Setting Up A Worker Owned Cooperative for Aspies and HFAs

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Hi everyone,

I am applying for an NIH grant to obtain startup funds to create a worker cooperative owned/managed by high-functioning individuals on the autism spectrum. It would be different than Specialisterne and Aspiritech as this would be a for-profit cooperative, and it would not be solely focused on providing jobs in the IT sector. I hope to convince big law & accounting firms, management consulting companies, hospitals, federal contractors and so on to give contracts to this cooperative to enable its worker-owners to obtain high-paying and rewarding jobs.

I am a social entrepreneur and former lawyer who was inspired to create this cooperative after doing extensive research on the success rate of the various types of cooperatives. If you want to know more, Google "Evergreen Cooperatives of Cleveland" and read the inspiring success story "The Rise of Shared Ownership and the Fall of Business as Usual" featured in FastCompany magazine. (Sorry, I am new here and was prevented from linking to it so please Google the article.)

2012 is the UN International Year of the Cooperative, so the timing couldn't be better!

Let me know if anyone is interested in helping out with this project or becoming a member!

This potentially sounds really good. Now, you are a new member and nothing wrong with that. We just need to take it step-by-step as far as the trust building and ping-ponging back and forth communication.

Merely as a senior member, and not as anyone who has any official authority, let me suggest the following: Let's publicly discuss this on the board. And feel free to participate more widely. I think you'll find us an interesting bunch. And perhaps at a later time, people could send you PMs or email addresses (although that's kind of a big step).

moderator note: alex approved for this topic to be posted.

AardvarkGoodSwimmer,

Thanks for your interest! My post was taken down briefly and is now up again but in a different "Autism Politics, Activism, and Media" category. Do you think it should appear here or in the former "Work and Finding a Job" section?

oops i actually must have misremembered where it originally was.

moved from Autism Politics, Activism, and Media Representation to Work and Finding a Job

Hi Hyperlexian,

Yes, I saw that the post is now back in "Work and Finding a Job" - it probably could go into either category! Thanks for your help.

It sounds promising, could you describe some more about what the company would do for law firms, such as research, IT, accounting, auditing?

Did you know that in 2009, stagehands at the Lincoln Center in NYC made $290,000 per year on average? They probably make even more this year, three years later.
See: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/28/arts/ ... wanted=all
Stagehands are the people in dark suits that perform tasks for stage performances like move the grand piano from one end of the stage to another. The stagehands at Lincoln Center made on average $290K because they belonged to a powerful union that bargained on their behalf and represented their collective voice. Job skills alone don't determine level of pay; how powerful your voice is also matters. The collective voice of a thousand people who are similarly situated is much more powerful than a single voice on virtually all issues.

With that in mind, I am applying for an NIH grant to set up a worker-owned cooperative for high-functioning people with ASD so they can self-organize and maximize what they can earn for themselves. Most if not all of these people can perform the tasks required of a stagehand. If you are one of them, my question to you is this: Are you making $290K per year on average?

question is.. in what country/state/city is this?

The article said that the stagehands have a generational apperenticeship. Their skills are in demand and no one knows how to teach their skills except themselves.

The people interviewed for the article said that they bust out their bodies after so many years. Mechanics earn a killing but they too bust out their body and the oldest mechanic is 50 but most have left before then because their bodies can't do it anymore. They have to have a salary that reflects their ability to work only 20 or so years.

Knowing that, what do you have in mind? What do you have in mind for types of work? Manual laborers, IT, retail?

It sounds very, very promising, and an excellent thing you guys are doing. Just remember that the best individuals for certain jobs may come from outside of the community the coop is targeting. Take marketing. There may come a point where you have exhausted your internal network, and are ready to grow even further. Most of us on the spectrum are not the best at marketing, sadly, so you may have to look outside of the community. You don't necessarily have to give the NT ownership (if that's allowed, that is).

Other than that, I think many will take on this project warmly.

Stillswimming,
I do not know of any stage hand maybe outside of NY/LA who makes anywhere near that kind of money. It sounds like a job like that may "run in the family". Any stage hand experience I have had has been volunteer, but I found it interesting. In fact, it is volunteer for most community theatre in the nation. Plus, there is some multitasking: For example, I have had to replace lights, paint, build sets, move props (but not at the same time!). Perhaps some contract with the federal government could be of use, for example, having to look at photos like they did when they discovered the Cuban missile crisis. Some other services can be cleaning, catering, power washing (I might start that one), home services, a repair garage. Just giving ideas.

Thanks everyone for your comments! I wasn't suggesting that everyone rush out and become a stagehand. I was pointing out that the stagehands were able to obtain high salaries because they self-organized and negotiated for benefits as a group. As BobinPgh pointed out, many stagehands work as volunteers, and many artists, musicians, and others work in the entertainment field without pay with the hope of "breaking into" the industry. I am sure the apprenticeship involved in becoming a stagehand can be challenging and unique skills are passed on from one generation to the next. But at the same time, there are many highly skilled workers with similarly unique and rare abilities (like excellent craftsmen and artisans) who do not make close to $290K. In fact, many doctors, lawyers, and other professionals doing highly complex work make substantially less than $290K.

In terms of the comment about the stagehands doing back breaking work and their short career justifying the high salary, let's do some math here. Three years of back breaking work as a stagehand making $290K equals almost $900,000. Many autistic people make less than $40K per year. Assuming they do make $40K per year, it would take them 20 years to make $800K, while the stagehands only took 3 years to make almost $900K. I think a lot of people wouldn't mind breaking their back a little for that kind of pay differential operating within a much shorter time horizon.

Effective self-organization and harnessing the power of a group of similarly situated individuals like what the stagehands achieved can produce tremendous rewards and wealth for the participants/members. Union membership is one way, and belonging to a worker cooperative is another. With a worker cooperative, there is no need to form a union as the workers are the owners of the cooperative business!

Cooperatives are legal entities (like a corporation) which can consist of one type of stakeholder or multiple stakeholders with different interests. The cooperative I am proposing would consist of both ASD and NT worker-owners with voting rights. A small minority interest may also be given to a corporate or community partner if necessary. The problem with having 100% of the members drawn from the autistic population is that certain roles, such as in marketing and sales, might be better performed by non-autistics who do not have social skill deficits.

I am primarily interested in creating a cooperative that can produce jobs for its worker-owners that pay at least $40K per year (and hopefully a lot more than that, and definitely not less than what the market will bear), plus a comprehensive benefits and retirement package. Workers would also receive free job related education and skills training.

The target group of clients would be large law firms, large accounting firms, management consulting firms, and federal contractors, and perhaps hospitals and universities.

Assignments would be sought for the cooperative worker-owners that would consist of fulfilling client project needs in R&D, IT and business related consulting, litigation support, auditing, large-scale data banking and analysis, health care electronic records compliance, etc. If there is demand for other types of skills, we could grow to serve those needs, and broaden the pool of members we can recruit and train.

If the cooperative is successful, it could offer a full array of services to its members, such as a credit union, affordable housing, child care, grocery store, counseling, etc.

One thing I have noticed that could be to our advantage: I notice, correct me if I am wrong - people on the spectrum tend not to have children. To do so requires dating, marriage, having to deal with a lot of stimuli. So we could work for 5 years in a tough job and make our million and then live off the interest. Someone with a family, especially a large one, has to work forever. For example, it may explain why coal miners in West Virginia mine all their lives - they fall into the trap of marry young, have a lot of kids, and so have to keep that high income coming in and its never enough. Meanwhile, I work with medical transcription, perhaps I could work in your cooperative?

I was also wondering if perhaps another client industry could be nuclear power, which might make a comeback. There are a lot of rules, a lot of paperwork, and during a "outage" when they refuel and do repairs and improvments there are a lot of workers, doing jobs with cranes and cables - kind of like a stage hand.

This sounds very cool

BobinPgh, thanks for your interest in joining the cooperative! It is a work-in-progress, and many have come forward expressing interest in helping out. A website for promoting the cooperative is being created. Do you think a few informal committees should be set up, with each committee working on developing an essential component of the cooperative? The cooperative is a US based initiative, but I would like people from all over the world to be involved. After all, our world is becoming increasingly borderless, and with the Internet, information travels at lightning speeds, and contracts can be done electronically, and so forth. Maybe, with cloud computing becoming so affordable, we could even run a paperless (and environmentally friendly) global operation! The US based cooperative would help sister cooperatives set up in different parts of the world, and we would all exchange best practices with each other. It might shorten the learning curve! Also, if the US and sister cooperatives around the world had a collaborative relationship, we could build a GLOBAL BRAND around our concept, and workers in any one of the affiliated cooperatives could potentially transfer from one location to another. Maybe we would end up with globetrotting Aspie and HFA netizens!

Yes, it is true that many people on the autism spectrum do not marry or have kids. It would make sense for the cooperative to have "campuses" set up and there would be dormitory-style accommodations were members could have private rooms and shared common areas, and they could just walk to the cooperative office.

Your nuclear plant idea was terrific! I've also thought that other jobs such as working at an oil rig would be attractive to ASD people who don't mind being away for two weeks at a time. These positions pay well but many NTs do not like the long periods away from home. As you said, many autistics are single, do not have strong family attachments, and do not have a deep need to be part of a regular social circle.

Keep the good ideas coming!