"La troisième raison se base sur les bénéfices économiques qu’apporte la liberté d’expression en entreprise (Simon 2011). On l’observe dans plusieurs coopératives d’employés comme Mondragon en Espagne : la participation active des travailleurs dans les décisions favorise l’efficacité et la stabilité des entreprises. C’est d’abord un moyen d’identifier et de régler plus efficacement les problèmes de gestion, d’organisation ou de sécurité au travail."
A worker´s cooperative. A unique corporation. What does the world think about MONDRAGON?
April 22, 2013
April 18, 2013
"
[MONDRAGON] operates in four areas: finance, industry, retail and knowledge. Co-operatives are owned by their worker-members and power is based on the principle of one person, one vote.
A portion of each member enterprise’s net revenue goes to a fund for research and development, which finances new product development. R&D employs 800 people with a budget of more than $75 million. The company’s first product in 1956 was paraffin heaters. In 2010, 21.4 per cent of sales comprised new products and services that did not exist five years earlier.
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April 16, 2013
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This summer, I experienced Mondragon first-hand when I visited with members of the MIT CoLab. During that time, our dialogue centered on a commitment to human dignity that is all but absent in most of corporate America today. While we have become immune to headlines that announce 5, 10, 20 or even 30,000 employees who are scheduled to be terminated, Mondragon, a $20 billion enterprise, agonizes over the loss of a single job.
Recently, Mondragon’s General Assembly, it’s largest body, voted to reduce wages across the board for all workers rather than put the jobs of workers at one of over a hundred businesses at risk. Of equal note is the fact that the senior management of the enterprise makes no more than seven times the lowest paid worker.
As we explored the unique attributes of Mondragon, its culture and education were central and recurring themes. The integrity of the whole cannot be guarded by a small group of individuals, but only through the commitment and ongoing education of the whole community.
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April 11, 2013
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Mondragon cooperatives operate in accordance with 10 basic principles including the Supremacy of Labour, the Instrumental and Subordinate Nature of Capital, Participatory Management, Payment Solidarity (meaning the highest income is never more than nine times the lowest wage), and Education.
The Mondragon cooperatives are a testament to the importance of rights and positive incentives at the workplace. They prove that democracy at work is viable and sustainable.
"
April 9, 2013
VIDEO: Understanding the Mondragon Worker Cooperative Corporation in Spain’s Basque Country
(Source: democracynow.org)
March 29, 2013
"The “union co-op” model imports some of Mondragon’s structural innovations to the American economy: most importantly, it gives workers a say in the direction of the business as well as in their own pay and working conditions. It remains to be seen exactly how workers’ voices will be heard through the union co-ops’ collective bargaining processes, but it will likely have some of the flavor of worker empowerment already in effect at Mondragon."
— local-control @ posterous.com
March 27, 2013
"Perhaps the most innovative and inspiring development by unions in 21st century U.S. is the partnership between the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation and the United Steel Workers union. The intent of the partnership is to expand what they call “union coops” around the country. This is a model and a strategy leveraging successful worker ownership strategies through Employee Shared Ownership Plans (ESOP), to transfer full ownership of companies to workers through worker cooperative structures, while having a union committee that ensures safe working conditions and builds the national power of worker self-determination on a grander scale."
March 25, 2013
"Mondragon Corporation is a Basque Cooperative which has enjoyed huge success with its model, becoming one of Spain’s 10 largest companies by sales, with worker-owned businesses that include the Eroski supermarket chain. The Chief Executive earns no more than eight times that of the lowest-paid workers within the co-operative. Its collective model makes it unique, but, like many other Spanish companies, Mondragon has steadily diversified its sales away from Europe. Last year 3.59bn of the 5.71bn total sales in its industry division were international"
March 22, 2013
"Mondragon employs 83,000 workers in 256 companies. About half of those companies are cooperatives, and about a third of Mondragon’s employees are co-op members with an ownership stake in their workplace. Mondragon companies do everything from manufacturing industrial machine parts to making pressure cookers and home appliances to running a bank and a chain of supermarkets. With billions of euros in annual sales, Mondragon is the largest industrial conglomerate in the Basque region and the fifth-largest in Spain."
March 19, 2013
"It was actually mass unemployment and widespread poverty in Spain’s Basque region during the 1950s that prompted the creation of the largest cooperative in the world, The Mondragon Cooperative Corporation, which now boasts 100,000 workers, and is located in a region that consistently has the lowest unemployment in that country."
