CO-OPTED

...When co-ops define themselves in terms of the causes they espouse, they run the risk of alienating consumers...

...If co-ops are to reemerge as the kind of innovative social forces they were in the 1960s and 1970s, when they brought new foods to a large segment of the population and new practices to the workplace, they must be more than just another business...

...Co-ops became a victim of their own success...

...They need to be better managed, to have organizational structures clearly pointed to a strong future...

...The national co-op convention that year "focused on mergers, consolidation, control of local co-ops at the warehouse level-management issues generally," recalls Ann Hoyt, a board member of the National Cooperative Bank...

...A visitor to Willy Street—as the co-op is affectionately known to its members-might view it as a thriving vestige of the cooperative movement that sprouted in the 1960s and 1970s...

...They want to be, as Nadeau admits, "just like other businesses...

...Also because a crack in the market-natural foods—allowed us to flourish...

...In the past, fees in some co-ops ran as low as $10 for a lifetime membership...

...For the co-ops that remain, the economic prospect looks brighter...

...Adopting a general manager doesn't mean giving up all they've learned as collectives...

...When you rely upon a general manager, says former Willy Street employee Steve Rankin, "even if she makes the right decision, you lose the socio-political activity of the co-op...

...It was no longer fashionable to talk about ideals, about economic democracy, about the cooperative commonwealth...

...Willy Street is beginning to follow such an approach...

...A third staff member, in conversation with a woman who wants an item not carried by the co-op, encourages her to place a request in the store's suggestion box...

...for the moment, it has tabled the proposal to institute wage differentials...

...They aimed to lay the groundwork for a "cooperative commonwealth" in the United States, a society based upon mutual aid in all areas of social interaction...

...Co-ops become instruments of their own elite rather than a means of empowering their members and improving society...

...But if it's not acted upon, and if co-ops neglect the political aspect of their existence, they negate their reason for being...

...The collective structure makes it hard for the board to take ultimate responsibility," says Karen Zimbel-man, director for Consumer Goods and Services Cooperatives at the National Cooperative Business Association...

...Established as collectives, co-op staffs made decisions democratically, often by consensus...

...There has been too much of a knee-jerk reaction in co-ops in moving away from the collective structure," says Stewart, the consultant who worked with Willy Street...

...They attended training sessions and contributed several hours of labor to the store— their store—each month...

...And many members preferred to have someone else take responsibility for running their store...

...Many in the co-op movement, as it came to be regarded, saw the stores as one instrument for taking control of community institutions and transforming the culture at large...

...Community education supplanted advertising, and the profit motive was scorned...

...Last year alone, five workers resigned, including the general manager, who cited staff resistance to her leadership as the main reason for her departure...

...They wouldn't hire management to transform the organization...

...Members helped themselves to the goods in bins and on the shelves and calculated the amount they owed in payment...

...According to a report recently distributed to its members, the coop is attempting to reestablish itself as "the place" for natural foods while becoming a full-service food store...

...Quaker Oats marketed granola and granola bars, and other corporations started churning out fresh-ground peanut butter, whole grains, seeds, and nuts...

...Otherwise, he warns, co-ops won't survive...

...Not only were there fewer new co-ops, but more and more established co-ops folded each year...

...The morale problem flared up after wage differentials were proposed and the staff was restructured into teams working under a general manager...

...With vast resources for advertising campaigns at their disposal, these companies swamped the market, undercutting the co-ops...

...Yet peace and prosperity at Willy Street are more apparent than real...

...Willy Street is still grappling with these issues...

...For the idealists in the movement, the co-ops' about-face represents the death of that which makes a co-op a co-op...

...They must return to the social and political commitments that inspired them in the first place and apply these values to current needs...

...Members were consulted on decisions which they had neither the expertise nor inclination to make...

...It has instituted a tax on Guatemalan bananas, revenues from which go to refugee-relief agencies...

...Today's food co-ops seem intent on sacrificing their radical potential to the gods of efficiency and profitability...

...Instead, people talked about all those practices formerly considered heretical: advertising, marketing, profiting...

...But by the early 1980s, the momentum had been lost...

...They viewed the work requirement of their co-ops as a nuisance rather than a novelty...

...There are still many co-ops that have reservations about growth," he says...

...The collective structure, however, has fallen by the wayside...

...These outreach activities, however, will ring hollow if the internal organization of co-ops remains undemocratic...

...Nadeau, executive director of the Wisconsin Cooperative Development Council...

...What's more, by disdaining profits, coops contributed to their own demise, critics charge...

...Increasingly, consumers bought natural foods from supermarket chains, not from their neighborhood co-ops...

...Those remaining clung to a shrinking segment of the natural-foods market—less than 15 per cent by 1985...

...Food co-ops have been unwilling to provide resources to a central organization or to patronize co-op warehouses exclusively...

...No longer...

...David Thompson, Director of International Relations at the Cooperative League of the U.S.A...

...co-ops honored national boycotts and championed Third World liberation struggles...

...Ten or fifteen years ago, when co-ops were more popular—when they fit into the social environment—people with good management skills were willing to give lots of time to co-ops for little pay," says Fred Stapen-horst, an independent business consultant and former co-op manager...

...cooperative aims...

...Like Willy Street, food co-ops across the country are floundering...

...Finally, a lack of cooperation among stores has curtailed growth...

...and internal bickering sprouted like crabgrass...

...Beneath the surface of democracy, coops were often run by an unrecognized "general manager," one member of the collective who assumed responsibility for major decisions based upon his or her skills and the necessity of having someone in charge...

...There's been a tendency among co-ops to try to support too many causes," says Zimbelman...

...Co-ops may adopt competitive business practices to survive in the marketplace, but is a co-op a co-op once it does...

...While competition took a bite out of the co-ops, other forces sapped the strength of the movement...

...Co-ops substituted capital equity for sweat equity: Rather than contribute their labor, members were required to contribute as much as several hundred dollars over a period of years to belong to the co-op...

...The Bank needs to have a strong sense that its loans will be repaid," says Thompson...

...They have more confidence about the future and are looking for ways rationally to coordinate future plans...

...An endless variety of collective structures waits to be invented and tried...

...Small co-ops don't have the resources to work toward different issues...

...The cumbersome nature of their decision-making process and their refusal to place growth as a goal put them out of sync with capitalism's pace of change...

...Entering shoppers are greeted with a nod by the two persons working the cash registers...

...A more traditional style of organization replaced collective decision-making...

...We got away with lack of focus as a business in the 1960s and the 1970s because of the wonderful wave of idealism that existed then," says Charles Rial, a Chicago-based business consultant to coops...

...If co-ops want to be social and political organizations, they need to strengthen their business side so that when they make a statement, people will listen," says Rex Stewart, a market analyst consulted by Willy Street...

...Consider the possibility," says Steve Rankin, a one-time member and worker at Willy Street, "that co-ops are more truly organizations of the Left when they respond to the needs of their membership than when they manipulate them...

...Competition from corporations, mismanagement, and an increasingly conservative climate have taken their toll on the cooperative movement...

...Some viewed the change as a welcome response to the demands of co-op members...

...The long hours in meetings, the responsibility of making sound .business decisions, the absence of recognition for individual initiative in the collective work environment—all these factors contributed to the burnout so often experienced by co-op staffers, Rial argues...

...What differentiates a co-op from other forms of business is the "possibility of input," says E.G...

...all that is lacking is imagination and will...

...Nor should they, offers David Thompson...

...The shelves bulge with a variety of foods, many of them "all-natural" products...

...Each co-op has viewed itself as a solitary venture, tied to its local community rather than to a cooperative superstructure...

...Most people who get involved in co-ops come from a left political persuasion," says Fred Stapenhorst...

...the political promise of co-ops has been forgotten or betrayed...

...Behind them, a sign reads: Volunteers Needed...

...Willy Street in Madison put the change in a positive light...

...During the past five years, it has lost money, with the deficit growing steadily...

...In very few cases do they come from organizations that were required to produce a product to survive...

...Today's co-ops have not taken the time to define their goals...

...To adapt, consumer food co-ops across the United States undertook drastic changes beginning in 1982...

...Too few co-ops looked like they will repay...

...Financial difficulties beset the co-op...

...They have failed to reconcile business practices with Carrie Rothburd, a former editorial intern at The Progressive, is a union organizer in Madison, Wisconsin...

...To the surprise of the American business establishment, these ventures, whose goals were antithetical to the profit system, prospered throughout the 1960s and 1970s...

...The food co-ops of the 1960s and 1970s sold organically grown, locally produced items—foods unpolluted by the chemicals and exploitative relationships of the corporate food industry...

...Food co-ops, once heralded as harbingers of a better society, are now a vanishing species...

...The stores became a locus for progressive politics, both inside and out...

...Instead, they identified efficiency and democracy as incompatible—and opted for efficiency...

...and board member of Associated Co-ops and Davis Food Coop, agrees...

...Local food co-ops, for example, could provide lunches to child-care co-ops, teach nutrition classes to local housing and health-care cooperatives, and deliver food to the elderly...

...The food bins that had lent a charming, alternative atmosphere began to look dirty, and convenience replaced commitment...

...At the present time, co-ops are in a second growth stage," says Thompson...

...Co-op ownership and control means that when it comes to crucial decisions people have a choice—even if it's never acted upon...

...Those that have survived have been stabilizing and strengthening...

...Co-ops couldn't succeed or change because they were so enmeshed in their own ideology," he says...

...Co-ops expanded their fare to include gourmet, deli, ethnic food, and prepared meals...

...They're not even visible...

...Food co-ops should deal only with issues directly related to food...

...Women performed work traditionally reserved for men...

...And, more profoundly, the cooperative spirit is lagging...

...The large pool of committed volunteers and underpaid employees that had maintained the co-ops gradually dried up...

...The requirement to work a certain number of hours per month in the store also backfired, critics say, since such participation often cost the co-op more in training expenses than the effort was worth...

...equality replaced hierarchy...

...Some critics conclude from this sorry state of affairs that cooperative politics are ill-conceived...

...As co-ops slumped, some in the movement blamed democratic management, the essence of coops, for the decline...

...The problem for food co-ops," says Thompson, "has been that their ability to expand has been limited by individual coops' resources and capacities in the areas of management, technical assistance and capital, rather than that of a national organization...

...The level of participation co-ops espoused had marginal effects upon how people felt about their workplace...

...The insistence on process over product, according to Rial, crippled the movement...

...These reservations inhibited co-ops from taking advantage of funds available from the National Cooperative Bank, established in 1978 by Congress...

...Confronted with mismanagement, boards of directors usually failed to redress the problem...

...The leadership usually has a strong background in a political viewpoint and not a lot of experience in producing a profit in a competitive marketplace...

...A co-op is not a co-op when hierarchy rules...

...The political involvement of co-op leaders has also drawn fire...

...And shoppers are asked at checkout counters whether they wish to add a 1 per cent sales tax to go toward local community service groups...

...And somewhere along the way...

...more and more, they view themselves simply as economic enterprises with a special market...

...Collective responsibility proved cumbersome and counterproductive, according to critics within the movement...

...Unless they rediscover their politics, the co-op movement will have become a daring experiment in name only...

...Giant food companies saw the appeal of natural produce and set out to coopt the co-ops...

...Some members, especially those who had gone on to become professionals, had less free time and chose to go elsewhere for the right not to participate...

...CO-OPTED Food co-ops put their politics back on the shelf BY CARRIE ROTHBURD Up and down the aisles of the Williamson Street Grocery Cooperative in Madison, Wisconsin, customers chat with one another as they examine produce or measure food from the bulk bins...

...And strictly as businesses, they are not worth the consumer's investment, since they can't compete against supermarket chains that enjoy economies of scale...

...Members spent untold hours debating whether to stock carob chips exclusively, or to include chocolate chips, while suppliers weren't paid for either...

...The food co-op system," says Erik Bruun of Universal Food Co-ops, "currently represents a tiny, tiny portion of the national food industry...

...If there weren't valuable points to a collective, it wouldn't have worked all these years...

...Or, occasionally, they went too far, usurping the managerial role of the staff and thereby increasing conflict...

...Tension arose among staff members who blamed one another for tasks undone...

...People are happier when there is leadership than they are when everybody has to fix the car," says Charles Rial...

...The flow of customers is steady and, on weekday evenings and Sunday mornings, thick...