While still far from widespread, tech worker cooperatives are starting to gain momentum.
This is particularly true in both the UK and Argentina, although they are much less prevalent in the US and Europe, according to Stefan Ivanovski at the Platform Cooperativism Consortium.
There are several reasons for this situation, believes roze at the Dev developers community: the US has traditionally favored investor-owned businesses. The legal and regulatory environment is not always conducive. Finally, the tech industry’s start-up culture “tends to prioritize fast growth and exit strategies over long-term sustainability and community-focused values that many cooperatives hold”.
But that is not to say they don’t exist either. One of the country’s oldest is the CoLab Cooperative, which creates custom apps and websites. It was set up in 2010 and is a member of the United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives. As Colleen Skemp, CoLab’s People Circle lead, says:
The solidarity economy is relatively small but growing. We expect the movement to be energized and pick up as there’s currently so much instability and fear with the new administration.
Federal safety nets are being removed, but coops provide community support and are based on the idea of solidarity. It’s about communities coming together to support each other. So, we’ve had more interest and people wanting to find out more in the last month than over the last 10 years.
The movement’s profile may also be raised in the wake of the United Nations designating 2025 as the International Year of Cooperatives. Its aim is to highlight the important role such organizations play in sustainable development going forward.
There is more than just one type of cooperative model to contend with. But worker coops are defined by member body Co-operatives UK as “democratically owned and collectively controlled by the workers in the business, who all participate in decision-making”.
The modern coop movement actually started in the country in 1844 after the so-called Rochdale Pioneers opened a shop in Lancashire to provide local people with affordable, good quality food. The aim of the 28 working-class men involved was to improve poor living conditions in towns in the then industrial north of England.
In a switch from its more traditional roots though, digital is now the UK’s third largest coop genre, behind only agriculture and arts and culture. The sector consists of 143 organizations, with a joint income of £10.5 million.
Is there an average tech cooperative worker?
As to what kind of person tends to join the tech worker coop movement, their profile is now starting to change, in the UK at least. Richard Rowley, Founder of the Agile Collective, which is a member of the Cooperative Technologies network, explains:
We used to rely on those defecting from IT organizations elsewhere who were fed up with traditional employment models. But we’re now increasingly taking on young people who we identify as having the right skills, who believe in a growth mindset, and can adapt their brains to the challenges.
We often find younger workers are more enthusiastic and better at collaboration than those joining at a later stage in their career path.
Skemp, on the other hand, says her own personal decision to join CoLab in its early days was due to the organization’s values and principles, which are based on sociocracy:
I wanted a job where I’d have a voice, and that’s a core reason why other people join too. It’s a different way of collective bargaining. No one holds power over you, and it changes the power dynamics that people often find so toxic and harmful in their work lives. You can work where and when you wish, which makes it’s more flexible.
So, the kinds of people we see joining us are those disillusioned with the corporate world, who want something different. We serve mission-oriented companies only, so shared values are a huge part of the draw for people who want to do something more meaningful.
The Agile Collective takes a similar stance, Rowley says:
We did some work with a couple of corporates and our developers hated it. So, we said we’d focus on charities and NGOs, the public sector and education. But there are advantages of being part of a network as you can go for bigger bids. With UNICEF, for example, we went in with three other companies, which meant we could triple the workforce at very little notice.
You also don’t have to make redundancies once the contract’s finished. It’s a universal fact that being a coop is a tick in your favor. People like that we walk our walk. Many companies pay lip service to fairness, diversity, the living wage etc, but it’s built into what we do and that goes down well.
The challenges of cooperative life
Another advantage of the coop approach is that it helps create local jobs, which can help boost local economies. But joining a cooperative does present challenges too. As Ivanovski points out:
Worker cooperatives [in the UK and Argentina] encounter difficulties in recruiting talented workers. The challenge lies not only in finding individuals with the requisite technical skills but also those who possess the appropriate mindset and attitude for working within a cooperative environment.
Due to limited awareness of worker cooperatives in both countries, sourcing suitable candidates proves challenging. Another significant hurdle is salary competitiveness. Generally, programmers can secure higher wages outside the tech worker cooperative sector in both countries.
However, Rowley points out, not everyone is motivated by money but rather by doing something more purpose-driven. He does agree that not everyone is suited to cooperative life though:
The job is the same as it would be with any organization with a collaborative bent. But the biggest challenge for many people [due to the sociocratic approach his coop has adopted] is not having a line manager. Sometimes it can be easier to have someone to tell you what to do and how to manage your time, but what it does mean is that you have to be good at self-organizing and have an ownership mentality.
There’s also a tendency towards role inflation because everyone gets involved in everything. So, you do need the ability to push back and say you can’t take something on.
Other vital skills include an ability to communicate effectively, Rowley says. This includes:
Needing to become more aware of your own voice and opinions. We’re not taught these skills at school, but you need to be able to express yourself clearly and make clear requests. Coops also suit people who can demonstrate leadership skills. This means being able to take on a challenge and propose a way forward. You don’t have to lead all the time. It could just be on one or two projects or a subset of a problem, but it’s about everyone taking responsibility.
Skemp agrees:
Democratic processes and workplace activities won’t work without excellent communication practices and shared values. Without them, collaboration doesn’t exist, but our business model is based on delivery and project teams that collaborate to get work done.
It’s the same with collective governance. There are hard decisions to make every day when you’re running a business, but there are also complex power dynamics that exist with any group of people. So again, you can’t underestimate the value of excellent communication practices. I’d say if there’s one thing your existence relies on, it’s getting good at this.
My take
Tech worker coops have a lot to offer their members in terms of improving quality of life. But awareness that they even exist remains low, and members do need to make a reasonably substantial shift in mindset to succeed in this world.
As such, the approach looks unlikely to take over the world any time soon. But it is a great alternative for those people looking to work in ways that feel more meaningful and purposeful than may be the case today in the mainstream tech world.
