Worker cooperative federation
Mondragón Cooperative Corporation Location
1956— ACTIVE 57 YEARS 83,000 EMPLOYEES
Worker Cooperative Federation
Mondragón, Spain
Founder
Father José María Arizmendiarrieta Madariaga founded the Mondragón Polytechnic School, “a democratically administered educational centre open to all young people in the region,” in 1943. This was the first manifestation of what would eventually become the cooperative corporation and the University of Mondragón.
Income/Funding
Mondragón conceives of all of its activities as falling into one of the following categories: finance, industry, distribution, and knowledge. Finance activities comprise banking, social welfare and insurance.
Philosophy/Mission
Mondragón has ten basic principles: “open admission,” “democratic organization,” “sovereignty of labor,” “instrumental and subordinate nature of capital,” “participatory management,” “payment solidarity,” “inter-cooperation,” “social transformation,” “universality,” and “education.” These were adopted in October 1987 after the first Mondragón Cooperative Congress. Mondragón is “firmly committed to the environment, competitive improvement and customer satisfaction in order to generate wealth in society through business development and the creation of, preferably co-operative, employment.”
Infrastructure
Because it is a federation of workers’ cooperatives, Mondragón itself is made up of a great number of entities.
Successes
Mondragón has grown extensively since its foundation. It is “the largest business corporation in the Basque Country and the seventh largest in Spain, as regards both sales and workforce.”
Challenges
on M n
ó ag dr
The Chairman of Mondragón identifies the recent recession as a cause for a “slowdown” in its functioning. He states, “It was in this adverse economic situation and in a climate of insecurity, uncertainty and general lack of confidence that we had to tackle the task of management in 2011.” In response, Mondragón has employed certain “shock measures,” such as the “relocation of workers, savings in purchasing or containment of salaries, among others.”