There are two kinds of say in a business like ours. One belongs to its owners, who decide on the business itself, its money and its direction. Today that means the founders, and the people who work here gain it by becoming members, which nobody has done yet. The other is the say people have over their own work, and that one is running now. Worker Direction is our name for it.
What certification is for
Participation Certification, which we also call Worker Direction certification, is how somebody gets in. You learn how Worker Direction works and how the Solution Seeking System runs, and you show a founder or member that you understand both.
It does not give you a vote on the business. That comes with membership. What it opens is the programs and the tools: the paid work teams, the forums, the bounties, Recycled Knowledge, and a real say inside your own team’s area of responsibility.
How decisions get made
A team is a small version of the cooperative we are trying to build. Everybody in it takes part as an equal, and we try to reach consensus.
Not everything needs a formal vote. Sometimes a conversation settles it. Sometimes it is a lazy majority, a quick vote that goes with the majority of whoever takes part. When something is for the whole team to choose, like whether to close for a holiday or shorten the hours, we run a poll.
People lead things, too. We have let people take the lead on a lot of projects, especially on the marketing team.
Where it stands
One person has passed certification so far, and many more are close. We have still let everyone take part in most of what we do, certified or not. That has been the generous choice. It is probably time to hold to the rule more firmly, because a game works best when everybody playing it knows the rules.
You can build the path, but you cannot make anyone walk it
There has not been much pushback. The harder lesson is that people have to want to take part, and nobody can want it for them. A lot of people in America are disillusioned, and many are too cynical to try, or to trust anybody who offers. After decades of stagnant wages and workplaces that treated them badly, that cynicism was earned, which is where our 2025 post on Worker Direction started. We have also been burned, many times, by people who wanted power and respect from the arrangement without being willing to offer the same in return.
So we have decided to be patient. Our job is to make sure the path is fair and leads somewhere real. Then we wait for the people who want to walk it.
What comes next
More teams, each with its own area to decide over. Every one of them is a breeding ground for democracy, a place to practise deciding things together long before anybody owns anything, and we want as many of them as the shop can hold.