There are fourteen employees in the grocery and bakery.  Hitherto they have received wages higher than those generally prevailing throughout the city for the same kind of work, but recently on their own initiative they voted themselves a ten per cent decrease.  In a cooperative all members may know the financial status of the business and the employees found that, due to the diminishing margin of profit, the business could not support such a high scale of wages.  Their wage cut followed because as members of the cooperative they were interested not only in their own wages but in the good of the society as a whole.

The Utica Cooperative Society was organized in 1915 by a group of Germans.  Half a dozen nationalities are now represented, although Americans predominate.  Although they had only ninety-two members and $1,250 to start, they bought out a private store and began cooperative business.  Their bakery was originally in the cellar under the store.  The former owner was employed as manager.  For three or four years they experienced many difficulties.  Within two years two managers proved inefficient and had to be replaced.  Only the tenacious loyalty of a few kept the society alive.  But they had the foresight and determination to fight through those lean years.

Now for five years they have had the same manager.  He insists upon scrupulous bookkeeping methods, careful buying, close supervision of his work by the board of fifteen directors, strict regard for the needs and desires of the membership, and exceptional precautions against waste and leakage.  The president, a man having a private business of his, own, has an idealism almost religious in quality.  These two men cooperate closely on matters of policy and provide much of the leadership which has brought success.

The membership is now 380.  The capital stock has increased from $1,250 to $27,594.  The business in 1921 amounted to $105,598, forty per cent of which was done by the bakery.  Since 1915 the rebates to members on patronage have totaled $8,207, fluctuating from nothing at all in some years to eight per cent and ten per cent in other years.  During this period the lump sum saved to purchasers, including rebates, the earnings on stock shares, and reserve fund, amounted to $12,642.  This sum would have gone into the pockets of private storekeepers except for the cooperative store.

The Utica Society has succeeded because it has met the prime requirements for effective cooperation.  The greater part of the membership was loyal during critical times when the easy way would have been to withdraw and trade at chain stores.  The management worked unceasingly to put the business on an economical basis.  Finally they won out because they put Service over Profit and carried out that rule in the most practical and businesslike way they could find.

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Our Cooperative Cafeteria.