There are many differences between worker-owners and associates, from responsibilities to benefits.

Associates are employees with a responsibility toward their job(s).  They are scheduled according to the needs of our business, but they may ask for time off when they need it (and they'll get it based on hours worked).  They are responsible for being on time and ready to work their shifts, as well as attending mandatory meetings.  Although they always have a voice that will be heard, they do not have a vote in any formal decision-making. 

Worker-owners are responsible for everything that an associate is, plus they have chosen to buy a share of the business.  With that share comes one vote in the decision-making process that helps shape our business.  Worker-owners are expected to be excellent problem solvers, ready to jump in and help out whenever there are issues or needs, and to be extremely knowledgeable about many aspects of our business.  They need to be informed about what's going on in order to make educated decisions.  Once one becomes a worker-owner, they get a raise that helps offset the cost of buying in, paid time off (based on hours worked) and profit payouts (based on hours worked).  Worker-owners are given preference for scheduling (based on hours worked), which may be permanent if they wish.  

There's a big long path you go down to become a worker-owner, and hopefully, it's exciting and fun.  It is filled with knowledge about how to own a business in so many different aspects. 

Once one has worked at Casa for at least six months, they can make a decision about whether or not to become a worker-owner.  If interested, they post a letter on our letter-posting fridge in the back of house saying they'd like to go for trial membership.  The board of directors will then interview them and make a recommendation to membership.  Then membership will interview them and vote on whether or not they feel this person is ready to become a trial member.

Once one is a trial member, there are lots of interesting things to do.  We have many committees, so this person will attend at least one meeting of each committee to decide where their interest lies.  They get to attend financial, systems and operations, food and cooperative workshops.  They also need to learn how to do at least two different positions.  Trial membership can go anywhere from 3-9 months.

Once one has gone through trial membership and has decided they want to be a fellow owner, they post another letter expressing their intent to be a member.  The board of directors will interview them again and make a recommendation to membership.  Then membership will interview them and vote on whether or not they feel this person is ready to become a worker-owner, and whether or not they trust them as a business partner.

From 1985 when Casa first began until 2001, Casa operated using the consensus decision making process which requires all owners to agree to make a change. Around 2001, workerownership reached a high of 45 owners and cooperative education began to fall away. Some of the owners at the time are reported as having difficult personalities, and power plays during member meetings were common.

A few worker owners got fed up with situation, and decided to deal with it by changing Casa's decision making parameters from consensus to a supermajority voting system that required 76% approval during the first meeting. If the vote could not be won during that first meeting, it could go to a second meeting where only 51% approval would be needed. In this way, membership thought it would be easier to agree, in that they could legally ignore the concerns of up to 49% of membership.

Casa operated under that supermajority system for 9 years, until in 2009 when a younger infusion of newer owners who were dedicated to reinvigorating the original ideals of cooperativism and equality created a proposal to change our decision making parameters back to the consensus model. We believe that this model promotes cooperation and equality by requiring all perspectives and opionions to have equal weight, where voting promotes competition and alienates those whose ideas are less popular.

We are currently in a trial period where we are pracitcing and re-learning these skills. The following are some links that we have found helpful for our own education. We also got training from APJN.

A Guide To Formal Consensus
Wikipedia's "Consensus Decision-Making"

Associate benefits include:

• Health insurance with parttime work
• Retirement benefits
• A raise for every 1000 hours worked
• Free meal while on shift
• Half-priced meals when not working
• Libations discounts
• Ability to request time off whenever they like
• Wholesale grocery and body care shopping
• Closed Thanksgiving and Christmas
• Free admission to our own Cantina shows
• Opportunities for professional education through classes, conferences and committee work
• A totally unique and crazy work experience

Worker-owner benefits include:

• Health insurance after with parttime work
• Retirement benefits
• A raise upon becoming a member
• A raise for every 1000 hours worked
• Free meal while on shift
• Half-priced meals when not working
• Libations discounts
• Free admission to our own Cantina shows
• Opportunities for professional education through classes, conferences and committee work
• Permanent schedule
• Wholesale grocery and body care shopping
• Closed Thanksgiving and Christmas
• 1 share, 1 vote
• Sabbatical (up to 1 year, with the option to take sabbatical again and again as long as there are 9 months+the length of the sabbatical between sabbaticals)
• Medical and/or Family Leave-of-Absence
• Pay advance
• Emergency loan
• Vacation loan
• Paid time off (allocated by hours worked)
• A totally unique and crazy work experience

How DO we split profits?  This is a totally complicated question with several answers.

First, once one becomes a member, they begin to receive profits after they have paid off their member fee.  Usually, after two years, the fee is paid off, and the next time we split profits, they will receive a part of it. 

The profit the business makes in a year is split so that 40% goes back into our business as equity and 60% gets distributed to the worker-owners.  Each worker-owner receives their profit in two parts:  80% in May and 20% in October.  The profits we are splitting in a given year are from the previous year.  The profits that each member receives are based on hours worked for the year that the profits are being split from.  Make sense?

For each fiscal year, we set financial goals, or projections, which we want to hit for each quarter.  A cool benefit for members is if we make a profit in any given quarter that is 1.5% over projections, the membership can vote on whether or not we want to split up the "cream on the top" and take home some of that profit early, or if we want to leave it in the business to help us out in leaner times.

We believe it's ok to be indulgent.  We like to be open-minded and try different things.  We strive to make Mexican-style food, even though we can be excessively cheesy.  But at least when we're being cheesy, we use a variety of local, organic cheeses made from the milk of hormone and antibiotic-free, free-range cows and goats.

We are advocates of the Slow Food movement, making everything in-house and from scratch.  We pride ourselves on those dishes that are lightly handled and simple, as well as the intricate flavors in recipes that make Casa what it is.  Seasonality has always been our specialty.

We continue to network with as many producers of local, sustainable and organic foods as we can in order to bolster our local economy, while at the same time keeping things affordable for our customers.

We strive to be as transparent as we can with our customers, to educate them as well as our own staff.  Cheers to healthy and happy meals always!

Fun, Affordable, Wildharvesting, Family, Quality/craftsmanship, Putting up food for winter, Friends/social, Community Indulgence/sensory, Happiness, Healthy, Flavorful, Lightly-handled, Basic Needs, Survival, Trying new foods, Appreciation Sustainability, Satisfaction/filling, Wholesome, Excitement for local staple grains, Tasty, Variety

Are you into the open source movement?  We're getting into it.  It truly jives with our mission, and we're proud to have done nearly all of our web work with open source programming.  Read on for more info!

From opensource.org:

The Open Source Definition

From Rex:

"'Waitron' is a term I've encountered in the restaurant industry at large, sort of a robotic-sounding, non-gender-specific version of 'waiter/waitress'.  'Server' is probably more popular in the industry because it is gender-neutral and has a more human feel.

"As far as 'casatron' goes, I'm pretty sure I coined this term, and I find my self-restraint in not constantly telling people so quite admirable. But maybe I didn't... I was inspired by the word 'waitron', and it's easier to say than 'worker-owner' or 'casanian' (yes, i've seen this used) as a demonym. Is that the right word?

"Hey, when i ran a spell check to see if demonym was a/the word i wanted, the spellchecker suggested 'Castro' in place of 'casatron'!"

There's a great discussion about "trons" on Chowhound if you'd like to check that out.

Well, first of all, our restaurant is very popular!  Everyone loves to come to this quintessentially Athens eatery.  Unfortunately, our restaurant is also very small.  When you walk in, the empty tables you are seeing are in our Cantina, where we do not offer table service (although we have the great Bodega kitchen from whom you may order tasty appetizers to pick up!).  If there are empty tables in the restaurant, it's probably because our hosts are getting ready to seat a large table.

Another reason you may have to wait for a table for so long is because all of our food, from the prepped items to your entrées, is made from scratch.  We don't have microwaves to heat your food quickly (we use convection ovens), and we don't pre-prep any of your food since we believe that it tastes best made fresh and from scratch.  We hope you won't be disappointed!

Rex sez, "Well, as far as Casa goes, yeah, it was formerly sometimes used as an all-purpose noun, like "thingamajig" or the like. Even then, however, it usually referred to some kind of container or vessel.

"'THE hamils' used to refer to the bus tubs when I started working here in 1990; wait staff would yell "HAMILS!" at the dishwasher when they were full.  But at the same time, a bain might be called a "metal bean hamil", and sour cream hamils were called sour cream hamils...

"In terms of spelling, Casatrons have spelled it both 'hamel' and 'hamil'.  I've heard one or two old timers say they'd heard it used similarly as a term for a vessel when working in NYC.

"Back before internet info availability I looked it up in one of those big unabridged dictionaries. My memory of this is:

spelling: hamal
origin: Arabic
definition: a water bearer (person who hauls water), or the vessel used for hauling water.

"I can't remember when/where it was theorized to have entered English language usage."

There are at least 6 ways that cooperatives raise money:

A.  Membership fees. Worker/members will usually have to invest capital in the form of membership fees to start the business. As new worker/members join the firm they pay an equal amount or percentage as a membership fee. Payments are sometimes made through payroll deductions. When a worker retires from the firm, the membership fee is returned, assuming the company has been profitable.

B.  Reinvestment of Profits. Each year the cooperative must decide what to do with the monies left after payment of expenses. Given the need for capital, particularly in the first years of the business, the majority of the surplus will probably be reinvested in the business in order to promote steady, healthy growth of the company. All reinvested funds will be allocated to the internal accounts of the members on the basis of patronage and eventually it will be paid out to members.

C.  National Cooperative Bank and the National Cooperative Bank Development Corporation both provide debt and equity financing to worker cooperatives and ESOP's.

D.  Commercial Banks. Cooperatives can also sometimes borrow from commercial banks.

E.  Specialized Community Development Funds. Some state and local governments have established funds for the development of businesses that are more broadly owned than the normal business corporations. These "community development funds" often have guidelines, which make their use by worker cooperatives possible.

F.  Churches, Foundations and Other Private Groups. These organizations often devote a portion of their funds to community economic development and usually view worker cooperatives as eligible for funding, particularly through their loan funds. Examples of such groups are the Industrial Cooperative Association, the North Court Development Fund, the Campaign for Human Development and the Cooperative Assistance Fund.