We're our own boss

Haven't been blogging much because we've been too busy working - on the house, on the business, and on Tracy's new live project "Tracy and the Hurtin' Hearts."  CD's have arrived, if you haven't heard!!

But do not despair, here's a fabulous piece by my friend Dru, who attended a conference in Baltimore about "Workplace Democracy."  He talked to dozens of people who are building co-operative businesses - businesses that are owned by the people who work there.  An excerpt:

      Finally, an interest of mine that seems to be lurking beneath the surface of a lot of discussions is our societally-limited sense of self which seems to interfere with non- 
     hierarchical cooperation. At least one other person is having similar thoughts:

          I think worker co-ops need to change mantra from "I'm my own boss" to "we're our own boss"" - throw off the mantra of individualism.

 As a (north american non-indigenous) rule, we're trained culturally to be either subservient automatons or ego-visionary individual celebrities. A major obstacle to collective management is that there's an empty space where the in-between option of cooperation should be. The lack of positive examples of building trust in a collective vision and the accompanying day to day practices seems to be one of the main impediments to building workplace democracy. I've recently been privy to some experiences that are both inspiring in terms of people's ability to overcome these issues, but which have simultaneously confirmed the need for significant steps in terms of addressing this cultural deficit.

Dru paints a great picture of the types of work people are doing in co-ops, from dog-walking to brush manufacturing, to IT work.  Check it out!