hooverlunch

First at Gaiahost, which has since gone out of business. Now at gandi.net.

As of now we're only U.S. based, unfortunately. Adding international members adds a lot of complications that we don't have the scale to deal with.

No, it deliberately stays fixed to reduce barriers to entry for new member-owners.

SamBam nailed it. For us, any large expenses must be approved by consensus of the whole group. For larger coops, they would need approval of a democratically elected and recallable board of directors.

We are developing a "thrivable" payscale that rewards each of the following:

- relevant prior experience (before joining the coop) - longevity (aka seniority) - dependent care responsibilities - membership (a small raise once you become a member)

The prior experience piece is determined with a points system, designed to take as much of the self-advocacy (with all of its race/gender/class pitfalls) out of the process as possible.

The system also includes annual cost of living adjustments.

Heh, you can't sell a worker coop. One of the key defining features is a "de-mutualization" provision in the founding documents. You can only sell your own share, which has, in our coop, a fixed value of $1,000. And you can only sell that share back to the coop.

Worker co-ops usually have provisions in their bylaws to ensure they stay co-oops. This is to guard against the issue you allude to here.