Business mentorship for worker empowerment and collective entrepreneurship
Developing worker-owned cooperatives as globally competitive partners of outsourcing companies
While the labor situation in the Philippines seems to be improving, it still leaves a lot to be desired. About 2.8 million Filipinos are unemployed and 6.9 million are underemployed. Of those employed, over 3.5 million are subject to the practices of personnel outsourcing agencies, which work to prevent the regularization of workers in order to keep costs low and profit high. As a result, these workers have limited benefits and are denied job security. Such practices, if legal, are nevertheless unethical, given that they hinder workers from attaining a decent standard of living.
The formation of worker-owned cooperatives will facilitate sustainable job creation, as well as the generation and equitable distribution of wealth, thus increasing per capita income for the workers and their families. However, workers will require training and education before they are ready to form such cooperatives, which they can avail of via a business mentorship center.
The Business
My concept is that of an out-of-the-box cooperative business mentorship center. The center will provide business mentorship and facilitate the setting up and promotion of nontraditional, mainstream, worker-owned cooperatives that will function as outsourcing partners for large, labor-intensive industries.
Prior to engagement with industry partners, members of the cooperatives will undergo rigorous training in the areas of cooperative governance, business management, and placement-ready skills in order to develop and transform them into worker-owner-entrepreneurs with globally competitive skills and mindsets.
Industries will prefer workers from the cooperatives because the cooperatives can deliver the following: (1) reasonable rates brought about by the tax exemptions accorded to cooperatives; (2) elimination of the need for implementing the costly industry practice of continuous hiring; (3) higher productivity of workers, which stems from the knowledge that they are owners of a business; (4) flexibility of services offered, as cooperatives can arrange billing schedules and deployment schemes in consideration of the needs of its clients; and (5) industrial peace, as worker-owned cooperatives eliminate the employer-employee relationship between the clients and the workers.
The cooperatives will be marketed by way of educating large companies on the benefits of partnering with worker-owned cooperatives through formal marketing presentations, online promotions, and print advertisements, among others.
Potential competitors are the existing personnel outsourcing agencies, as well as companies who continue to conduct in-house selection and recruitment of personnel for their non-core functions. Dealing with the former will involve the continuous and consistent emphasis on the advantages of a worker-owned cooperative, while dealing with the latter will involve education designed to bring about a shift in the human resource paradigm.
I already have business partners, as I belong to a pool of business trainers and consultants in the Philippines, all of who are nontraditional, out-of-the-box thinkers and have had experience in cooperative business management and governance.
With regard to the organization of funding, I will partner with firms exploring the possibility of outsourcing their non-core functions.
Development
Assuming that this plan will result in the establishment of just one (1) worker-owned cooperative, I expect that there will be 5,000 workers employed in three years, and 15,000 workers in ten years. All of these workers will have globally competitive skills, thereby ensuring career longevity and growth. I also expect an increase in per capita income for 5,000 families in three years, and 25,000 families in 10 years.
Industries in general will gain a better understanding of nontraditional, mainstream cooperatives and what such can offer.