Re: [sudo-discuss] Video of Mandela Foods Cooperative and the West Oakland Youth Standing Empowered Program | American Worker Cooperative

Looks like they give investors a 3% return, which is considerably lower than what would be sought by venture capitalist crowd. I am a huge supporter of cooperatives and worker ownership but there has to be room for financial engagement with the broader community who have other trades. Alot of cooperatives have to secure loans (from chase bank et al in many cases!) in the form of mortgages or to provide working capital. I think if in reshaping the economic landscape we have to wait for people who are going to be doing the entry level manual tasks to throw down their share of the working capital, we will die waiting. I don't really know much about this organization in detail, just had been looking over their site and wanted to put in my 0.02 I also recognize a few of these evil capitalists http://peoplescommunitymarket.com/testimonials/ Anybody have info on what they pay their workers? cheers Feb 4, 2014 11:04:22 AM, jwentwistle(a)cryptolab.net wrote: -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- > Hash: SHA256 > > I support everybody who provides food to Oakland, as we > definitely don't have enough grocery stores in the area, but > these stores shouldn't be referred to as being the same thing. > > While it's called the People's Community Market, it is not owned > by the people, it's owned by a corporation. It's capitalistic and > profits that are made by the corporation will go to the owners of > it, not the people working there. The worker's wages will always > be seen as a cost to the owners and the profits created by the > workers will be stolen from them. Meanwhile, the workers at the > Mandela Food Cooperative are the owners and the profits made by > the workers will go to them. > > I understand that we need more grocery stores with fresh produce > in the area, but I don't see that as an excuse to exploit the > workers. > > Take care, Jeremy > > On 02/04/2014 06:26 AM, Marina Kukso wrote: >> you might want to just talk to them to learn more about the >> other activities they do and ways that you can contribute. that >> might be the best way to learn about ways to contribute that >> might be useful to them. >> >> also, have you heard of the people's community market? >> http://peoplescommunitymarket.com/ >> >> >> On Tue, Feb 4, 2014 at 3:14 AM, Romy Snowyla romy(a)snowyla.com >> mailto:romy@snowyla.com>> wrote: >> >> http://www.american.coop/content/video-mandela-foods-cooperative-and-west-o… >> >> >> >> >>

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.14 (GNU/Linux) iF4EAREIAAYFAlLxT9IACgkQ57xQpqo4osX3VwEAuEzphpqPOJBheQIISCioip7l rhI6HEmNr+i7Av2BTU0BAIB8yCEOJVPCIlZJDSkFPjHLsgclDLf10QKxbHywAJSI =0SdZ -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----