Scrap seller Cooperative concept - Page 2

Without Co-Ops Australias primary production industries (agriculture, livestock, fishing) would have failed many years ago, and we would be over run with chinese imports..



I would be part of one, if one was in exsistance here in Australia, but have neither the time, or head space to build one.

I applaude your thinking Korrosive, and hope that through this thread, the right kind of members will contact you and make a go of it.

Better to try and fail, than to never try at all!!

I understand the whole teamwork thing, been building large things for over two decades and organizing the people that are involved in the projects...also a USA Hockey level 5 coach so I've been thoroughly educated on how to motivate.

Sure more get's done when you cooperate, that goes without saying. But even more gets done when there is a clear understanding of the what the final outcome or goal is, you then assemble the team to complete the job and help each person to understand what their role is. Then the reality of it is, some team members are more valuable then others so they get a bigger slice.

"Then the reality of it is, some team members are more valuable then others so they get a bigger slice."

Reminds me of the Pigs mantra in Orwell's Animal Farm--"all creatures are created equal but some are more equal than others."

And I'm unsure of the parallels. I'm not advocating that everyone would gather metal and average loads, so no one got paid any more than anyone else. I'm just trying to shed some cost/benefit on cooperation. think of what scrappers do to squeeze out a couple of pennies, the pissing and fuming, the Nitons dragged out to be sure they're getting best value.

KZ, perhaps you're at the top of the scrapper's food chain and don't want others to exploit your prices, is that the case? I kind of understand the position, except that what I know of cooperation is that it doesn't pay out in every instance, but it wins in the long run. Your comments indicate a concern that others would benefit from you, not that you would benefit from them.

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It's a good point. A co-op would need generally equal partners. If you're bigger than everyone else in a group, you might only help your competitors and realize little or no gain yourself. This goes back to Game Theory: the strategy of always cooperate/never retaliate is a failed strategy.

In the case of your manufacturing biz: my experience is in fishing: I owned the boat. I found the fish. I got paid the most. But woe to me if I forgot the lowly deckhand cutting and gutting, because as mindless/skill-less as that job was, the operation couldn't run without them. No deckhands, no fish. I paid my help well, pulled them out the bars when i had to, took care of them when i had to. I could've replaced them with greenhorns, but greenhorns every month don't make a boat money. The captains i knew who flogged their people, abused their boats, paid flat rates, churned thru help. They won on the big days, but in the long run they never made a serious go of things. The other thing is my crew trusted me, and i trusted them. That alone kept us afloat literally and figuratively.

Not sure how. I'm trying to challenge ideas, not individuals.

If you mean my disputing statements, well, you know the old cliche: you gotta break some eggs if you want to make an omelet.

Discussions without dispute aren't exactly...enlightening.

I think it was Feynman who said " when there's two people in agreement, one of them is irrelevant."

Originally Posted by smajor

And then there's the concept of cooperatives cooperating with each other.

Works in Agriculture.

Just to clarify, I'm not at the top of the scrap chain not even in the middle. I'm just a businessman that has seen a lot of people try to succeed in business, trying many different ways with most not making the cut. I could see a co-op working if it was kept to a manageable size and had a place where the members could bring there load to store in the respective piles until ready to turn in. There would have to be some sort of rotation as to who was going to be responsible for pricing and bringing a load in then dispersing the receipts, or assign members so that a group is responsible for a pile. Start out on a small scale and evaluate to see if the goals are being met. It would have to be a pretty close nit group that trust each other with the money and that they are pulling their weight in all areas and most times this is where things go south.

I am curious of Kris Kringles take on this but since we are of the 1% that don't get it according to those getting the press these days, I have a pretty good idea.

MDG I've been following OD's thread just haven't chimed in yet. I like olddudes idea much better then this one because it's more of a partnership type thing so your in or out. This one-hit-wonder above seemed to want more of a socialist type yard/co-op where someone could get max payout for little risk of investing time or money.

I'm not anti-cooperation I'm just anti-socialist. I call that pro-capitalist.

I believe I agree with you KZ and mr dew perhaps get together make a deal, part with profit. Repeat as needed. Mike.

Some of us get a lot better pricing for non-ferrous at the local yards than others. If the local scrappers got together and found out which one got the best price for the specific item and pooled their material, everyone would get a better price. You could do that on a case by case basis. I cash in my scale tickets every week and get paid in cash so it would be easy for me to divy up

FYI: I'm in Ellensburg WA every other week so if any of the WA scrappers want to compare prices, PM me.