A virtual cooperative?

Tomás Cano Binder wrote:



I think you might be confusing the structure with the production means. A cooperative must have goals, structures, definitions, location, legal form, office-management team, etc. etc., both if you sell potatoes and if you offer services on-line.

The on-line presence of any service must have a backbone supporting it. The presence and front-end might be on-line, but there must be something supporting it. All on-line services and companies selling anything have a physical organisation and a legal form.

If you don't sell anything, you can be as "virtual" as you like, as you won't have to deal with accountancy, taxes, management, etc. But I reckon you want to make money with the cooperative? Then... learn from what Francesca is explaining to you. That is free and good advice and information.

Francesca Pesce wrote:

Together with other colleagues, I created a translation cooperative in 1992.

In Italy, according to Italian law.

First: cooperatives ARE companies. But they are a more democratic way of doing business.

Second: being more democratic, they are more difficult to run and manage.

In our case, it was easier than the idea you have: we knew each other and knew how we worked. Instead, getting together people that don't know each other is much more complicated. This is because personal reputation is somehow at risk if one ties one's work and reputation to someone else's.

The democracy of a cooperative is in the fact that the workers (in this case, freelancers) choose who should take care of the management, what to do with the profits, and decide on the basic rules and values of the company. But, in concrete, it is always some kind of Board of Administrators that is responsible for the management. And the bigger the cooperative the less real control the single freelancer actually has.

We decided to create a cooperative to avoid being exploited by the market: being a company means that you are the ones that impose the rules (rates, terms of payment, etc.), so it is easier especially when you are just starting off. So obviously for us the first rule was - and still is - that the priority are the freelancers partners of the cooperative, but also external translators to whom we outsource other work. The cooperative's first rule is not to exploit workers to make a profit. The aim of the cooperative is not making money or profits, but finding work for its members at the best conditions possible.
The margin of the cooperative is kept at a minimum: the amount necessary for operating expenses (very low) and investment in marketing or working instruments.

But I can imagine that legislation in other countries can permit also more unethical behaviour.

An organisation in which no-one has precise responsibilities is, according to my experience, impossible to run. If no-one has responsibilities, no-one is liable to the others for what he/she does.
A cooperative means that somewhere you need to have an office, a secretary, someone who takes care of the accounting, issues invoices, takes care of payments and tax returns, etc. A totally virtual company - be it cooperative or not - is a non existing entity.

Someone, somewhere, has to decide how to allocate work between translators, what rates to ask, etc. You cannot have a generaly assembly to decide all this. You cannot simply decide collectively on every single matter. And petty issues are in the end the most important.

So forget the idea that a cooperative is an organisation of the "everyone runs it" type, as Tomàs says. It is a company in which the partners decide to delegate the management to a restricted group, that is responsible towards all the partners and must follow the rules decided in a general assembly. And, foremost, a cooperative differs from normal companies in its objective: not making profits like a normal company, but achieving work and better working standards for its members. At least according to Italian legislation.

giselrike wrote:

I know what you are looking for - a system where everyone works towards a common goal, everyone is equal, has equal say (in theory), nobody gets to be the boss (in theory), and nobody from the "outside" has any business looking over your shoulders. The work gets assigned based on what needs to be done and who can do it best, you share all of the resources and knowledge. Am I on the right track so far?
Hmmm, lets see, there's something vaguely stirring in the back of my brain, what does that remind me of? Could it be the biggest attempt at a cooperative enterprise tried in various countries (and still being practiced in some of them)?
What was that lofty idea called again? Communism, right?
Biggest example why the "cooperative approach" can sound so noble in theory and go so terribly wrong in practice.

giselrike wrote:

I know what you are looking for - a system where everyone works towards a common goal, everyone is equal, has equal say (in theory), nobody gets to be the boss (in theory), and nobody from the "outside" has any business looking over your shoulders. The work gets assigned based on what needs to be done and who can do it best, you share all of the resources and knowledge. Am I on the right track so far?
Hmmm, lets see, there's something vaguely stirring in the back of my brain, what does that remind me of? Could it be the biggest attempt at a cooperative enterprise tried in various countries (and still being practiced in some of them)?
What was that lofty idea called again? Communism, right?
Biggest example why the "cooperative approach" can sound so noble in theory and go so terribly wrong in practice.

Clarisa Moraña wrote:

Some years ago, after seeing that many translators in Argentina were suffering because of the financial unstability of the country, I had the idea of launching a translator's cooperative. I did it through Proz.
Many interested translators emailed me. There were even many Argentine translators living abroad who wanted to help in this project. We had some ideas in mind and everybody wanted to participate. We got legal assessment, we had some face to face meetings, but we realized soon that most of the "interested" translators thought that we were going to work as a translation agency, that I was going to be a sort of project manager, or agency owner who would go after clients, and give them projects to translate.
When we convoked the meetings I received excuses such as "I'm tired today", or "I don't fell like going today. Would you please send me a translation job when it arrives?"
Nevertheless, the good thing is that the translators I met in that failed attempt to create a cooperative are good friend of mine now, I can count on them when I'm requested to share a job, and they request my help when they need it.

Have a nice day

Clarisa

[Edited at 2008-09-15 06:40]

Felipe Gútiez wrote:
Does anyone could think of becoming part of a translators cooperative? In a way, the translators teams from ProZ are a kind of cooperative. ... Have you already cooperate with dtp freelancers?

Samuel Murray wrote:



Well, I don't see how a translators' cooperative could work, because translators typically don't use each other's services. What we do use, are related services, such as editing, reviewing, document preparation, etc. Besides, most of us provide only the translation, and not the translated product also.

However, your mention of the DTP person reminds me that there are a number of freelancer sites similar to ProZ.com where clients can find freelancers.

A cooperative can only work if it can force translators to use or buy the services and products that have been negotiated for it. So, you might negotiate a deal with Canon to provide a laser printer to cooperative members for half the list price, but it will only work if you can force all your loyal HP users to switch to Canon.

The cooperative will only be successful if it can force members to give absolute preference to each other's services -- eg, if you need another translator, you must use one that is a member of the cooperative. This is great for languages with a large pool and the potential of finding a good translator is good, but for smaller languages, it may mean that we are forced to use poor service providers simply because they are forced to return the favour when they can.

Besides, economies of scale only apply to products or services that are uniform or very similar.

Did I understand your idea of a cooperative correctly? Which of the types of cooperatives listed on the Wikipedia page did you have in mind?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative#Types_of_cooperatives

Felipe Gútiez wrote:

Just a question.
What is the use of Internet and all the possibilities it offers in your cooperative?
Have your really wrung up all the possibilities of Internet in a cooperative of translators?

Francesca Pesce wrote:

Felipe, forget social cooperatives: they have an entirely different objective (benefit the community or integrating disadvantaged workers).

Workers cooperatives instead aim at achieving work (decent work, regularly paid) for their members.

Nevertheless, since the description of my cooperative (the fact that everyday management is delegated to a board of administrators) was not just our choice, but is rather a binding provision of most legislations on cooperatives, I believe that you should somehow revert the discussion to a different level. Workers cooperatives exist and are a viable means also for freelancers to work, but you are not actually talking of cooperatives. You are imagining something quite different (quite theoretical from my point of view) that doesn't have much to do with cooperatives, but rather with a general sense of mutual cooperation.

Internet per se has nothing to do with how a company, an association or organisation is established. It is a means that facilitates communication and collaboration.

Most of what you describe in this forum has been thought and analysed lots of times in history. It is not by chance, though, that all these kinds of hypothesis of mutual collaboration have been regulated by law with strict provisions, that render members liable to each other and to third parties for what they do (and don't do).

Running a company - any kind of company - takes up a lot of time. And very few people would accept to "donate" their time if the cause is just helping others to earn more. People donate money or time for a good and just cause.

Transparency and democracy are enormously important, but they are also very time-consuming. One of the reasons why citizens, workers and shareholders delegate decisions and work is that it is much more efficient for everyone.

One other is that we don't all have the same abilities, skills or preparation. We are not all fast at deciding in a reasonable way: some need more time to think. If you imagine an organisation in which everyone does everything, are you really convinced that everyone will have the same opportunities?

Felipe Gútiez wrote:
Does your cooperative have an internet site?

Francesca Pesce wrote:



My cooperative does not have an internet site. It never has, it never has needed it. No customer would give us work because he found us on the Internet. We are specialised in financial translations, and our clients have always recommended us to other companies of the financial industry. And I repeat: we are not craving for more work. We work more than enough for a sustainable life. We refuse work we are not particularly interested in. So why should we need an internet site?
We work through the web, we hold meetings via skype, we exchange information by phone, courier, email, sms, in person.

What I don't understand is why do you ask? What difference does it make?

My suggestion is:
If you believe it is in any way possible to create an organisation (please, don't call it a cooperative) practically virtual, with members from the whole world cooperating, with everyone having the same rights, duties and functions, go ahead, try it out.

Let us know if in concrete your dreams are feasible.