What does being a collective mean to us?
We are organised in quite an unusual way
We are overseen by a Committee, which is pretty much the same thing as a Board of Directors. We have two full time members of staff, Becky is our Managing Director, and Della is Head of Operations, around 10 part time workers making pants (this changes regularly as people's lives change and can do so unpredictably), and lots of regular volunteers doing everything from website building to answering the phone and drafting legal contracts.
When our workers have gone through their probation period, and as long as they meet our membership criteria, they are eligible to become a member of the co-op if they want - and this means that they own the business, are responsible for it, and could, down the line when we are making masses of profits, share in those profits.
Every member of the co-op gets a vote, a say, in how we run things. One person, one vote, regardless of how many hours people work or how experienced they are. This is crucial to the empowerment we are aiming for - we all feel more empowered when we can direct our own futures.
We're organised this way because we believe that the people who do the work ought to be in control of how they do that work. After all, who knows better than them, if they are the ones doing it?
