Secular Café: Visit to Mondragon cooperatives in Spain

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Visit to Mondragon cooperatives in Spain Jun 26th 2012, 20:18 Democracy in the Workplace? Spain's Mondragon Corporation Shows Us an Alternative to Capitalism | | AlterNet More precisely, an alternative to the central-planning, elitist-government model of businesses. I will concede that it's fun to describe right-libertarians' favorite organizations with their descriptions of their favorite villains. Richard D. Wolff described his visit to the Mondragon Corporation (MC) in Spain. Quote: MC is composed of many co-operative enterprises grouped into four areas: industry, finance, retail and knowledge. In each enterprise, the co-op members (averaging 80-85% of all workers per enterprise) collectively own and direct the enterprise. Through an annual general assembly the workers choose and employ a managing director and retain the power to make all the basic decisions of the enterprise (what, how and where to produce and what to do with the profits). As each enterprise is a constituent of the MC as a whole, its members must confer and decide with all other enterprise members what general rules will govern MC and all its constituent enterprises. In short, MC worker-members collectively choose, hire and fire the directors, whereas in capitalist enterprises the reverse occurs. One of the co-operatively and democratically adopted rules governing the MC limits top-paid worker/members to earning 6.5 times the lowest-paid workers. ... MC displays a commitment to job security I have rarely encountered in capitalist enterprises: it operates across, as well as within, particular cooperative enterprises. ... During my visit, in random encounters with workers who answered my questions about their jobs, powers, and benefits as cooperative members, I found a familiarity with and sense of responsibility for the enterprise as a whole that I associate only with top managers and directors in capitalist enterprises. The easy conversation (including disagreement), for instance, between assembly-line workers and top managers inside the Fagor washing-machine factory we inspected was similarly remarkable. Founded in 1956, the Mondragon Corporation has not only survived, but also grown, expanding outside of Spain. There are numerous other worker cooperatives in several nations. I don't know how practical this sort of organization would be for large businesses. It seems most suited for relatively small ones whose members can easily become acquainted with each other.

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