Page 18 RAIN December 1979 ited that the entire staff worked without pay. While some groups may be fortunate enough to obtain a single grant large enough to pay both salaries and operating costs, most get by combining smaller grants. As funding is often given for only ' New methods of decision-making, job rotations, and shared or rotated chair positions are partial solutions to such problems. It is easier to make an alternative workplace function smoothly if staff members keep each other abreast of changing expectations and priorities. a limited time, much staff time is taken with writing grant proposals. For all the difficulties in changing traditional expectations and practices, alternative work groups find the experim~nt. worthwhile because it promises to improve not only the quality of work, but als<? the quality of life in many communities which were slowly dying. The purpose of work Project Work competes for the same grants as other alter:- native groups. While their staff makes a practice of passing on funding information to other groups who might be able to use it, many organizations are reluctant to do so because funding is so tight. The constant struggle to guarantee salaries and to assure staff members that a long-range com·mitment to the organization is possible is a source of tension within many in this country has become twofold: to keep the national economy going, whatever the cost, and to provide most of groups .- ' . . Advocates of new working structures mus·t be well aware of the difficulties in creating them. While members of an organization may be open to new ways of working, most carry with them traditional notions of how to work. "It's very hard to make an alternative setting work," recognizes Sidney Brown of Project Work. In addition to long hours and low or uncertain pay, workers regularly deal with the problems of group decision-making and operations. While staff members may be committed to a non-hierarcqical model, it's hard to shake old work habits which operated well in a hierarchy but are detrimental to a collective... . the citizenry with a living wage. Work structures which would benefit society and work which is meaningful, enioyable and aq:omplished cooperatively is regarded, at best, as a luxury for the few who can afford it. For many, such a definition of work is simply a contradiction in terms. . .' ~~k .access "From Alternative.to Big Business," November 1979, $1.50 from: New Age 32 Station St. Brookline Village; MA 02146 Alternative Food Workers Alliance 182 5 Curtis St. Berkeley, CA 94702 415/549-3 387 As alternative enterprises become successful and grow, new probfem~ heretofore undreamed of arise. More and more we hear grumblings from wo~kers in these businesses about. management resistance to worker participation, better wages and benefits, etc.-In this article, Richard Elvers details a case in point- the story behind Erewhon Trading Company's recent unionizationwhich we can all learn from. Erewhon, one of the largest natural food producers and distributors in the country, has long been considered a "New Age" business. ' .Erewhon's management regards the unionization move as a sign of failure which began when the company first hired "outsiders," people not totally committed to macro'biotics and thus unwilling to work long hours for little pay. However, according to the AlterPerhaps this is why working alternatives around the country are so impressive. They demonstrate not only that things can change, but also that they are already changing. It may be impossible to resurrect the old American Dream, but a new one is coming fo life: dignity in.a time of demoralization, job security in a time of uncertainty. Such things have always been the promises of newly elected presidents and desperate incumbents. Yet if there is one thing to be learned from the American way of work,.it is that the people at the bottom are • often the first signs of hope and the arbiters of change. native Food Workers Alliance (AFWA) in Berkeley, which unionized Westbrae Foods there three years ago, "ours is an industry in which companies have capitalized their fantastic growth r:;,ces with substandard wages, wooing workers' loyalties with a hypocritical antiestablishment or alternative image or, even worse, with a quasi-spiritu1l view of right livelihood that seems to create the feeling, with no substantial qasis in reality,'of a family business." The good news, though, is that the AFWA does exist and could become a prototype for alternative unions in a variety of industries. Their purpose in becoming a national labor organization for the natural foods industry is to· make this industry a real alternative both in natural foods production and distribution and in •~the way that work is structured so as to empower workers to make decisions affecting their livelihood and to optimize individual creativity in the workplace." -MR Communities No. 40, Oet./Nov. 1979, $1.50 from: !3ox 426 Louisa, VA 23903 I found Ani;i Waterhouse's article on the West Bank CDC in Minneapolis to be the highlight of this special issue on worker-owned businesses. Ann discusses how this community development corporation is turning around the resources in its community and making good work available. She notes that it is imperative to establish a democratically controlled CDC if t;,he CDC is to remain in the control of community residents and cautions against allowing sources of financial support to dictate too much of a CDC's program, again bypassing effective community involvement. In the final analysis, what it's all about is "getting more and more people involved once again in controlling the economic decisions of this country, of channeling the profits to the "little people," of helping to direct decision-making so that some of our community's needs are taken care of instead of lining the pockets of a few"-this is communitybased econom1c development. -MR·
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