


Joe Bell
Nov 7, 2023
Spain
Categories:
Business, Economy, Workers
In the Basque region of Spain which borders France, the town of Mondragón (pop. 21,933 in 2015) has worked to develop business co-operatives. The business is called the Mondragon Corporation and houses almost a hundred co-ops employing tens of thousand workers, with a combined annual payroll exceeding $10 billion. These co-ops include a grocery chain, credit unions, and manufacturers of things ranging from medical devices to plastic car parts. It is the largest worker cooperative in the world whose foundation was inspired in the 1940s by a Catholic priest.
Unlike for-profit corporations, co-operatives are owned by their workers and focus on the preservation of salaries more than dividends for outside investors. In the Covid-19 epidemic in Spain, co-operatives were able to save jobs by agreeing to do things like continuing to pay workers at 95% of their wages on the condition they return to their jobs after home quarantine and try to make up their lost hours.
Co-operative corporations like Mondragón offer a demonstrable way to preserve jobs, provide incomes, soften the blows of economic disruption, and meet other social goals that for-profit companies cannot do.
They offer economic flexibility and social benefits, at scale, by combining under the umbrella of a single entity like the Mondragón Corporation. It shows that it can be both profitable and responsive as part of the social economy movement.
With traditional economic engines failing to adjust to upheavals and problems like increasing wage inequality, co-operatives may be a new and better way to organize to cope. Are there small businesses where you live that have struggled during the pandemic or other economic dislocations? Your local businesses may want to explore the concept of co-operatives, especially as joined under the umbrella of a consortium of co-ops. It may be a solution for survival in turbulent economies.
MONDRAGON is Cooperation A cooperative socio-economic project, with dedicated people working in global companies that are profitable, competitive, and enterprising, acknowledged for their human values, social impact, and competitiveness.
With about 75,000 'cooperativistas' working in 257 enterprises, almost no layoffs since 1956, much higher income than Spanish workers, 1 worker 1 vote democratic decision making, and a 6 to 1 ratio of highest to lowest paid, how can we learn from the largest worker-owned cooperatives in the Western world, located in the Basque region of Spain?
Originally published November 5, 2021.
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