Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: work-or-pay system - legalities? general advice?

[Sharon Villines (sharon]

On 17 Apr 2011, at 1:53 AM, David L. Mandel wrote:

> the problem with "pay or play" is that it can reinforce the inequality. Say 
> I'm very busy with what I consider the very important responsibilities of my 
> work, family, other activities, whatever. But I'm lucky enough to have a 
> well-paying job and rather low expenses, so I can easily choose to pay more 
> and work less in the community. You, on the other hand, do vital work that 
> doesn't pay much and are struggling to put two kids through college. You 
> don't have that choice, so you get stuck with some of my share of the 
> community work too. How fair is that? How likely to foster good community 
> feelings?

Arguments based on hypotheticals are destructive because they are endless and 
unresolvable. They require counter-arguments based on even more extreme 
examples. And for solutions to be arm wrenchingly impossible. When I was 
interviewing the record keeper at EcoVillage of Loudoun County I raised some 
what-if questions. She responded, "That never happens."

"But what-if?" 

"Well, we would deal with it, but it never happens."

Everyone considers their work to be important — either because they need the 
money or it is intrinsically important. Otherwise they wouldn't be doing it.

All the workshare programs I've seen allow people to contribute time to others 
— or presumably, even pay for the hours of another. So unless doing the work, 
rather than the work itself, is considered to be essential to belonging to the 
community, one person could do the work of the other and use their own 
judgement about whether it was helpful to the community.

What is important is figuring out how to build and maintain a strong community 
— one in which everyone feels physically and emotionally secure. Maintaining a 
consensus community requires accountability and everyone playing by the same 
rules. If a community can do that without a play or pay policy, go for it. I"m 
not hearing that. They may be doing well in many ways, but scratch the surface 
and you get blood — and factions and back-biting, if not back stabbing.

Fairness isn't about exactly the same, but it is about everyone contributing 
more to the sense of the whole than they take away.

Sharon
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Sharon Villines
Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
http://www.takomavillage.org