In order to understand where people are coming from when they criticize this system, you must understand the difference between a worker co-op and a privately owned company.

Most people think,

Well, it's just a different ownership structure. It's not much different than when workers are rewarded with stock options. Co-ops and companies are both examples of capitalist organizations.

But to those of us criticizing the current system, that's like saying dictatorships and republics are "just different examples of governments," and that aside from a different managerial structure, both kinds of government fundamentally serve the same purpose.

They don't. When it comes to dictatorships vs representative governments, the entire social contract is different. The entire relationship between government official and citizen, between worker and manager, is different.

Free Speech

The citizen in a dictatorship and worker in an... autocratic company (for want of a better word) must both self-police their speech, asking "will this get me prosecuted/fired?" Just taking a harsh tone with your boss can lose you your job. There's a pretty good NPR article about what bosses are legally allowed to fire you for. And even having different political beliefs is on the list.

Meanwhile, the citizen in a democracy/republic and workers in a cooperative have no such limitations. Their speech is only limited by a general, "do not harm others" guideline that gets spelled out on a case by case basis in courts (for governments) or in discussions with your coworkers (at a co-op).

Expenses

Again, in both an autocratic company and an autocratic government, the citizen has no control over where money is spent and doesn't get to choose which contractors/suppliers the organization uses.

Contrast that with democratic workplaces/governments, where voters are constantly discussing the budget, audits, social security, how to trim waste, how much to pay local farmers for ingredients, etc...

It's not only that you must agree to become subservient in order to continue working at an autocratic company. You also get no voice in the organization that sustains itself (at least in part) off of your labor.

These are irreconcilable differences.

You don't say "well, whichever governments come out on top must be the fittest, strongest governments. Let the arena of war be an impartial judge deciding which governments are superior."

To the contrary, you most likely recoil in shock when a dictatorship invades a democracy. You most likely cheer on every strategic victory the democracy achieves.

Because the state of existence of a citizen under a representative government is considered worthy of protection independently of whether it helps that government achieve military victories. The rights of a citizen are considered more important than the question of whether a government that protects and respects those rights can be efficient.

All we ask of you is to consider the same for a worker. To consider the possibility that a worker might have certain unalienable rights that must be protected even if it's hypothetically inefficient (in reality co-ops are more efficient, btw. As are democracies. The only reason they are less common is because unlike viruses, cancer, and companies owned by individuals and/or shareholders, co-ops do not have the capacity to induce rapid grow by destroying their host.) We ask that you consider the possibility that the worker -- simply in working for a company -- deserves a say in the operation of that company.