Cooperation in New England Volume 6 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1888 edition. Excerpt: ... has made. But no such plan is possible where men are paid by the day; and the simple per capita method of dividing profits might well prove most satisfactory, at least in such a trade as painting. Not to digress further, Mr. Woolsey's twelve men were found; but before they were ready for action the season was well advanced, they lacked the necessary means, and they feared that the new shop might not be able at once to secure sufficient work. It is not unlikely that the spring of 1887 may find Mr. Woolsey's shop transformed into a cooperative establishment. But meanwhile another painter, Mr. E. M. E. Pease, had succeeded in establishing a cooperative shop, which was incorporated on the 29th of June, 1886, as the "Painters and Decorators' Cooperative Association of Minneapolis." The active painting season was already well spent, the summer's work was largely contracted for by the other shops, and the new establishment expected no immediately brilliant success. Twenty painters were enrolled as subscribers for stock, with the understanding that half of them would keep their places in other shops as journeymen, not assuming active membership before the opening of the next season, until which time no payments were to be expected from them. The active members took each a fifty-dollar share of stock, upon which they made initial payments of ten dollars, and have since been paying assessments of five dollars. Large capital is, of course, not essential. The new shop has been fortunate in securing work, and is regarded already as an established success. Thus far it has done general housepainting, all its members working at the same lines of the trade, although it includes men qualified as sign-painters, frescoers...