Hot Take: Drop Working Members

Hot Take: The best way to manage a working-member (volunteer) program is to not have one.

When long-time co-op members talk about the “good old days” of their co-op, when it used to be a “real co-op”, they often talk about how members used to all work together and volunteer their time at the store: stocking shelves, cutting cheese, packaging bulk items. And sure, I started my co-op career as a volunteer at a (no longer in existence) co-op in North Carolina, so I get it. It felt like I was contributing to my community in some type of way.

But things have changed, and many co-ops have moved away from having those programs for their members. For good reason.

Still, one of the most common questions I get from member-owners at our membership meetings is “when will you bring back the working-member program?” It’s often followed up with, “I mean, I don’t want to do it, but you should have the program for other members.”

My response is always the same, “Betty, I done told you 5 times before, that ain’t happening. Look around the room at the whole, what, like 8 other members who still show up to shit, and think if any of these members, over there shoving free samples into their pocketbooks and cargo pants, are actually gonna volunteer their time to stock shelves.” No, they’re not. So how can we get enough volunteers to justify the administrative time and cost for a volunteer program?

Even if you did have enough interested member-owners, having volunteer labor at a for-profit business is definitely a tricky legal situation. The potential liabilities of not paying workers at least a minimum wage is enough to make most co-ops stay far away from volunteer labor. And before y’all start in on me with “but this that and the third co-op does it,” yeah, I know. Some co-ops, in some states, have found some loopholes that (mostly) protect them. But that shit is the exception, not the rule.

On top of the possible legal gray areas, I just don’t understand how anyone feels morally ok with exploiting folks for free labor. Especially when in the next breath they’re talking about how the co-op needs to be offering living wages and benefits to co-op employees. Seems counter to what folks say are the values of cooperatives.

Also, it takes a lot of privilege to have extra time to volunteer. Folks who are working multiple jobs, or are single parents, or folks who are just tired from having to navigate the world (cuz that shit is hard), they don’t have the time, or the emotional space to give. So it ends up being people who have the privilege and capacity to give their time. And most often, those aren’t the folks who really need the discount they receive for volunteering.

But let’s just say, hypothetically, that there were no risks, and folks just really, really, really, wanted to volunteer at their local co-op. Why would I want to have someone come in once a month only to have forgotten almost everything they were shown how to do the month before? Like come on Todd, I have shown you 6 times how to use this scale to label that cheese. Please don’t make me have to do it again. Who’s got time for that?

Now you might could get like one or two good volunteers who show up and do a decent job, but most of the time when they actually do show up you just find them wandering around aimlessly, maybe carrying a broom in their hand, sweeping that same rug for the third time, or they’re standing around chatting with a friend they ran into, or, better yet, cornering every staff member to tell them how this isn’t a real co-op anymore or how the co-op should really be selling more local produce and bulk items. Staff don’t wanna deal with these people either. So in my mind, not having a working-member program is one of the best employee benefits I could offer.