Manual for a cooperation in solidarity:
The idea of this text is to suggest and give an understanding of a political idea of how to organize a cooperation in solidarity. It is an attempt to present this idea as transparent and clear as possible. It does not claim to fully explain the problems, nor will everything be clear from the beginning. Nevertheless this concept should act as a starting point to bring forward the discussion and to risk a first step.
Probably you, but also many others, have experienced first hand, that it is not so easy to find a way of financially surviving, not to mention finding classical
ways of employment. Millions of people are unemployed and this fact will not change for a certain while. The capitalistic system will not now or in future be able to provide the basic needs of everyone or even to secure a ground for surviving.
At our collective workshop in Thessaloniki we are trying to counteract these problems collectively. People are offered a space where they can meet and create. We are already cooking together on a regular base and our weekly schedule is full of other activities, while constantly working on realizing new projects.
Through different actions we have managed to gather our first money that can be used for the collective. At this point the question of what to do with the money comes up. How can we use the money in order to use it best for everyone involved? Which organizational frame does the collective of this workshop need in order to further have the possibility to offer a perspective for those involved?
The question of - what to do with the money
- is directly connected to the question of what we spend the money on. The needs are very different, while the basic needs are overlapping . As the ressource money is always limited in solidarity structures and not available for everyone, we need to find other possibilities to help us and each other. This leads us to the first point of this manual:
1. For what are you spending your money?
The focus of this question should not be money itself but the needs you are spending it on. The exchange of money for goods (or services), that is to say in exchange for what you need, is creating a strong dependency. The reason for this has its base in the connection of money and work in form of contract work. We will later try to further investigate this connection practically.
We want to ask you to think little bit about what you are actually spending your money on. Are you eating out a lot? Do you cook yourself or spend a lot of money in the supermarket? Do you like going out and sometimes spend money for a couple of beers or a pack of tobacco?
The following list should be used so you can get an overview of your needs and your dependancy on money. This list should be used as an example on how such an overview can be done and which information you can extract from it:
| Goods and services of daily need |
Expenses per month in EURO |
| Groceries from the supermarket |
50 |
| Frappee at the cafe |
10 |
| Beer from the kiosk |
12 |
| Eating out/ snacks |
23 |
| Hairdresser |
10 |
| Clothes |
30 |
| Tobacco |
25 |
| Total |
160 |
This list is just exemplary but maybe it already matches with your own expenses.
As you can see this is already a bunge and the demand for money you need to purchase these things is very high. Now we as a collective want to try to see, for which things we dont need any or less money in the end. At our workshop we can find many things from this list, which we can organize as a collective and make it available for everyone.
Afterwards we want to use the things that are available in the workshop and adapt this list and reduce it according to the things we can not provide with the workshop. Everyone who has made such a list can sit together in order to see where they overlap and how they can be made accessible in the collective.
One common example of a good that needs to be purchased expensively by many people is tobacco. There is different ways of how we can keep the costs for tobacco low, if we organize it collectivey. A 15 g pack of tobacco costs approximately 4 €, that means a price of 270€ per kilo. There is the possibility to buy a kilo of tobacco outside of Thessaloniki for about 20€. Buying and distributing this tobacco together in big amounts would already diminish the dependency on money effectively. There is many other examples that can manifest this effect.
Permanenty questioning out needs and the possibilities of organizing these is a process that can empower us piece by piece to take our live and economy back in our own hands.
However there will allways be things that we as a group can not organize on the long run. In these cases we can not avoid getting in touch with money.
This does not weaken our idea and for now there is nothing we can change about this fact. However this manual should encourage you to organize life collectively, so that your income does not depend on contract work, but on the fact that you exist and that unfortunately you need at least a little money in order to survive. We believe that you will use your own abilities and judgement to participate the way you want and can. Every form of work shall be valued.
2 How to make money?
Of course there will allways be work in the collective, with which we can earn more money and work, with which we can earn less. This is more due to the fact that cultural goods such as music and art, as well as social and reproductive work, are financially more valued than others. One of the reasons for this is that they do not contribute to the economic growth of the nation or that they are believed to be of some sort of
natural order
when it comes to care work. We want to counteract this tendency and give everyone the possibility of financial participation, no matter how their work is assessed by a system that runs on profit. There is no competition between us and we are all working for the same goal.
There are certain works and things we can do in order to provide for ourselves financially and this is where everyone in the collective should be involved. After assessing our needs we want to continue to the next question:
3. Which production- and service structures can we use in order to generate financial ressources?
There is different possibilities with which we have already had good experiences. For example there is a well functioning kitchen community that has already been able to provide a big number of meals and with this earn a considerable amount of money. Our main focus in future will also be cooking. Activities like food recycling should directly contribute to turning the garbage of a society has its base in profit into something usable and meanwhile help to minimize the costs of purchase.
But there is more possibilities. We have a huge stock of fabric that can be manufactured to anything with the sewing machines we have.
There is the possibility to start handcraft groups and look for jobs in the neighbourhood. There is the possibility to make the squats in Ano Poli winter proof or help repairing fourniture. Step by step there will be more and more tools and material available in the workshop. If you have an idea and want to start a projet yourself, dont hesitate to contact us. Every participation is appreciated.
Here you can find a small list of projects that already exist and how you can get involved:
| Working group/ collectiv |
Short description |
| Restaurant, cafe, snacks, catering |
Project that is already running, like the collective dinner on thursday evening. Can be extended to more days |
| Production of groceries |
With the kitchen equipment we have, there is the possibility to preserve food in glases, cook, make cookies and cakes or produce juices, sauces and many other things.
|
| Electrics |
There is always electrics that need to be fixed in the workshop and other places |
| Sewing |
There is the possibility to produce tobacco bags and other stuff with the sewing machines and fabric we have in our storage |
| Plumbing/heating/building |
It is getting cold and there are lots of stuff to do so we can stay warm |
| Computer |
We always need people that know about computer hardware and software. We are trying to organize an IT-collective in the basement |
| Library/infoshop |
We are trying to set up a library/infoshop, where we print and read political literature together |
| Bicycle workshop |
We have a couple of old bicycles here that need to be fixed and are always looking for more. |
| Mechanics |
We have access to a couple of cars and it would be nice if we can find a collective that wants to get involved into maintaining and fixing them |
Wood workshop |
Old furniture can be self-made or repaired |
| Recycling |
There is a lot of usefull lying around in Thessaloniki. We always try to find and use food, wood, electrical devices and furniture we can reuse! |
This is only a small list of things that are already done or can be in the future. A lot of tools are already available and people that want to use them are always welcome.
4. What to do with the money?
There is different possibilities of what to do with the money and everyone is invited to come and discuss about it. The three following possiblities have already come up:
-We use the money for the project and buy new tools and other things we could use.
-We give it to fellow humans in need
-We distribute some sort of basic income to everyone interested
How and for what we will use the money in the end shall be decided collectively and depending on the circumstances we find ourselves in at a given time.
We are only starting and it will probably take a lot of time and common trust in order to be able to build up a sustainable (financial) structure and perspective. However the road to it lies only in our own hands. The substantial point is that we want to build an alternative by taking care of each other instead of finding ourselves in constant competition. We do not want to be judged for our work perfomance and accomplishements, but to appreciate each other on the foundation of our existence.
If you want to participate join the general meeting on monday at 6pm at the workshop place or email us on
agriogata@riseup.net