American Agriculturist, December 8, 1923 
389 
The Cooperative’s “Hired Man” 
Third of the Series of Articles on Problems That Cooperatives Face 
F EW of us have ever stopped to realize how 
complicated this business of marketing is, 
and how many different kinds of business 
are involved. A cooperative marketing 
organization doing a large business needs ex¬ 
pert salesmen and sales managers. It needs 
a man or men trained in the modern science 
of advertising; it needs some one with an expert 
knowledge of banking and accounting. If it 
uses the railroads, to any extent, and most of 
them do, an expert traffic man must be employed. 
Also, good legal talent is essential. All of these 
and other trades and professions touch the mar¬ 
keting business, in addition to those which come 
nearer the farmers such as grading, packing, 
processing, standardizing, and storing the product. 
It is plain that experts must be hired for these 
jobs, and I think the chief qualification to be 
demanded is successful experience in the work 
which the employee is expected to do for the co¬ 
operative. In addition to these spe¬ 
cial qualifications, at least a part of — 
the employees of a farmers’ organiza¬ 
tion should be men who came orig¬ 
inally from the farm, with a knowl¬ 
edge of farm conditions and sympathy 
with the many problems which the 
farmer is up against. It will, of 
course, be impossible to have all 
employees with this qualification, but 
there must be at least some—and 
certainly those who have direct rela¬ 
tions between the cooperative and the 
farmers should have it. Also, no 
employee should enter any important 
position in a cooperative without 
having a general knowledge of the 
organization and what it is trying to 
do, and of the whole cooperative 
movement. With a corps of “hired 
who, in addition to their spe 
By E. R. EASTMAN 
to stay very long. There are a good many men 
working for the farmers’ organizations in New 
York and elsewhere who are now earning less 
money than they could get elsewhere, and are 
staying for a time as a matter of principle. They 
cannot long continue to do this. 
Furthermore, there is a very great uncertainty 
as to the future from an employee’s standpoint 
in all cooperative work. They look back over the 
history of farmers’ organizations and think of the 
long line of men both officers and employees who 
have faithfully served cooperative organizations, 
who were left stranded and oftentimes discredited 
by the wayside, and they see little for themselves 
to look forward to in cooperative work. 
There is a modern tendency in business to make 
faithful and capable employees partners in the 
business, by making it possible in some way for 
men 
cial training for their particular jobs, 
have a farm sympathy and viewpoint 
and a knowledge of the aims and 
ideals of cooperation, the organiza¬ 
tion will ha’ve an “ esprit de corps”; - 
that is, a spirit of loyalty and a de¬ 
termination to work together for success that will 
be difficult to beat. 
I do not think that a reputation as a “big man” 
in the business world is much of a qualification 
for a farmer organization employee. There has 
been a good deal of nonsense about hiring “big 
men” for cooperative work with the result that 
there has been a tendency to go out and pay a big 
salary for some spectacular “big man,” who, when 
he is set to work in a cooperative organization, 
proves himself to be mostly bluff. Such men are 
more apt to be interested in advertising themselves 
and in making a big demonstration. The really 
big men in the business world or anywhere else, 
are usually poor self advertisers. They are often 
little known, having been more interested in 
building up and quietly and conservatively 
directing a successful business than they have in 
getting a sensational reputation as a “big business 
man.” This "business of marketing by organiza¬ 
tion is new work. It must be built up slowly and 
gradually. Farmers are in no position to stand 
heavy losses caused by building too rapidly on 
poor foundations or by too spectacular methods. 
What about salaries for the cooperative’s 
“.hired man”? This is a real problem for salaries 
add to overhead and keep returns to farmers 
down. They look mighty big, too, to the average 
farmer who sees very little cash in the course of 
the year. But we can lay this down as a general 
principle: that unless a farmers’ organization is 
sound enough and well built enough to hire and 
adequately pay for good employees, it will surely 
Let Us Think About It 
T HERE has been much written in the last few years on farmers’ 
cooperatives, but nothing has appeared like the full and frank 
discussions we are giving you in the recent issues of American 
Agriculturist. Cooperative marketing is here to stay, but like all 
new machines, it is very crude. The sooner farmers can get the sand 
out of the gears and perfect the machine, the sooner it will enable 
them to sell their products to better advantage. 
This means that we must give careful and much thought to our 
organizations. Read these articles and think about them. Prob¬ 
ably you will disagree with some of. the statements. We do not 
care so long as they start you thinking constructively about how 
you can work better with other farmers to sell your products for 
more money. If you wish, write us your views in a short letter and 
help us to think; but don’t bother to write fault-finding letters. 
Farmers tried that on their marketing problems for more than 
fifty years and it did no good.—The Editors. 
It is easy to see this in plain figures. Applied 
to the milk business, a plant which ships a hundred 
cans of milk a day has a fain volume. It takes 
about three men to handle this milk in the plant. 
At present, suchlaborcosts about six dollars a day, 
or an item of eighteen dollars for labor in the 
plant to start with. This means a labor cost of 
eighteen cents a can, to say nothing of all the rest 
of the labor charges involved in marketing the 
product. If there were several plants under one 
management, there would be further wage or 
salary charges of managers and clerks. 
Now suppose that for some reason this plant 
was deserted by some of its farmers, or some of the 
dairies were sold, or maybe a mistake was made 
in locating the plant in the first place so that the 
plant handled only fifty cans a day. Unless some 
of the men were discharged, the labor cost would 
be doubled immediately. 
It is easier to hire men than to discharge them, 
and maybe at another time of the 
.. — year the supply would come back 
again so that the men would have to 
be kept on the job in order to have 
them when they were needed. 
The same principle applies to the 
marketing of apples in the coopera¬ 
tive packing houses and to the mar¬ 
keting of any other farm commodity. 
It would seem that right here was 
the secret of the ultimate success or 
failure of farm organization; that is, 
the volume of business must be kept 
large enough to justify the amount 
of labor employed. To work this 
out, two responsibilities are involved: 
first, the responsibility of the average 
farmer to patronize his cooperative 
so as to keep the volume large; and 
second, the responsibility of the 
directors of the cooperative to keep 
the amount of labor low, in propor¬ 
tion to the volume of business 
handled. 
Another important factor in con¬ 
nection with the cooperative’s “hired 
the relations between the 
men 
is 
If an advertising expert, an accountant, a 
lawyer, or any of the other many employees of 
a cooperative can get a better salary from some 
other business it is very plain that he is not going 
them to share in the stock or the business. The officers and the directors of the cooperative and 
so-called “California Plan” of cooperation which the employees. In the first place, the directors 
has no stock and no dividends has many good must be held responsible by the farmers for the 
points and is rapidly gaining ground in America, success of the work. But it seems to me that this 
It does make every farmer a partner in the busi- does not mean that the farmer directors or officers 
ness. But an organization built on this plan does should attempt to run the details of the business, 
not offer much to employees and they never can That is what the expert employees are for. If any 
have any real part in the business. Perhaps this particular employee or department shows by 
is right, but I maintain that if the best kind of frequent and detailed reports to the directors that 
“hired men” are to be kept in cooperative work, it is not accomplishing results, the plain horse- 
some kind of a plan must be devised to give them sense of the directors can soon detect this, and the 
a permanent interest and something besides a sal- employee or department head can be changed, 
ary to work for. But it is not fair to hold the employee or the 
One of the hardest propositions in farm organi- department head responsible for the details of his 
zations is not to load up with too much help, and work if the directors constantly interfere in those 
to keep the number of employees down in propor- details and carry them out contrary to the advice 
tion to the volume of business. The only excuse of the hired expert. It is as foolhardy for a farmer 
any organization has for existence is to bring director to attempt to tell the trained accountant, 
farmers more money dor their products. It may or the legal counsel, or the advertising expert how 
not be able to do this in the first or second year, to run the details of his department as it would 
Farmers should not expect too much; but in the be for those same trained employees to tell farmers 
end, better financial returns must be the test of how to feed a cow. 
the cooperative. To get these returns, overhead Some of the larger cooperatives have had a prac- 
expenses must be kept down. This is a particularly tice of holding frequent conferences of the more 
difficult problem because prices of farm products important employees and department heads. At 
are so low to start with that they will not stand these conferences detailed reports of the progress 
for much overhead. In almost any other busi- of the work of the departments are given, policies 
ness, except farming, the retail price of the product are discussed and sometimes recommendations 
can be placed high enough to take care of all the are made to the directors. Such conferences help 
overhead of a large marketing organization and to make everyone feel that all are working for the 
still leave a profit. same object and they do much toward bringing 
One of the largest items of overhead expenses the different divisions of work together as a unit, 
in any organization, cooperative or otherwise, is One of the most important places to practice 
the pay of the employees. We have already seen cooperation in a farmers’ organization is between 
that employees cannot be held on salaries much employees and directors and officers. All must 
lower than other business pays. Therefore, to feel that the organization is something more than 
keep the overhead down there is but one answer, a business corporation, that a great new economic 
and that is to limit the amount of help. ( Continued on page 392) 
