Cooperative laundry brings hope to distressed workers

Civic and city leaders are invest ing several million
dollars in a unique, employee-owned business model to drive
more wealth and jobs into the struggling neighborhoods
around University Circle.

Several hundred people will gather on East 105th Street
near St. Clair Avenue today to celebrate the opening of the
Evergreen Cooperative Laundry, a $5.8 million commercial
venture featuring the latest in energy-efficient laundry
equipment.

If successful, it would employ up to 50 workers - many of
them low-income, some with felony convictions - in what
officials hope will be a network of worker-owned businesses.

Under the employee-owned model, each worker would earn a
share of the company and the profits, driving wealth into
neighborhoods wracked by poverty, unemployment and
foreclosures, officials said.

"The money circulates back . . . and gives people the
ability to buy a home, put kids through school and meet the
basic needs of a quality life," said India Pierce Lee,
program manager with the Cleveland Foundation.

The cooperatives are part of a larger effort, called the
Greater University Circle Initiative, that the Cleveland
Foundation launched four years ago.

The initiative enlisted the growing, heavyweight
institutions around University Circle, including University
Hospitals, Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve
University, to drive infrastructure, housing and quality of
life improvements in the nearby communities.

The cooperative strategy seeks to tap the $3 billion in
goods and services that University Circle's
institutions buy yearly.

The Cleveland Foundation invested $3 million in a
revolving-loan fund to launch the cooperatives.

The mid-size commercial laundry - capable of handling up
to 10 million pounds of linens yearly - will open for
business Friday.

Eight people have been hired so far. They trained to run
every piece of equipment, from the 28-foot-long washing
"tunnel" to three cavernous dryers. Heat from
washing and drying is reclaimed to save energy.

Employees start at $8 an hour and are considered temporary
for six months. After that, they will earn $10.50 an hour,
with 50 cents an hour set aside for three years.

That buys them a $3,000 share of the company. Eventually,
they would share in the company's profits, too, said
laundry business manager Jim Anderson, a program coordinator
with the Ohio Employee Ownership Center at Kent State
University.

The wages and benefits are higher than average, Anderson
said. In theory, those higher costs will be covered by
higher productivity and less turnover, officials said.

The cooperative works with Towards Employment, an agency
that builds the job skills of low-income residents,
including those with criminal convictions.

Officials want to concentrate the hiring in an area that
touches five Cleveland neighborhoods around University
Circle - Glenville, Hough, Little Italy, Fairfax and
Buckeye-Shaker - as well as East Cleveland.

Tracie Marsh, 46, a quality-control clerk at the laundry,
said she had moved through a number of jobs in the past
decade.

A felony assault stemming from a workplace incident
didn't help, she said. She stayed employed through
temporary-work agencies.

"But at the end of the day, you don't have that
much," she said.

Towards Employment linked her with the laundry
opportunity. Marsh said she believes employee ownership
lifts enthusiasm and accountability.

"Maybe we can branch off and start other
laundries," Marsh said. "I feel my time has come.
I've always dreamed of owning my own business."

Officials acknowledged that building a business with
employees who have no laundry experience, and some with
criminal convictions, will raise concerns with prospective
customers.

City officials like the cooperative model. Cleveland sent
two loans totaling $2 million to the laundry startup.

The cooperatives are a "fascinating model" that
hit a number of Mayor Frank Jackson's goals, said Chris
Warren, the mayor's chief of regional development.

Those goals include more local purchasing by area
institutions and support of green business practices,
highlighted by Jackson's recent sustainability summit,
Warren said.

To find out about employment with the cooperatives, call
Towards Employment at 216-696-5750.

To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:

tbreckenridge@plaind.com, 216-999-4695