"Collective Governance Is Collective Care"
Published in Common Dreams (December 2022)
“Creating a culture of collective care in the workplace is as essential as laying a strong foundation for a sturdy home.
A few years ago, I became a single parent. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area, where a living wage to afford childcare, housing, food, health care, transportation, and other needs for one adult and one child is about $100,000, according to the MIT Living Wage Calculator. My salary was under $70,000 at the time, and I suddenly found myself under a tremendous amount of financial stress. Although I received support from my former partner, I could not sleep at night from the worry and overwhelm. How was I going to provide for my family?
The organization I co-founded ten years ago, Pangea Legal Services, is a worker collective. We organize decision-making across eight hubs, or leadership committees. Every staff member sits on at least one hub responsible for an administrative area of the organization: HR, finance, communications, etc. We do not have an executive director. We co-govern our workplace through collectivized and decentralized structures built on our team's culture of deep empathy and care for one another.[…]”