Proposal: Clarify Definition of "Community Work" in the Pay-or-Work Agreement

Date:

Proposed

Amend the Pay-or-Work Agreement (as amended August 26, 2012) by replacing the sentence:

"For now, each adult resident decides for themselves what is community work."

with:

"Each adult resident uses their own judgment in determining what counts as community work, guided by the question:

'What am I doing to contribute to the overall running and maintenance of the community, beyond what is expected of a good neighbor?'

"Generally, community work includes maintenance, repairs, and upkeep of shared property; landscaping of common areas (mowing, weed-whacking, irrigation, and general upkeep) and work in the farmette/community garden; cleaning and organizing common spaces; planning, preparing, and facilitating meetings or community events; facilitating a meeting or taking minutes; active participation in committee or project work (organizing, coordinating, writing and maintaining documentation, calling vendors, managing logistics, hosting community-wide activities, providing refreshments or snacks); and providing organized childcare for multiple households' children as part of a community event or activity.

Generally, community work does not include maintenance of one's own private unit or yard, work in one's own East Garden box, personal favors to individual neighbors, supervising one's own children, or attending a meeting without actively contributing to it. These categories are non-exhaustive examples, not a fixed list; residents should use the guiding question above for situations not specifically addressed, and management is available for case-by-case input."

And also replace:

"'Adult' is defined as a person age eighteen or older, in residence at Wasatch Commons more than half the time for more than a month."

with

"'Adult' is defined as a person age eighteen or older who is in residence at Wasatch Commons for more than two weeks (i.e., more than half the days) in a given month."

All other provisions of the Pay-or-Work Agreement remain unchanged. The self-reporting, honor-system structure is unchanged; this amendment adds shared guidance, not new enforcement.

Background Summary

The current agreement leaves "what counts as community work" entirely up to each resident's individual judgment, with no shared frame of reference. In practice, this has led to wide inconsistency, with the bulk of the work that keeps the community running (maintenance, meeting facilitation, event planning, vendor coordination, etc.) falling on a small group of people.

This isn't a story of bad faith; it's a story of an undefined standard. Without any shared sense of what the hours are meant to represent, reasonable people land in very different places. The result is that the pay or play system isn't accomplishing one of its core goals: spreading the labor of running the community equitably across more people.

How This Proposal Intends to Address the Issue

This amendment doesn't change who decides, how hours are reported, or how payment works. It gives residents a clearer compass for the judgment they're already exercising, anchored to a single guiding question, plus illustrative (not exhaustive) examples of what generally does and doesn't fit. The goal is for residents to recognize the kind of work the community actually needs — and feel invited to step into it — rather than to crack down on past reporting or create a list someone has to police.

Pros

Gives residents a consistent standard to reason from, reducing the current wide variation in what gets reported
Makes it easier for residents who want to contribute meaningfully to identify real opportunities to do so (maintenance, planning, event-hosting, etc.), which helps spread work across more people instead of concentrating it in a few
Preserves the honor-system, self-reporting structure. No new bureaucracy, no approval process, no committee adjudicating hours
Uses non-exhaustive examples rather than a fixed list, so it doesn't require future consensus amendments every time a new kind of task comes up
Directly responds to a known pain point (overconcentration of labor) without changing the underlying agreement's mechanics

Cons

Some residents may need to find new ways to contribute if the current work they're logging doesn't meet the new guidelines
"Guidance" still requires interpretation; a determined resident could still stretch examples to fit personal tasks, since there's no formal review mechanism
Adds language to a previously short, simple agreement, which some may feel moves toward over-specification even though it stops short of a fixed list
May prompt requests for further clarification on edge cases not covered by the examples, creating occasional case-by-case discussions with management or the broader community