Sunday, August 3, 2008

Collective Copies

Life was difficult for the workers of Gnomon Copies in 1983. The workers of the shop had been on strike for months due to bad pay, poor equipment, and horrible working conditions. Making ends meet was difficult as they struggled to survive. Then, just when things were looking up because an agreement had been reached with management, Gnomon Copies was evicted and shut down.

Rather than going their separate ways the workers started their own copy center. But this one would be like no other. It would be a worker’s cooperative called Collective Copies.

With its original site located in Amherst, Massachusetts Collective Copies is the only worker-owned copy center in the nation. They provide a wide range of services such as file printing, high resolution digital reproduction in a wide variety of formats, digital scanning of documents and images, finishing services, and much more.

Collective Copies is organized as a collective, meaning that it’s a worker-owned cooperative in which all of the members are equally involved in the operation and there is no management or labor division. Decisions are made through consensus with the workers sharing the various duties in the operation of the copy center.

The workers of Collective Copies care for more than just their own members and customers. Each year the cooperative donates ten percent of their pre-tax profits to help organizations such as student groups, child development, human rights, environmental defense and many more.

Collective Copies is a unique and special economic enterprise. Through it we get a glimpse of hopeful future for us all.

Visit their web site (the source of the above information) at: http://www.collectivecopies.us/

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