You also don’t have to make redundancies once the contract’s finished. It’s a universal fact that being a co-op is a tick in your favor.
I’m interested in specifics on this. If the co-op is purely doing contract work and the contract ends, how are they able to continue to pay workers on the bench? How long are workers allowed to be on the bench if they can’t be place on contract work?
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.
There are a limited number of charities and NGOs, and many times these customers are the most squeezed for budget, meaning lower amounts of income to the co-op.
Another significant hurdle is salary competitiveness. Generally, programmers can secure higher wages outside the tech worker co-operative sector in both countries.
I think this is the buried lede. How much is income reduced to tech workers vs traditional employers? Without strong social safety nets in the country a co-op with a much lower salary may not be a viable option because unemployment would leave the former workers without resources to live on.
If anyone has any experience with tech co-ops and can fill in the gaps of my understanding, I’d be interested to hear it.
the difference in salary they’re talking about is more along the lines of small business vs venture capital-backed startup or established huge corporation. one joins a worker-owned coop for the alternative to corporate life, not the high-paying salary. and you’d have to try pretty hard to become unemployed at a coop. there are generally no “layoffs” since there is no greedy billionaire at “the top” needing a second yacht. it’s tough work, but it is totally worth it if you have a seething hatred for capitalism. fuck the billionaire class with a cactus, sideways.
If I’m looking to make a career pivot into a (anything programming related) tech field–would looking for one of these be worthwhile investment or no?
It depends on where you live and what you’re looking for in life.
I would be potentially interested but no idea where they are. In the UK but not near London. Also in support rather than dev. Can barely find normal roles here let alone one for a workers co-operative. Probably going to be stuck in my current role for ages.
co-operatives are started by worker’s initiative. It’s not something that comes to save you. If there’s no co-op in your area, start learning what you need to start one, govern one, and how to find co-op funding.