Socialism: say how a co-op cuts back when work runs short

Co-Authored-By: Claude Opus 5.5 <[email protected]> Claude-Session: https://claude.ai/code/session_01QWPs69B8nQZjtPEUXMKzZx
2026-09-26 08:14:14 -06:00
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@@ -80,7 +80,7 @@ For a member who loses their job when the co-op fails, that's the worst time to
 - **Always cover members.** Where a state lets a co-op choose whether to cover its officers or owners, a locked co-op chooses to cover them. That's a condition of the bank's loan and part of the charter.
 - **Members are told in writing** before they join if their state leaves them out, the same notice Washington already requires for officers who aren't covered.
 - **A model state law copies Washington and goes further.** It's a separate short law a state can adopt on its own, apart from [the lock's state law](lock-state-law.md): members of a locked co-op are covered like any other worker, and their membership share doesn't count as ownership when they claim.
- **Owners can't lay themselves off in turns.** The worry behind the state exclusions is real: owners can arrange their own layoffs. So under the model law, a member laid off in a rotation isn't counted as unemployed, except through the state's work-sharing program where it has one. Layoffs follow the co-op's written layoff order, and like any employer, a co-op whose members claim benefits pays a higher tax rate.
+- **Owners can't lay themselves off in turns.** The worry behind the state exclusions is real: owners can arrange their own layoffs. So under the model law, a member laid off in a rotation isn't counted as unemployed, except through the state's work-sharing program where it has one. Layoffs follow the co-op's [written layoff order](downturns.md#the-layoff-order), and like any employer, a co-op whose members claim benefits pays a higher tax rate.
 - **Where a state still excludes members,** co-ops in that state can band together through the [federation](federation.md) for their own unemployment cover. Mondragon did this. When Spain excluded co-op members from its social security system in 1958, the co-ops built their own mutual insurer, Lagun Aro, and later added an unemployment benefit ([MONDRAGON, *History*](https://www.mondragon-corporation.com/en/history/)). In America, a shared fund like that is insurance, so it has to be licensed by the state or set up as a special trust the tax law allows for unemployment pay. It's optional.
 - **The pilot counts the gap.** It publishes how many members, by state, had no unemployment cover, and what happened to them when they lost their jobs.