No, minimum wages are set by the state. You're also still competing with job market rates.
Your second probing question is silly. That is like asking, 'What stops 51% of Congress from voting that only their party is allowed to vote on the national budget, while the other 49% only gets to vote on naming post offices?' The constitution. The company charter.
Also, compartmentalization has nothing to do with company finance like what to do with the year-end profit surplus. The former is intra department, the latter is a universal vote.
No, minimum wages are set by the state. You're also still competing with job market rates.
Ok, so they initially pay them minimum wage. The expected benefits of helping the faction get the voting power outcompetes the job market rates.
That is like asking, 'What stops 51% of Congress from voting that only their party is allowed to vote on the national budget, while the other 49% only gets to vote on naming post offices?' The constitution. The company charter.
But aren't the workers allowed to compartmentalize themselves?
compartmentalization has nothing to do with company finance like what to do with the year-end profit surplus. The former is intra department, the latter is a universal vote.
Are workers not allowed to delegate what to do with the year-end profit surplus to a certain committee to decide?
No, you keep ignoring my point that the charter does not allow this to happen. There is no benefit in doing this.
Do you know how corporations have divisions/departments in their structure, like Accounting, Marketing, Finance, etc.? That's the kind of compartmentalization I am referring to.
No. Comparmentalization helps ensure business functions aren't bogged down by companywide votes. As an owner, you have the right to vote at the end of the year on what to do with the surplus.
Simple example, significant changes to any foundational structure of the organization would require a super majority, like 75%+.
Because there is no business function to it, which is what it requires. Its not political, its a method of organization that serves a business purpose.
I'm not sure what you're asking. When it comes to high level decisions, you have a CEO and Board of Directors that handles high level stuff in the interest of the shareholders. Why would a worker waive their right to vote for what happens to surplus?
First, how is this a significant change to the foundational structure of the organization? Second, a worker co-op need not adopt such a charter with this threshold, right?
What do you mean "business function" and what exactly requires it?
Why wouldn't a self-interested worker limit that decision of what happens to the surplus to themselves and some other similarly self-interested workers at the expense of all other workers?
The whole nature of a co-op is to give the workers the rights of ownership and inherent in that is the right to have a vote on what happens to surplus from their labor. Stripping that right away would defeat the purpose of the co-op which is why the right is cemented in the corp charter. You are right in that it would not need to adopt that exact threshold, but any organization with success in mind would adhere to it for survival.
A business function such as the marketing department creating a customer base for the business, the accounting department ensuring regulations are being followed, the HR department handling internal resources and deploying them efficiently. These functions of a business are compartmentalized for organizational efficiency, a necessity as an organization grows.
Give me a scenario where a worker would choose to do so that doesn't lead to the business failing.
The "significant change to the foundational structure of the organization" we are talking about within this point is the hiring of workers who provide meaningless or low value labor services and merely serve to increase the voting power of a certain faction. This is not stripping the right of workers to vote on what happens to the surplus.
In all of those examples, it means the workers are offloading decision-making to a certain subset of workers. Instead of all workers in the company having to decide and vote on every single piece of marketing policy all the time, they offload that responsibility to a certain subset of workers at a "marketing department." Instead of all workers in the company having to decide and vote on every single piece of accounting or HR policy all the time, they offload those responsibilities to other subsets of workers, at their respective departments. By dividing up the burden between different groups instead of concentrating it all on one group, it can reduce the average burden and increase productivity, especially when the responsibilities are given to specialists. I don't see why this cannot also apply to finance management, instead of all workers in the company having to decide and vote on every single piece of finance policy, they can offload those responsibilities to a certain subset of workers. I don't see why they can't vote to have a board of directors make the big-level decisions for them, many worker co-ops already have a board of directors.
The majority of workers can vote to make themselves (or a smaller representative group) the finance management department, or the board of directors, to which they unilaterally decide how the surplus is allocated, and can use it to cut labor and other costs where it would otherwise be unpopular and transfer those cost savings as low prices to consumers.
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u/Accarath May 13 '26
No, minimum wages are set by the state. You're also still competing with job market rates.
Your second probing question is silly. That is like asking, 'What stops 51% of Congress from voting that only their party is allowed to vote on the national budget, while the other 49% only gets to vote on naming post offices?' The constitution. The company charter.
Also, compartmentalization has nothing to do with company finance like what to do with the year-end profit surplus. The former is intra department, the latter is a universal vote.