Approve NewsSocial's application to join CoTech

We (collectively) are CoTech, so I don't think there's one person who can give you clarification. But as the person who "volunteered" to propose this membership application I can try to get some clarity.

I think the closest we've got to a definition of who can join CoTech is in the constitution:

There is no fee to join CoTech, but, in order to be eligible, your co-operative must:

• agree with and practise the 7 Co-operative Principles,

• be owned and democratically run by its workers,

• provide tech/digital services.

• be based in or have significant ties to the UK

Your membership is approved by the existing members of CoTech via a proposal on Loomio.

I notice that the workers.coop (published) criteria is also a bit vague

Membership is open to worker led co-ops following the International Co-operative Alliance definition of a cooperative.

So I don't think there's a watertight set of rules to apply in this case. I'd be in favour of anyone who wants to create a better definition proposing a change to the constitution.

The precedence is for us to discuss it and come up with something we can live with. Graham mentioned a previous discussion about a co-op who applied to join that wasn't worker controlled - I've scoured Loomio's history and I can't find that - could you link to it @Graham? I did find the thread about GreenNet's application but that was different circumstances.

I think the best way to proceed is for me to email Ali and ask him to clarify whether they are "owned and democratically run" and post any reply in here. I'll extend the closing date of the poll to give us a bit of time to consider it.

I've sent this email to Ali at NewsSocial:

Hi Ali,

The proposal to approve your membership of CoTech is currently running. A couple of people have asked whether NewsSocial meets all of the criteria in our constitution, specifically whether NewsSocial is "owned and democratically run by its workers".

One member said that your co-op rules

suggest that user members can make up 50% of the board, which suggests that workers don't necessarily control the org all the time

Could you provide some clarity on this point that I can share back with the group?

Many thanks,

Chris

I'll add an extra week to the closing date of this proposal and share any response I receive.

Thanks for this @Chris Lowis (Go Free Range) It was a while ago so I'm not sure if I remember the details accurately, but I think it was in relation to the Digital Life Collective. That cooperative had no paid workers at that time, and I think that may have been why membership was not allowed, but I can't be sure. and a worker (however that might be defined) majority on the board was not baked in to the rules, just as it isn't in this case. Personally I don't think it's an issue, and that CoTech should allow NewsSocial, and Digital Life Collective, and others like these examples into membership, but that's probably shaped by what's in my head as regards what CoTech is for, which may well not be shared by the majority of member organisations.

Thanks Graham. I think I found the relevant proposal: https://www.loomio.com/p/JqG0bPm8/allow-the-digital-life-collective-co-operative-ltd-to-join-cotech

I'd be interested in coming up with some better criteria to apply. Either liberal enough that basically anyone can join, or specific enough that potential members can work out for themselves in advance of applying whether they meet the criteria. To be honest, I've put off creating this proposal for too long because I sensed there'd be objections of this kind and I've beeen lacking in energy/enthusiasm to see it through. But that's a crappy experience for the NewsSocial folks, so I'm giving it a go.

Thank you for the sterling work Chris. I've just voted to accept

Ali got back to me with:

Thanks for your email. Newsocial is a democratically run multi-stakeholder cooperative where workers have 50% of the vote and cooperatives subscribing to the platform have the other 50%. I attach the rules. We use sociocracy as part of our democratic governance. 

I asked a follow up question:

With the 50/50 split of the vote, what would happen in the event of a tie? Does a working member have the casting vote?

And I'm waiting for a reply.

No news on that reply?

Yes, Ali just got back to me with the following:

I'll extend the poll for others to consider, but for me/us I think this is sufficient. It would be nice if clause 74 were clarified but I don't think that should be a blocker.

Honestly, I'm running out of energy and enthusiasm to keep shepherding this. Would anyone volunteer to get back to NewsSocial and explain to them what to do next? Feel free to send me an email at [email protected] if this is something you feel you can take on.

I haven't had any volunteers to take this off my plate, and I'm not feeling energised enough to keep pursuing, so unless I hear otherwise in a day or so, I'm going to contact NewsSocial and let them know that their application to join CoTech was not passed, and to reapply again when they feel confident they can clarify their worker-controlled status.

When I'm feeling up for it, I'm going to try and make some progress aliging our membership criteria with that of workers.coop (in the form of a proposal to change our constitution) so I don't have to do this again.

Hi @Chris Lowis (Go Free Range) - I don't have much in the way of capacity myself, but as you point out it's a very poor experience for NewsSocial, and as I am engaged to some extent with that organisation I'm willing to see what we might be able to do here. So as I see it there was a single blocking vote cast by @Autonomic Co-operative , with the reason given as "Unless workers control is over 51% then we wouldn't consider it a worker co-operative. Blocking till more clarification and eyes have been on this." I'm guessing this vote was cast after you posted the clarification. However the information form NewsSocial makes it very clear that they use sociocracy in their decision-making processes, so it seems highly unlikely - if not impossible - in that context that any decision could be taken that was against the wishes of the worker constituency. If I'm right all decisions are taken by consent. In that context the notion of 51% control strikes me as immaterial? I'm very interested to get the views of others on this, especially the blocking voter.

Yes, that would be very useful - thank you for your help and input @Graham. It's not a great experience for NewsSocial and I don't really enjoy being the "middle man" who has to communicate to them the questions/objections/bad news. Hopefully they understand that our kind of organisations don't always make a lot of sense 🙂

@Chris Lowis (Go Free Range)No problem. I'm in dialogue with them, and when I find a little bit of time I'll post here with an update and work out if I can re-open the poll or need to set up a new one.

@Graham thanks Graham! That's really helpful, I appreciate it.

I'd still love for @Autonomic Co-operative to re-engage and help work out how to address their concerns, if they have any time to help.