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"Greg Patmore"
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The Labour Movement and Co-operatives
Professor of Business and Labour History at the University of Sydney School of Business. The labour and co-operative movements are collective organisations that have similar roots and share a strong emphasis on democratic practices that seek to ensure the best for their community. There is both alignment and tensions in their relationship. Consumer co-operatives have supported unions and provided support to striking workers. However, co-operatives are also businesses that need to ensure financial survival. This has the potential to place co-operatives in conflict with organised labour particularly regarding labour costs. Workers may also have greater commitment to the organisation given that they are also part owners, particularly in the case of worker co-operatives. The co-operative ideal of \"political neutrality\" has also complicated the relationship between co-operatives and the labour movement. This paper will focus on some areas of alignment and tension between the labour movement and consumer retail and worker co-operatives drawing primarily on the Australian, Canadian, New Zealand, UK and US experience.
Journal Article
Mutualism and Labourism in the Experience of Westfund
This paper explores the dynamic by which \"labourism\" potentially undermines \"mutualism\" by examining the experience of Westfund under Australian Labour Party governments. The principle of self-help and the act of organising to provide mutual benefits have strong traditions in the labour movement. Westfund was a health fund established in 1953 by the Western District Branch of the Miners' Federation in Lithgow New South Wales, largely to provide medical benefits to miners. Organised labour historically has also campaigned for state provision of welfare services. In Australia, the notion of \"Labourism\" refers to a particular approach adopted by organised labour whereby they represented their interests directly in the political sphere through the Australian Labor Party. When the labour movement achieved its aim of a more universal health care system under the Whitlam ALP government, Westfund chose to work within the system in order to survive. Mutualism and labourism co-existed. The subsequent introduction of Medicare by the Hawke ALP government brought changes which created a more threatening business environment for health funds. In this instance to mitigate the danger it posed to their business, Westfund chose to oppose more aggressively aspects of the universal health system. Westfund weakened its institutional ties to the labour movement, and became more autonomous from its roots as a mutual.
Journal Article
Visual Analytics: Transferring, Translating and Transforming Knowledge from Analytics Experts to Non-technical Domain Experts in Multidisciplinary Teams
Today’s complex problems call for multidisciplinary analytics teams comprising of both analytics and non-technical domain (i.e. subject matter) experts. Recognizing the difference between data visualisaion (DV) (i.e. static visual outputs) and visual analytics (VA) (i.e. a process of interactive visual data exploration, guided by user’s domain and contextual knowledge), this paper focuses on VA for non-technical domain experts. By seeking to understand knowledge sharing from VA experts to non-technical users of VA in a multidisciplinary team, we aim to explore how these domain experts learn to use VA as a thinking tool, guided by their knowing-in-practice. The research described in this paper was conducted in the context of a long-term industry-wide research project called the ‘Visual Historical Atlas of the Australian Co-operatives’, led by a multidisciplinary VA team who faced the challenge tackled by this research. Using Action Design Research (ADR) and the combined theoretical lens of boundary objects and secondary design, the paper theorises a three-phase method for knowledge transfer, translation and transformation from VA experts to domain experts using different types of VA-related boundary objects. Together with the proposed set of design principles, the three-phase model advances the well-established stream of research on organizational use of analytics, extending it to the emerging area of visual analytics for non-technical decision makers.
Journal Article
Business Co-operatives in Australia: “Unlikely Soil for a Co-operative Movement”
While co-operatives are traditionally associated with workers, consumers, and farmers, the business model, with its emphasis on democracy and community, has also been adopted by small business owners, the self-employed, and professionals. These business co-operatives are distinct phenomenon, because they primarily consist of independent organizational entities that are not co-operatives and are generally in direct competition with one another. They are unique in that they bring together separate organizations that seek to combat market threats while adopting a philosophy based on co-operative principles. This article begins with an overview of the Australian co-operative landscape. It then defines the concept of business co-operatives and then draws upon the Visual Atlas of Australian Co-operatives History Project, which has developed a large database of Australian co-operatives over time and space, to examine the development of business co-operatives in Australia. It looks at where business co-operatives formed in the economy, the motivation underlying their formation, their average life spans, and their relationships with the broader co-operative movement. The article highlights the value of business co-operatives in introducing the values of participatory democracy and working for the common good into unanticipated markets and reinforcing the co-operative movement.
Journal Article
Resistance Is Not Futile: Co-operatives, Demutualization, Agriculture, and Neoliberalism in Australia
Recognition of co-operatives as a legitimate business model and form of economic participation was significantly challenged by the rise of neo-liberalism in the 1980s with its emphasis on individuals and markets. This fueled an externally and internally driven push to demutualize co-operatives and convert them into Investor Owned Businesses (IOB). While the international trend to demutualize emerged from the end of the Second World War, evidence indicates it accelerated from the late 1980s until the onset of the Global Financial Crisis. Drawing on an ongoing project of historical data collection and visual analysis of Australian co-operatives, this paper explores the Australian experience with demutualization, particularly with regard to agriculture. In line with the international experience, there has been a surge in Australian demutualization since the 1980s. However, while demutualization continues to be a feature of the Australian landscape post-GFC as co-operatives tackle with the changed political and economic environment, the paper also challenges the view that demutualization is inevitable for agricultural co-operatives. Co-operative managers can make strategic choices to avoid demutualization and retain member control. Further, co-operative culture and the persistence of co-operative clusters in particular regions can blunt the push to demutualize.
Journal Article
The Politics of Consumption and Labour History
Australian labour historians have generally concentrated on exploring the politics of production rather than of consumption. The behaviour, actions and perspectives of consumers, however, are just as important to our understanding of society as are those of producers. This article undertakes a general review of historical debates in the Australian literature concerning the concept of consumption. It then provides an overview of the Australian experience based on primary and secondary research. Two issues are of particular interest. The first is the collective response of workers and other groups to the issues associated with consumption including the prices and the quality of goods and services. The article will primarily focus on co-operatives as the collective response. The second issue is the way in which employers attempt to control consumption through a range of strategies including company stores and canteens.
Journal Article