Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Pay for work

[Diana Carroll (dianaecarroll]

For what it is worth, the subject of "buying out" of community work has
come up a few times here at Mosaic Commons (in Central MA). There are a few
key reasons we have never implemented it, including:

- it's a system that lets folks who have more money choose between working
and paying, while people who have fewer resources don't have that choice,
so there's a fundamental justice issue that privileges the wealthy.

- some work can't be outsourced (for instance, the managing of
outsourcing the work -- vetting, hiring and supervising contractors and
such -- as well as community-specific work like facilitating meetings or
being a trustee). A lot of those un-outsourceable jobs already fall to
people who do a disproportionate amount of community labor, and the result
would be more instead of less work for those people (or just not being able
to get enough volunteers to do everything).

Diana