Alternative Technologies: The golden rule leads to employee ownership

[Music] my name is jerry scomer and i founded alternative technologies here in berkeley it became very clear to me that the workers who are responsible for the success of the organization should inherit it and have the opportunity to benefit by it we wanted to do something that was socially responsible so nonprofits because they're not organized around the profit motive seem natural for us everybody needs a phone system even non-profits when i was getting ready to retire i thought well what's the right thing to do here and i went back to my golden rule and the golden rule told me why shouldn't they inherit what they helped build alternative technologies being a work-around cooperative is so much more personal and i not only have a mission to deliver the best service to my clients that i can i have i'm part of a larger mission of the worker-owned movement when i've told my clients that we want to become a worker-owned cooperative that this is happening they like that their i.t support their telecom service isn't going to change i think it makes them feel like they're also part of this movement to really change how workers are treated in our economy alternative technology did all of our internal wiring both our phone and our computer systems we work with douglas jackson currently who's our account manager who previously had been our on-site tech i can't say enough about them they're just wonderful very knowledgeable and they are very very patient with all of our staff when they call for help alternatives culture has been to work as a team to bring a resolution to a particular client now the team knows that we're in it collectively to collectively share on resolving and supporting our clients so whenever we can do that and make a profit at the same time that's going to benefit the company as a whole this transition has taught me that worker owned co-op was the name of the way that i always thought that people should work we really just focused on growing people's ability to make decisions and participate and then it was kind of easy when we announced that we're going to be a co-op it sort of was a nice label to put on what we were already doing the future for alternative looks a lot like how we look now we were really focused on doing a great job for all our clients and that part hasn't changed the only thing that's changed is that we're kind of like walking the walk now we've talked the talk about being a values-based business but a co-op is a really great way to show that [Music]