ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the structure and organization of the cooperatives which were established. Between June 1974 and December 1975, the different largest sugar estates in Jamaica were almost wholly transformed into twenty sugar worker cooperatives. The multitiered structure, with functionally and politically oriented secondary and tertiary levels, was directed to serving the needs of the primary level cooperative farms and the worker-cooperators who composed them. The sugar worker cooperatives were collective farms established and organized according to traditional cooperative principles. The system of cooperative management reflected the interplay of three main groups: the general membership, the committee of management, and the hired managerial and administrative staff. Operational and decision-making authority within the cooperatives was delegated by the general membership to an elected eleven-member committee of management. The major tasks performed on the cane cooperatives, as on all cane farms, included planting, weeding, irrigation, drainage, harvesting, fertilizing.
