Workers to Owners: The Story of Metis Construction

[Music] Medus construction was founded in 2008 as an LLC prior to becoming a co-op we were essentially a collection of subcontractors about five years ago we all came together at the rhine house project when we came here this was an old building that was falling down and didn't seem to have much of a future this was going to be a much larger project it kind of expanded as the project gained speed that was really the point at which we kind of achieved the critical mass to realize an idea that we had long been thinking about which was the idea of reorganizing as a co-op that really started the fire that turned into Bettis we spent about two years figuring out how to do this the coop is worker owned company it's also worker controlled that means that on an everyday level we operate like any other construction company we have project managers that make decisions but on the governance level we are democratically governed and all of our members participate in the decision-making process once the idea of becoming a workaround company was put on the table it was wholeheartedly embraced there was like about 20 people in the company at the time everyone was offered ownership like 18 of us took it so I mean that was pretty you know that was pretty resounding this was just at the end of the recession here everyone had had a couple of pretty rough years in times of recession of economic downturn as a corker own company we can all like to take lower wages so that gives us a lot more flexibility through difficult times with an independent contractor all the responsibilities on yourself and then so with the coop we share the burden of the company any small business owner knows what goes into running a small business and lack of sleep a lot of stress and to be able to work with a group of people that you really like to work with and to share that risk and share that stress makes working through those problems and those crises actually something that draws everybody together and is really rewarding from a business perspective worker owned companies tend to be substantially more profitable and more productive [Music] you could see with those people that converted to ownership just a general sense of this is mine being part of a co-op I mean I feel prideful about my work and I feel very responsible for the well-being of the company too at the same time there's a value in joining together with that common purpose Monday night we had a members vote that is now made healthcare a hundred percent for full-time employees as part of our Metis operating agreement for our work for owners there's a lot of advantages that come with this they participate they share in the profits the best way I can describe as an experience of community of being a part of something that's that's bigger than me but connects me to the work we do in a way that I wasn't connected to it before it's a pretty amazing experience to walk into work every day and feel like you're doing some small thing you know towards making the world a more just and equitable place and I wouldn't have any other way you