This post originally appeared at Shareable.net.
Rural electricity and telephone
co-ops are one of the great sharing success stories in American history–largely due to coordination by the federal government. In 1934, only 11% of
farmers had electricity compared to 90% in Europe.
Private electric companies refused to serve many rural customers or price
gouged them when they did. The Rural Electrification Administration (REA) was
formed in 1935 to fix the problem by providing technical assistance and loans
to electric cooperatives. Less than 20 years later, practically all farms had
power due largely to electric co-ops.
The REA was such a success that
the same strategy was used in the 40s to make telephone service available in
all rural areas. The Rural Telephone Administration matched the success of the
REA. To this day, 1.2 million rural residents are members of a telephone co-op.
The US government’s success in boosting
rural economies through cooperative development is a largely forgotten story
that couldn’t be more relevant today. For instance, in creating jobs.
Member owned cooperatives are a proven
economic development strategy the world over, and were recognized as such
by the United Nations which declared 2012 The International Year of the Cooperative. The democratic
ownership and management of cooperatives creates stable enterprises and jobs. Yet,
none of the $20 billion in loan programs available to rural cooperatives are
available to urban ones. This is despite the fact that 80 percent of Americans
now live in cities, with some of the highest poverty rates in the country.
Last year, when cooperative
groups were visiting Congressional offices on the Hill in support of USDA
programs, Congressman Chaka Fattah, who represents an urban district in Philadelphia, asked why co-ops in urban America didn’t
have similar support. A year later, a bill developed by Fattah and cooperative
groups–the
National Cooperative Development Act–aims to bring technical assistance,
revolving loans, and startup capital to co-ops in cities across America,
recognizing that co-ops are a vital and long-term economic development model.
HR
3677 would set up an organization based out of the Housing and Urban
Development Administration and administered by a separate non-profit to
implement the kinds of support needed specifically by co-ops. The bill would
also set up a revolving loan fund for loans for machinery, buildings, and the
other startup costs. Currently with 13 cosponsors, the bill will be
reintroduced in 2013 in the new session by Congressman Fattah, with more
bipartisan support, according to his office.
“The fact that cooperatives are
seeing a resurgence in urban areas shows the strength, diversity, and staying
power of the movement. I really believe that cooperatives are an excellent
means for economic development and community enrichment,” said Congressman
Fattah, whose family shops at the Weaver’s Way grocery co-op in Northwest Philadelphia and sees the co-op model as a
solution to urban food deserts, amongst other problems.
Compared to the rest of the
federal budget, the program is tiny–$25 million in HUD support over five
years. But it’s a start, and would be official recognition that co-ops are still
an excellent way to create strong local economies and local jobs in the era of
globalization.
A lot of the grants would be re-granted
through the cooperative development centers that work as hubs, knitting
together state-wide networks.
One critical thing that the
Rural Utilities Service (part of the US Department of Agriculture’s rural
development area) does is direct co-ops through the maze of low-interest
loans and grants not specifically directed at co-ops, but for which co-ops
are eligible: programs to fund telemedicine, biorefineries, programs
specifically for people of color and women, grants for high energy costs, and a
lot more. Those programs totaled $21 billion last year for rural America,
capital that in cities is often very hard to come by but does exist in other
nooks and crannies of the federal budget.
“A really big problem for
growing cooperatives is that they often have difficulty expanding their
operations because they cannot raise sufficient capital. Either because they
can’t raise the funds from their existing members or they may not be able to
get loans from organizations that don’t quite understand the cooperative
business model,” said Congressman Fattah.
“A second key problem is lack of
knowledge… Many new cooperatives are filled with people who have the energy and
enthusiasm to start the cooperative and get it moving, but they may not have
the specialized knowledge that is needed to ensure that the co-op continues
operations long after that initial burst of enthusiasm runs out.”
Peter Frank is the Advocacy
Manager for
Cooperation Works, the national network of co-op development centers. He is
working on the national campaign for HR 3677, getting cooperators in various
states to spend some of their times making visits to elected officials and
getting to know their Congressperson.
Frank is also in year five of
organizing a food co-op in the Fishtown neighborhood of Philadelphia. He and a group of organizers
have put together a community membership of 270 people, and are aiming for 750
members by the time their business opens. The idea is indeed catching on in Philadelphia, with its
tight-knit neighborhoods and participatory culture: there are currently seven
food co-ops starting up in various neighborhoods.
“When you set up a co-op, you’re
not just setting up a business, you are setting up a democratic organization to
run that business,” said Frank. Accounting is
different. Membership is new. The bylaws are different. You don’t dazzle a
couple of investors – you build support from the community, member by member,
worker-owner by worker-owner.
Looking at the success of co-ops
in rural America,
you can see a pattern of latticework: members of one supplies-purchasing co-op
are often members of another co-op to take their produce to market–a mutually
reinforcing system of deepening relationships and community resiliency. In the
recent economic downturn and this summer’s drought, the number of cooperatives
had shrunk while co-op employment went up; the USDA speculated that a number of
co-ops chose to merge rather than close.
It’s very similar to the 50-year
experience of the largest system of cooperatives in the world, Mondragon–256 interlinked
companies with over 83,000 employees, operating in Spain under the slogan
“Humanity at Work.” In the recent documentary Shift Change, Mondragon emerges as successful precisely
because humanistic business principles are simply better for the community,
longer-lasting, and more able to withstand the winds of economic change.
As American cities turn to
alternative models of finance and ownership in the blindingly obvious breakdown
of our free-market, private enterprise system, co-ops do seem to be emerging.
Telephone co-ops plunged ahead for 20 years before the federal government got
involved.
Hopefully, this time, it won’t
take so long. The forward-thinking New York City Council this year funded
Brooklyn’s Center for Family Life to train two community organizations in co-op development
(they’ve already help start 6 co-ops so far, all with a focus on immigrant
communities.) But federal funding dwarfs what cities need, especially cash-strapped
cities whose populations are paying fewer local taxes.
Compared to the default method
of economic development–which usually involves giving tax breaks to lure an
out-of-town corporation–local co-ops may be one of the best ways to bring
quality jobs back to America.
Want to start a co-op? See Mira
Luna’s article on Howto Start a Worker Coop.
Image by the USDA,
licensed under Creative
Commons.
