Mission Possible        Carolyn O. Arguillas

The Cooperative Development Authority (CDA) must have such a long, long list of cooperatives registered nationwide.

That is certainly good news.

But of the thousands registered each year, how many remain operational after a year?  Of the cooperatives that have been around for a decade or so, how many have actually made a difference in the lives of their members and their communities?

Why is the cooperative not so attractive a proposition to most when it can be harnessed into a major player in the socio-economic-political arena?

Why are eyebrows raised or sighs heard when “cooperative” is mentioned?

One of the publishers whose newspaper started as a cooperative venture but eventually ended up into a corporation, once said, “there’s that word again.”

Not that the publisher does not want to have anything to do with co-ops anymore.  What was said was said with a sigh.  Because it could have been the first successful cooperatively-owned newspaper in the country.  It may have been the right idea, at the wrong time.  Eventually, majority of the co-op members sold their shares to corporate investors.

Today, that newspaper is in the list of the country’s top corporations, a major player in the industry and in society, pays its employees higher-than-industry rates, provides them very attractive non-wage benefits and at the closing of the books each year, distributes profit shares.

The profit shares the employees get are the envy of other workers in the media industry.  But within the newspaper, workers who did not sell their shares in the previous cooperative arrangement but invested them into the corporation that took over, are the envy many times over of the majority who did because the former receive profit shares of the same amount but multiplied many times over, corresponding to the co-op shares they invested into the corporation.

Many who sold their shares then have regretted their decision.  There were other similar ventures that started as cooperatives, all of them very promising at the onset.  Most folded up after a few months.

Today, there is not a single newspaper in this country that is owned by the people who work in them.

Imagine if there had been a cooperatively-owned media outfit that succeeded against those owned by big business or politicians?  If media workers themselves can show to the rest of the populace that it can be done, that all it requires is for people to pool their resources, their time, their dedication, their commitment, it would have been easier to encourage other sectors into setting up cooperatives that won’t die beyond registration.

Sigh...

But what really is the problem that bedevils cooperatives?  Is it the history of failures that has made co-ops an unattractive proposition?  Is it money?  Is it people?  Is it because it’s simply misunderstood?

That it is misunderstood can be corrected and is in fact being corrected by some co-op members themselves, but this requires a long process of unlearning, reorienting, refocusing.  Among the major culprits in the spread of misunderstanding are government leaders themselves who, for the simple reason that potential cooperative members are potential voters, organize cooperatives the way they did back then (even if this had been proven wrong many times over): give them grants or doles for start-up capital.

In the run-up to next year’s elections (a good 15 months away but politicians and wannabes are campaigning already), a number of cooperatives the politicians “helped” set up are included in their report card to the voters.  But do these politicians actually understand how a cooperative works?  How many of the cooperatives they claim to have organized, are actually functioning as cooperatives?  And how many survived beyond their registration with the CDA?

The surest way to kill a cooperative is to set it up by dangling money before its intended members without educating them on cooperativism.  There is a pre-membership seminar given by government agencies, yes, but this needs to be reviewed thoroughly because many come out of the seminars not fully understanding what it is they are getting into, what their responsibilities and obligations are to themselves and their communities.

Many come out, no, rush out of the seminars with a full understanding that they will surely get the registration papers which they can then show to their “funders” so they can get the “start-up capital.”

Too often, that “start-up capital” granted by sources other than the members, becomes the principal cause of a co-op’s death.

A “start-up capital” is, indeed, necessary to start a co-op.  But the way most co-ops are being organized in this country, “start-up capital” has come to mean funds taken out of grants or doles.  So the co-op members thank Politician A or B or civic and non-governmental organizations for giving them the
"start-up capital” that, unfortunately, usually ends up as a form of capital punishment  — sure death.

Because starting a cooperative with money not from its members but from grants, instantly sets off the dependency syndrome and kills the initiative of members to draw strength, financially or otherwise, from each other.*
 

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