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Australian textbook retailer The Coop is facing a mounting backlash from university students over accusations its management have for years actively sought to block input from its members in the way the organisation is run.
Members say the organisation, which is registered in NSW as a cooperative, has repeatedly ignored requests to make transparent its financial reports and has deliberately made it difficult for the rank and file to participate in poorly advertised annual general meetings.
A senior employee of the Coop who asked not to be named said there was a concerted effort within senior management to alienate members in order to maintain control over the organisation.
"Senior management want members to know as little about [the annual general meetings] as possible," the senior employee said.
"They want no engagement, no opposition, they just want to be able to ram things through and protect the status quo. There's no interest in accountability and engagement with members.
"It's clearly undemocratic, they seem to do everything they can when the AGM is on [to stop students attending]. It's very much geared towards ensuring there is a sort of corporate compliance."
The Coop holds a virtual monopoly on the sale of textbooks to students on university campuses around the country, and also offers an online ordering service.
But financial documents obtained by the ABC reveal it has been operating at a steady loss in recent years, writing off $1.4 million in 2016 and $3.7 million in 2015.
The senior Coop employee said the attitude of senior management in treating the organisation like a for-profit business rather than a service for the sole benefit of its members had a direct impact on its ability to provide affordable textbooks.
"We had issues with some of the distributors with them not wanting to supply us due to The Coop having massive debts and massive amounts of money owed to them," the senior employee said.
"I do know it affected the supply for textbooks. Key suppliers were not supplying because we couldn't pay our bills."
The Coop claims to have more than 2 million members, many of whom are current and former university students, who remain members for life. Currently no students are on the organisation's board.
According to the website for the cooperatives regulator NSW Fair Trading, cooperatives distinguish themselves from other companies by their member ownership, democratic structure and their use of money for mutual, not individual, benefit.
The Coop did not respond to the ABC's detailed questions and multiple requests for comment.
University of Sydney student Caitlin McMenamin joined as a Coop member when she began studying a Bachelor of Arts in 2016, but she soon realised it was not meeting her needs.
"Textbooks weren't arriving on time and I had to wait six weeks before getting them and eventually cancelling orders, so I eventually stopped using my membership."
Ms McMenamin said many university students who are Coop members see the organisation as disingenuous.
"The Coop calls itself a cooperative, which means students are meant to be on the executive. But over the past few decades the organisation has deliberately pushed students out of executive positions and failed to represent their voices," she said.
"It's very difficult for students to make any progress with this issue because the senior management are so good at cutting us out."
According to documents obtained by the ABC, it was decided at the 2016 annual general meeting that the directors of The Coop be paid a total of $330,000 that year.
Charles Sturt University student Annaleigh Davis, who studies by distance in Dubbo, said she was "dumbfounded" directors' fees were not being used instead to make textbooks more affordable.
"By joining The Coop as a member, you do so under the impression that it is being run solely for our benefit, with the main purpose to make our compulsory study materials readily available, and more importantly affordable."
"Being a rural student, our access to textbooks is incredibly limited. In some instances the only place we can obtain texts is from The Coop online book store."
Topics: university-and-further-education, retail, australia