Transition to Common Work: Building Community at The Working Centre

The Working Centre in the downtown core of Kitchener, Ontario, is a widely recognized and successful model for community development. Begun from scratch in 1982, it is now a vast network of practical supports for the unemployed, the underemployed, the temporarily employed, and the homeless, populations that collectively constitute up to 30 percent of the labour market both locally and across North America.

Transition to Common Work is the essential text about The Working Centre—its beginnings thirty years ago, the lessons learned, and the myriad ways in which its strategies and innovations can be adapted by those who share its goals.

The Working Centre focuses on creating access-to-tools projects rather than administrative layers of bureaucracy. This book highlights the core philosophy behind the centre’s decentralized but integrated structure, which has contributed to the creation of affordable services. Underlying this approach are common-sense innovations such as thinking about virtues rather than values, developing community tools with a social enterprise approach, and implementing a radically equal salary policy.

For social workers, activists, bureaucrats, and engaged citizens in third-sector organizations (NGOs, charities, not-for-profits, co-operatives), this practical and inspiring book provides a method for moving beyond the doldrums of “poverty relief” into the exciting world of community building.

Part 1: The Working Centre Takes Root

Chapter 1 Introduction: Beyond Us and Them

Joe Mancini and Stephanie Mancini

How has The Working Centre community followed its lofty ideals 30 years after it took root? The vibrancy of The Working Centre is described through on-the-ground stories while providing an introduction to Working Centre themes.Chapter 2 Building Community: The Working Centre’s Roots

Joe Mancini and Stephanie Mancini

The Working Centre started in May 1982 as a summer project and within four years had grown to offer vital services in downtown Kitchener. In between is the compelling story of how The Working Centre got off the ground, its founding ideals, and how it managed to stay afloat.
Chapter 3 Liberation from Overdevelopment

Joe Mancini and Stephanie Mancini

All around us are signs that the growth economy has come up against its worst enemies—ecological limits and overdeveloped systems that concentrate power in large organizations. A theory of Liberation affirms that people have the ability to change and make history by creating the conditions for new grassroots approaches.

Part 2: Community Engagement

Chapter 4 The Virtues 

Joe Mancini and Stephanie Mancini

The Working Centre has integrated the virtues into its organizational philosophy because the sharing of goods and the building of cooperation is fundamental for relationships and friendship. The virtues are illustrated through stories that describe their role in The Working Centre’s development.

Chapter 5 St. John’s Kitchen: Redistribution Through Cooperation

Joe Mancini and Stephanie Mancini

How did St. John’s Kitchen evolve into a community space that redistributes surplus food by involving patrons in the daily meal service? The development of downtown outreach—creating supports among those most neglected by society—integrates with a vision of working together to help each other become more human.Chapter 6 Searching for Work at the Help Centre

Joe Mancini and Stephanie Mancini

For 30 years, The Working Centre has been supporting workers left out of the labour market. In the context of the growth of the contingent labour force, plant closings, and new Canadians, the Job Search Resource Centre is a unique space that explores alternatives and provides practical support.
Chapter 7 The Nuts and Bolts of an Alternative Organization

Joe Mancini and Stephanie Mancini

Community organizations are most effective when they listen to the ideas around them. An organization with a master plan will miss the nuances that different directions present. The Working Centre evolved a distributive web model of development that has kept the organization linked to its grassroots origins.

Part 3: Toward a Philosophy of Work

Chapter 8 Ethical Imagination: The Working Centre’s Approach to Salaries 

Joe Mancini and Stephanie Mancini

The evolution of The Working Centre’s salary policy demonstrates that workplaces can embrace less-materialistic values. For 25 years The Working Centre has implemented a salary policy that reduced the differences between the top and bottom. By paying a fair average wage, it reduces comparisons and supports a productive and dynamic workplace.

Chapter 9 Community Tools: Philosophies and Stories

Joe Mancini and Stephanie Mancini

Community Tools Projects evolved at The Working Centre by combining community service with social enterprise. Each tool is structured to create ways for people who have been excluded to contribute. The resulting array of projects has inverted the structure of tools to enable workers to use their skills and serve the community cooperatively.Chapter 10 Small is Beautiful: Re-Embedding Reciprocal Relationships in Daily Work

Joe Mancini and Stephanie Mancini

The Working Centre has sought to help people reinvent a sustaining culture by re-embedding economic activity into reciprocal relationships. State welfare, for example, creates disconnection by offering material support without creating community. By contrast, small work that involves people in serving community enlivens all those involved.Chapter 11: Transition to Common Work

Joe Mancini and Stephanie Mancini

Describes the evolution of Working Centre philosophy where social inclusion and local democracy have helped people shape the tools they use in a community setting. A social infrastructure that combines cooperation and enterprise can teach new models of working together.