Community Cycles in Boulder has two paid staff. They are welcome at all of our board meetings, but cannot serve on the board, and cannot vote on issues. They can and do speak their minds, and we welcome their input. When it comes to issues with their pay, holiday bonuses, etc, the board will ask them to step outside the room while we discuss the issue at hand.
We also have several positions which are paid a stipend, but are for one off or potentially one off type positions. We booth/table at our local farmer's market, and do repairs/tuneups, and we staff that booth with one paid staff member, and one volunteer who earns a 10-20 stipend (i can't remember which at the moment...damned snow!!!) for the day, to pay for their lunch. the stipend is paid daily, out of the petty cash. we don't have a permanent position for this, other than one paid staff member.
We're currently looking at paying one more staff member--in the interest of full disclosure, that person is me--to help run some of our youth programs. i currently do those as a volunteer, and i serve on the board. if i were to accept the paid position, i would be employed as a contractor, and get paid per class i work. i would also no longer be eligible to serve on the board, since i'm getting paid. i'm presenting my acceptance/rejection of the offer to our board this evening, actually. i still don't know which way i'll go.
as for keeping track of paid employees time, we've come up with a pretty detailed job description (in the last quarter of '07), and we plan on doing regular checkups, and employee reviews of our two staff members. to date, any performance issues we've had have been more in the vein of "dammit, rich, it's time you took a day off and told the interested group that their project will have to wait!", and not "we're paying you too much for what you do...". not a bad problem to have, i suppose, but we're well aware that burnout is often a few rusty bikes away, and we've taken steps (mandatory days off for the paid staff) to help alleviate some of that pressure.
hope that helps...
josh.
On Feb 4, 2008 12:21 PM, Erik Stockmeier eriks@therecyclery.org wrote:
Hello, comrades,
At BB last year I heard a number of different takes on the issue of payment to core/committed/etc members of the shop. This is obviously something that many of us have struggled with--a small stipend can enable someone to spend much more time in the shop and increase productivity, etc, but it also can have pitfalls: shifting emphasis toward making money & away from service/community/etc goals.
Not to be nosey, but I'm wondering how different shops have approached this, both through payrolls and alternate routes. I'm also wondering what kind of decision-making and account-taking goes on in regards to taking care of each others' needs so that neither individuals nor the organisation as an organism is exploited. There are also questions of seasonable labor, the threat of a paid, empowered elite vs the volunteer masses... I'm just thinking out loud.
Sorry this question is so broad and filled with etc's. If any kind of discussion comes out of it I will be happy to elaborate on my own experiences (can't speak for all of The Recyclery) but for now I'm curious about what else is out there and how well it has worked. I'm interested to hear from all-volunteer groups as well, of course.
Thanks- Erik Stockmeier The Recyclery www.therecyclery.org
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