 |
| · · · · · · · · · |
|
Pomona College Magazine is published three times a year by Pomona College
550 N. College Ave, Claremont, CA 91711
Online Editor: Mark Kendall
For editorial matters:
Editor: Mark Wood
Phone: (909) 621-8158
Fax: (909) 621-8203
PCM Editorial Guidelines
Contact Alumni Records for changes of address, class notes, or notice
of births or deaths.
Phone: (909) 621-8635
Fax: (909) 621-8535
Email: alumni@pomona.edu
|
|
| · · · · · · · · · |
|
|
|
|
|
|
The Model Bakery
Tim Silk ’93 and the world of consensus
baking...
By Lea Aschkenas '95
At noon on a Friday in a Bay Area city better known for big-box stores
such as IKEA and Home Depot, the lunchtime crowd bustles inside the
independent Arizmendi Bakery &
Pizzeria co-op.
 Here, colorful murals and framed paintings by local
artists adorn the walls, and the scents of pizza pesto and tangy sour
dough waft through the air. Arizmendi’s is
the sort of place where strangers lean over their lattes and strike up
conversations, inviting each other to art openings.
Behind the counter, two apron-clad employees jump up and
down dancing to the hip-hop rhythms of Zion I.
Wrist-deep in dough, Tim Silk ’93 stands behind a display
case lined with brioches and baguettes, cheese biscuits
and chocolate loaves. Silk is both a baker and a founding
member of this bakery whose working model contrasts as
starkly with that of its neighboring businesses as Silk’s background
does with his current career.
“Both my parents are scientists, so when I was little, I
just assumed that was what I would do too,” says Silk as
he sits on Arizmendi’s back patio at the conclusion of his
4:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. shift. At Pomona, he created an
interdisciplinary major in cognitive science and got really
interested in computers.
After a few years teaching computers
and math in various schools, he became an independent
consultant, helping companies come up with technology
plans. But he began to want something less solitary, and set
out to form an IT cooperative, though he wasn’t sure how.
After doing some research, Silk learned about Tim Huet,
founder of The Network of Bay Area Worker Cooperatives.
Its acronym, NoBAWC, is pronounced, “no boss.” Silk
contacted Huet who, he soon learned, not only organized
co-ops but had also started one called Arizmendi. (The bakery
is named in honor of José Maria Arizmendiarrieta whose
successful Spanish collective, the Mondragón Cooperatives,
is now an international business.) Huet told Silk that the
city of Emeryville, whose residents had begun complaining
about the proliferation of big-box stores, had given
Arizmendi a grant to open a new bakery in town—the
fourth Arizmendi-run bakery in the Bay Area—and Huet
was looking for new worker-owners.
“I really had no experience,” Silk says, laughing as he
reflects upon his sudden job shift. “But what I did have—
and what probably came through in the interview—was a
real passion for the co-op model.”
Arizmendi’s co-op model involves what is called a “modified
consensus.”
“With a true consensus, everyone has to agree,” Silk
explains. “In our model, we have a thumbs up, a wavering
thumb and a thumbs down. An item on our agenda, which
everyone contributes to, can pass as long as there are no
thumbs down, and over 50 percent of the worker-owners
vote thumbs up. If there are any thumbs down, we go into
a second round of voting where a 75-percent majority
means the item passes.”
In the three years that Silk has been working at Arizmendi and attending meetings (held every three weeks),
he has voted on agenda items ranging from how much to
spend on a new stove to how much to raise the price of a
product. Most common, though, are votes on whether to
make a candidate an owner. At the time of the interview,
there are 16 owners and three candidates. Candidates have a
six-month trial period, after which everyone fills out an
evaluation on them, and then the Hiring and Evaluation
Committee reports back on the results.
Once a candidate is accepted as an owner, the evaluation
process continues with annual performance assessments by
other owners.
“It’s all done in a very democratic and inclusive way that
makes me really enjoy coming to work,” Silk says, which is
really saying something, considering that he has to leave his
Berkeley home by 4 a.m. to bike to Arizmendi where, like
many of the other owners, he works in the shop just three
days per week.
Everyone has a shift they can do from home, working on
assignments for the co-op’s committees, which cover everything
from promotion to production. “Not working five
shifts also makes it so there’s always someone to fill in for
you if you need a vacation,” he notes.
This scheduling flexibility works especially well for Silk,
who juggles his job with caring for his 5-year-old son,
Jonah. Silk’s wife, Monica, works as a substitute school
teacher on the days when Silk is home to play with Jonah.
“I play a lot at Arizmendi too,” Silk says. “We work
hard, but it’s also a fun place. There’s no hierarchy, and
we’re all paid the same regardless of our different backgrounds.
… And there’s also a lot of variety in the work
itself. During the course of a week, everyone gets to do
everything. I bake, and I also make dough. I work the register.
I do prep, and I facilitate meetings.”
And then, of course, there is the all-day access to some
of the Bay Area’s most creative artisan breads such as fig
fennel sourdough and corn onion cheddar jalapeño, as well
as savory pizzas ranging from wild mushroom to gorgonzola
to garlic combo.
“We have a different pizza every day,” says Silk. “We try
to be adventurous, but we also have to balance that with
what sells so we can make enough money to give ourselves
raises. We all wear both hats here—our worker hats and our
employer hats—and together, we work it all out. Really,
that’s the best part.”
|
|
|
|
