Co-administration & collective property

By Mohammed Umar
Rights Director
Zed Books Ltd
London


Let me start by expressing my profound gratitude to the organisers of this meeting for inviting me to speak on this very interesting topic at this historic event. Historic in the sense that this is the first International Alternative book fair. It is really an honour and a priviledge to be here with like-minded publishers to discuss issues that affects us all.

My topic as you all know is something like THIS IS ALSO HOW A PUBLISHING HOUSE IS BUILT: CO-ADMINISTRATION & COLLECTIVE PROPERTY .

A cooperative is by definition an organization run by the people working in the enterprise. Politically it means workers control. Economically, it means the surplus from this enterprise is not taken away by some capitalist but is shared among the workers or reinvested. This is a broad definition of course. In the UK most cooperatives are only economically minded, that is they only share the profits and don’t exercise the real control as they should. We at Zed exercise full control.

To do justice to this topic, I think it is important to tell you a little bit about Zed Books and how it became one of the very few publishing houses that is administered by a co-operative.

Zed Books was founded thirty years ago by Roger Zwanenberg who before then was a lecturer in Zambia. He is South African by origin. Zed Books was primarily set-up to be a platform for books on the Third world. Roger saw a niche and wanted to provide a platform also for liberation movements that lacked any voice in the struggle for independence in the late 1970s. The publishing house was leftwing and the first titles were on Palestine, South Africa, Namibia etc

The publishing house was doing well and expanded its lists rapidly but was still solely owned by Roger. It was in 1983 that due to some internal and external circumstances that I would not delve into that Zed Press, as it was then known, became a cooperative administered company. Mr Zwanenberg was bought out and he went on to buy Pluto Press in London. The name changed from Zed Press to Zed Books.

Why co-op? Colleagues thought that the most effective way of running a small independent publishing company was to jointly manage it. Left in the hands of an individual, the publishing house might not achieve the aims they set out to do thus from the editorial policy of the company to who prints the books are issues that are jointly taken because Zed Books was not just another publishing house it was a political publishing house that wants to promote certain ideals.

Let me make a very important point here. In the UK, cooperatives are not a legal entity, i.e. they are not defined by law. Companies can be under sole ownership or partnership. These are legal. Zed is a limited liability company but it’s management is co-operative. So two things run parallel here: In terms of ownership, co-op members are directors. Membership is not compulsory but open to whoever works at least four days a week.

The supreme body in our cooperative set up is the Coop meetings which are held once a month. This is where important decisions are taken. All members of the coop are expected to be in attendance. Decisions are by consensus. Non members can attend and contribute to the discussions but can not vote.

We have the management board that does the day to day administration. We have tried different ways here, sometimes we rotated membership, sometime we have members from different departments and sometimes we had volunteers. Please bear in mind that these people do not make policy decisions only the Coop is empowered to do so.

There is not a single model in coop administration. You could have a hierarchical system where-by the coop decides to elect a member from within or appoint an outsider to manage the enterprise but this person is answerable eventually to the Coop- the governing body.

We also have the flat-structure model where people are their own bosses in their own departments. We have tried both and they both have disadvantages and advantages. The hierarchical structure is a bit more efficient but depends largely on the person in charge and how much power is conferred on this person. Should they have the power to fire and hire? The flat structure makes life very interesting and gives the worker room to be creative but can also bring the worst out of any lazy person.

To make a coop work there are so many ingredients. One is commitment. The cooperative spirit must be present at all times. The level of dedication must be higher than in the usual enterprise in the sense that the worker knows that the more the surplus the more the pay at the end of the year.

Perhaps more important to make a cooperative work properly is the equalisation knowledge. By this I mean every member must be fully aware of what is happening in the organisation. Knowledge must be published and all workers encouraged to read them. To make good decisions the workers must be informed and healthy discussions must take place.

At Zed, here are some ways we share information.

1) Publishing meetings. Editors give us information about books and we all have time to read and discuss these proposals. The views of all members are taken into account before a book is accepted.

2) We have a system whereby monthly financial figures are circulated. This gives us an indication of the financial state of the company. How various markets are performing or not performing and whoever is responsible is asked to explain to colleagues what is really happening.

3) Regular sales analysis of books and markets

4) Relationships between all departments are encouraged. Because of the size of the company, we tend to know what is happening in all other departments.

What are the main problems of coop run enterprises?

Lack of commitment by some members can be a real problem. It is difficult to take disciplinary measures as it would involve a lot of (painful) discussions and sometimes impact on jobs. We have been very lucky to date at Zed that no one has ever been sacked. It can be frustrating when some people are definitely working more than others.

Decisions by consensus can be very tedious and time consuming at times leading to almost paralysis.

The absence of a line manager watching over someone can make lazy people simply work less and thus make one dept slower than other others.

What are the lessons? Co-administration in publishing is workable but political will is important. Without it people will not understand the reason of its existence. It is important to make it clear that there is a socialist answer to capitalist problem. Not everything is a commodity. Profit should come second to services. First serve and then make profit. When we had serious financial problems some years ago, there were suggestions that some people should be made redundant. This was voted down because it the capitalist way of resolving problems. The majority of the members opted for an across the board wage–cut. This ensured that we all had jobs and were then able to work hard to get ourselves out of the problem.

I have worked at Zed Books for ten and half years. It has been a huge experience working in this environment.

Once again, I thank the organisers and hope that we’ll have a good discussion afterwards.

Thank you all for listening.