolio/pou/international/international.html

Please find the Design Action website the Co-op Links in the sidebar.

BITS AND PIECES

Here are a few links you might like to explore.

The Daily Californian features a story on worker co-op activity and its impact on the Berkeley, California community. The article presents the work of Network Of Bay Area Cooperatives (NoBAWC). While it mentions a few co-ops in the area, it highlights the work of our old friends at the Cheeseboard Collective.

Ethan Miller is a familiar name in the co-op universe. A member of GEO, Ethan is also the moving force behind the Data Commons Project an attempt to build a database that will collect and disseminate information on the many organizations involved in democratic, cooperative, and community-based economic systems. In this article Ethan challenges us to stop telling and thinking in the dominant economic paradigms and begin instead to tell stories and create enterprises emphasizing democratic, cooperative, community-based values. 

Bicycle Retailer recently published an update on developments at Burley Design, the worker co-op, bicycle manufacturing company that recently reorganized as a standard corporation and was subsequently sold to a single owner. Read it here.

Along that same line of inquiry, epluribus media reviews a book by Peter Barnes: Capitalism 3.0: A Guide To Reclaiming The Commons. Read the review at this link. Click on the book's title in the sidebar. That will take you to Amazon.com where a lot more information is available.

A BENEFITS SOLUTION

Working Today is building a new delivery system for benefits in America.  Due to a shift in the American labor force, an increasing number of workers are unable to access basic benefits and protections.  Over 30 million individuals are now employed in nontraditional arrangements as freelancers, contractors, and temporary workers in industries ranging from media and technology to domestic childcare and taxi drivers, and all indicators suggest that these numbers are increasing.  These independent workers do not have access to employer-based health, life, and disability insurance, cannot access unemployment insurance, are prevented from seeking redress for workplace discrimination, are barred from unionizing, and are subject to regressive and onerous payroll taxes for self-employment.
 


In order to serve the evolving workforce, Working Today is both developing a vision of what the next safety net ! will look like and directly serving New York’s independent workforce with low-cost health, life, and disability insurance through the Portable Benefits Network (PBN).  For the first time, the PBN links benefits to individuals, rather than employers, so independent workers can maintain benefits as they move from job to job and project to project.

PBN benefits are so compelling, providing group-rate benefits through HIP Health Plan at less than half the price of the average HMO on the individual market, that Working Today has attracted a membership of over 17,000 individuals with over 11,000 receiving health insurance. In addition, Working Today has formed partnerships with 48 intermediary organizations, including community groups, professional organizations, staffing agencies, small businesses, and guilds, allowing us to reach a network of 45,000 independent workers in New York City.

Working Today truly addresses the problem of uninsurance: nearly half of our PBN members ! had no previous insurance coverage.
 
Working Today’s membership, in turn, serves as a vehicle for social change, both by acting as an organized constituency to advocate for change to public policy and by contributing to Working Today’s financial sustainability.  Working Today’s members are actively involved in our policy work and nearly 3,000 individuals participated in our most recent advocacy campaign to educate thought leaders, policymakers, and the public about the needs of the independent workforce.

Our gross revenue for 2005 was $27 million, with earned income of $2.9 million.  For 2006, our gross revenue is projected at $39 million, with earned income of $5 million. The organization will break even during 2006 and will fund its own advocacy and education work after that time.

Contact Working Today at their website in the sidebar.

CO-OP DEVELOPMENT IN THE THE POOR BARRIOS OF NICARAGUA

Note:  I have followed the work of the Jubilee House Community in the poor barrios of Nicaragua, one of the poorest and least stable economies in the world. Early on these folks focused much of their work on economic development, the engine of which has been the worker-owned business. In this article Michael Woodard summarizes their work in co-op development.  dg

For over ten years the Jubilee House (JHC) has worked in Nicaragua in sustainable development.  JHC has focused on five general areas of development:  sustainable agriculture, appropriate technology, sustainable economic development, health and education.  As the Nicaraguan economy continued to decline throughout the 90’s and into the 21st. century, the work of the JHC has focused more and more on providing alternatives to the role given to Nicaragua in the neo-liberal global economy.

As a result JHC is working with five worker-owned cooperatives to provide employment and worker control of the workplace.

The Women’s Sewing Cooperative, one of the industrial cooperatives, specializes in clothing made from certified organic cotton. While the other co-ops make products for sale in the local market, the Women’s Sewing Co-op, due to the lack of Nicaragua market for organic goods, is focused on export production.  In April 2004 the women’s sewing co-op registered to become the world’s first worker-owned free trade zone, allowing it to compete on an equal footing with traditional “sweatshops†while providing just pay, fair working conditions, and worker control of the workplace. Here’s a link to the  Free Trade Zone . Click on Women's Sewing Cooperative.

The agricultural cooperative is actually eleven production cooperatives and a second-tier, marketing cooperative. The agricultural co-op is working with approximately 2,000 subsistence farmers to produce a variety of organically certified products.  Unfortunately, due to Nicaragua’s dismal economic situation, there is also no internal market for organic products.  Therefore, 99% of the organic products produced by the production cooperatives are exported to the US and Europe.

The service co-op is a security collective.  Due to the high rate of petty crime in Nicaragua it is imperative to have security guards.  Both JHC and the co-ops were employing a security company to provide those services. Forming a cooperative of security workers has enabled the former employees to control their working conditions and almost doubled their annual income.

The remaining industrial cooperatives are: a construction materials co-op, producing block, paving stones, and prefab posts and slabs; a ceramics co-op making cheap, effective ceramic water filters.

To assure adequate financing for the cooperatives, JHC operates a revolving loan fund that makes capital available to the co-ops at interest rates one sixth the market rate (6% vs. 36%).  In the case of the construction materials co-op and the ceramic co-op, the revolving fund assures credit for raw materials and for capital improvements.  Providing funding for timely capital improvements is essential in a country where the norm is to allow equipment to completely deteriorate before replacing it, causing lost productivity and a decline in product quality.

With the Women’s Sewing Cooperative, available credit has allowed the members to change from a cut and sew operation, which provides almost no profit margin, to a full package provider.  A full package provider offers not only its services of cutting and sewing, but a finished product for which a client is willing to pay a much higher premium.  Offering full package service also attracts many more clients.

Accompanying worker-owned cooperatives is not easy work.  There are many obstacles both internal and external to the co-op.  However, it does provide a truly viable alternate to the neo-liberal model of labor as just another commodity.

Michael Woodard is a founding member of Jubilee House Community and it’s Center for Development in Central America. Reach Mike at jhc@jhc-cdcd.org.