Current Issue

Monthly Headlines, December 2004

Front Page: To: Co-op Mangers
Checklist for Getting & Keeping Good Employees
Job satisfaction in the key for many working in co-ops. This month's issue of CBJ features stories about job satisfaction among employees; how co-ops cope with double-digit cost increases in health coverage as they struggle to provide good health benefits; while VHA Inc. tells of their move to "self-insurance," thus bypassing the insurance industry to insure their employees.

In addition, there are stories about the lack of racial balance in the co-op workforce and memberships; and how baby boom retirements are spelling T-R-O-U-B-L-E for rural electrics and credit unions.

Page Three: IASB Sides with U.S. Cooperatives in Equity Accounting Dispute
The International Accounting Standards Board has given U.S. cooperatives a leg up in their fight to block domestic accounting rules that could require reclassification of member equity as debt.

ALSO...$2.25 Million Will Help Get Innovative Co-op Health Program Off the Ground
The federal appropriations process smiled on the Wisconsin co-op community as the 108th Congress adjourned, the House and Senate approved $2.25 million to fund Co-op Care, an innovative Wisconsin program designed to make affordable health benefit plans more available for farmers.

Governance: Deferred Compensation Isn't Just For Big Corporations
As member-owned businesses, cooperatives are limited in what they can offer to attract and retain key employees. Most cannot match salaries offered by investor-owned companies of a similar size. In addition, benefits like stock options are simply not available to non-stock companies.

"Deferred compensation can be a useful incentive for key employees to meet performance objectives or to encourage them to remain with a cooperative," says our guest columnist is Bruce J. McNeil, a lawyer specializing in retirement plans and deferred and executive compensation arrangements.
McNeil is the author of more than 75 articles and 20 books on on deferred and executive compensation and other employee benefit matters. He is a shareholder with the Minnesota law firm of Leonard, Street and Deinard.

.Coop: DotCoop Launches Directory of Active .Coop Internet Sites
A directory of nearly 4,300 active .coop Internet web site addresses can be found at www.directory.coop and be search by the name of the co-op, location and domain name.

International: Reaping Profits from Hard Ground in Mozambique
A few cents more a kilo doesn't sound like very much, but to farmers in rural Mozambique it can be life changing. Since joining a farmers' association in 1996, Antonio Guillerme has made enough money to buy a radio, a bicycle, clothes for his wife and to send his children to school.

Guillerme is one of thousands of farmers in northern Mozambique to have benefited from an aid project called CLUSA which put them in associations, increasing their bargaining power and linking them with buyers.
This story was reprinted with permission from BBC News.