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Catholic Social Solutions to Workplace Fairness
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Dan Clore
Feb 5, 2012, 2:07:52 PM2/5/12
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News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=29156
Catholic social solutions to workplace fairness
by Race Matthews
January 31, 2012
MondragonBruising industrial confrontations within Qantas and in
Victorian hospitals during the latter half of last year pose pertinent
questions as to whether alternative forms of ownership and control of
workplaces might in some instances have more to offer than conventional
wisdom may suppose.
A case in point is the great complex of worker-owned manufacturing,
retail, financial, agricultural, civil engineering and support
cooperatives and associated entities headquartered at Mondragon in the
Basque region of Spain.
With Spanish unemployment levels following the global financial crisis
standing at some 22 per cent, the Mondragon cooperatives have
demonstrated impressive resilience, absorbing their share of economic
hits and emerging largely unscathed.
For example, Mondragon's Eroski worker/consumer retail cooperative —
hitherto Spain's largest and fastest growing chain of supermarkets,
hypermarkets and shopping malls — has over the last two years
experienced for the first time since its inception in 1959 losses
consequent on reduced consumer demand, and only in the current financial
year anticipates a return to modest profitability.
Fagor, Spain's largest manufacturer of white goods, has successfully
managed down production by 30 to 40 per cent in the face of a
precipitous contraction of the consumer durables market.
The cooperative group's Caja Laboral credit union — effectively Spain's
ninth largest bank — is recovering from a 75 per cent reduction in its
profitability, from 200 million to 50 million euros.
And following a sharp reduction in the use by the cooperatives of
temporary workers, overall employment has stabilised at around 83,800.
The cooperatives' triumph is attributable overwhelmingly to key
attributes that set them aside from comparable conventional enterprises.
Not to be overlooked are the conceptual framework that underlies the
cooperatives, as well as the enduring solidarity and subsidiarity values
that enliven them. These are the legacy to the cooperatives of their
founder, the Basque priest Don Jose Maria Arizmendiarrieta.
Internalised and in part secularised as the values and framework have so
largely become, they stem directly from the unswerving adherence by
Arizmendiarrieta to formation in the 'see, judge, act' or 'inquiry'
study circle mould, as developed within the Young Christian Workers
unionist movement.
As recalled by one of the five lay co-founders of the cooperative group,
'Father Arizmendi organised specialist courses on sociology to which he
invited economics professors ... His ecclesiastical training led him
towards being a practical apostle. He not only tried to give guidelines
on what should be the model for the ideal enterprise, but he put that
social enterprise to which he aspired into practice.'
The benefits of this model of industry underpinned by Catholic social
values are manifold.
Practical advantage gives rise to enduring ties of loyalty to the
cooperatives by their worker members. As equal co-owners of their
workplaces, members enjoy job security together with individual capital
holdings, equal sharing of profits on a proportionate basis and an equal
say in governance.
And members share in ownership of a unique system of secondary support
cooperatives, from which the primary cooperatives draw resources
including financial services, social insurance, education, training,
research and development.
A high priority is attached by the primary cooperatives to the
competitive advantage of cutting edge research and development. To this
end, the original Ikerlan research and development support cooperative
is augmented by 13 sister bodies that specialise in particular aspects
of manufacturing activity and product development.
And faced, as recently, by adverse trading circumstances, the
cooperatives are able to avail themselves of significant flexibilities.
For example, non-members employed on a temporary basis can be put off
until conditions improve.
Members can agree to forfeit or postpone entitlements such as one or
more of their 14 per annum pay packets or the payment of interest on
their individual capital accounts, or in extreme circumstances authorise
individual capital account draw-downs.
Cooperatives experiencing reduced demand are able to transfer members to
cooperatives where demand is increasing, without detriment to their
rights or entitlements. And supplementary capital can be accessed from
centrally held inter-cooperative solidarity funds.
Meanwhile, on hold until the economy recovers, are further major changes
expressing the ongoing commitment of the cooperatives to their origins
and principles. These include agreed measures to enfranchise the 35,OOO
of Eroski's 50,000 retail workers who are not already members.
Some 114 local and overseas subsidiaries owned or joint ventured by the
cooperatives are scheduled for conversion to worker ownership on a case
by case basis, consistent with their differing cultural, legal, business
and financial circumstances.
And in 2009, the US Steelworkers union entered into an agreement with
Mondragon to jointly develop manufacturing cooperatives in the US and
Canada, that has yet to be given effect.
A record of so remarkable a character gives rise inevitably to pertinent
questions. What contribution to productivity and workplace wellbeing
might countries other than Spain have to gain from attitudinal change
such as Mondragon has so successfully engendered?
And why is the Church in the English speaking world so largely silent
about the Mondragon cooperatives' success in bringing to fruition the
long struggle in the cause of its social teachings?
Race Mathews returned recently from the fifth of a series of visits to
Mondragon, dating back to the early 1980s. He is a former federal and
state MP. His book Jobs of Our Own: Building a Stakeholder Society
details the origins of the Mondragon idea and how the cooperatives work.
--
Dan Clore
New book: _Weird Words: A Lovecraftian Lexicon_:
http://tinyurl.com/yd3bxkw
My collected fiction: _The Unspeakable and Others_
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-unspeakable-and-others/6124911
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
"From the point of view of the defense of our society,
there only exists one danger -- that workers succeed in
speaking to each other about their condition and their
aspirations _without intermediaries_."
--Censor (Gianfranco Sanguinetti), _The Real Report on
the Last Chance to Save Capitalism in Italy_
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=29156
Catholic social solutions to workplace fairness
by Race Matthews
January 31, 2012
MondragonBruising industrial confrontations within Qantas and in
Victorian hospitals during the latter half of last year pose pertinent
questions as to whether alternative forms of ownership and control of
workplaces might in some instances have more to offer than conventional
wisdom may suppose.
A case in point is the great complex of worker-owned manufacturing,
retail, financial, agricultural, civil engineering and support
cooperatives and associated entities headquartered at Mondragon in the
Basque region of Spain.
With Spanish unemployment levels following the global financial crisis
standing at some 22 per cent, the Mondragon cooperatives have
demonstrated impressive resilience, absorbing their share of economic
hits and emerging largely unscathed.
For example, Mondragon's Eroski worker/consumer retail cooperative —
hitherto Spain's largest and fastest growing chain of supermarkets,
hypermarkets and shopping malls — has over the last two years
experienced for the first time since its inception in 1959 losses
consequent on reduced consumer demand, and only in the current financial
year anticipates a return to modest profitability.
Fagor, Spain's largest manufacturer of white goods, has successfully
managed down production by 30 to 40 per cent in the face of a
precipitous contraction of the consumer durables market.
The cooperative group's Caja Laboral credit union — effectively Spain's
ninth largest bank — is recovering from a 75 per cent reduction in its
profitability, from 200 million to 50 million euros.
And following a sharp reduction in the use by the cooperatives of
temporary workers, overall employment has stabilised at around 83,800.
The cooperatives' triumph is attributable overwhelmingly to key
attributes that set them aside from comparable conventional enterprises.
Not to be overlooked are the conceptual framework that underlies the
cooperatives, as well as the enduring solidarity and subsidiarity values
that enliven them. These are the legacy to the cooperatives of their
founder, the Basque priest Don Jose Maria Arizmendiarrieta.
Internalised and in part secularised as the values and framework have so
largely become, they stem directly from the unswerving adherence by
Arizmendiarrieta to formation in the 'see, judge, act' or 'inquiry'
study circle mould, as developed within the Young Christian Workers
unionist movement.
As recalled by one of the five lay co-founders of the cooperative group,
'Father Arizmendi organised specialist courses on sociology to which he
invited economics professors ... His ecclesiastical training led him
towards being a practical apostle. He not only tried to give guidelines
on what should be the model for the ideal enterprise, but he put that
social enterprise to which he aspired into practice.'
The benefits of this model of industry underpinned by Catholic social
values are manifold.
Practical advantage gives rise to enduring ties of loyalty to the
cooperatives by their worker members. As equal co-owners of their
workplaces, members enjoy job security together with individual capital
holdings, equal sharing of profits on a proportionate basis and an equal
say in governance.
And members share in ownership of a unique system of secondary support
cooperatives, from which the primary cooperatives draw resources
including financial services, social insurance, education, training,
research and development.
A high priority is attached by the primary cooperatives to the
competitive advantage of cutting edge research and development. To this
end, the original Ikerlan research and development support cooperative
is augmented by 13 sister bodies that specialise in particular aspects
of manufacturing activity and product development.
And faced, as recently, by adverse trading circumstances, the
cooperatives are able to avail themselves of significant flexibilities.
For example, non-members employed on a temporary basis can be put off
until conditions improve.
Members can agree to forfeit or postpone entitlements such as one or
more of their 14 per annum pay packets or the payment of interest on
their individual capital accounts, or in extreme circumstances authorise
individual capital account draw-downs.
Cooperatives experiencing reduced demand are able to transfer members to
cooperatives where demand is increasing, without detriment to their
rights or entitlements. And supplementary capital can be accessed from
centrally held inter-cooperative solidarity funds.
Meanwhile, on hold until the economy recovers, are further major changes
expressing the ongoing commitment of the cooperatives to their origins
and principles. These include agreed measures to enfranchise the 35,OOO
of Eroski's 50,000 retail workers who are not already members.
Some 114 local and overseas subsidiaries owned or joint ventured by the
cooperatives are scheduled for conversion to worker ownership on a case
by case basis, consistent with their differing cultural, legal, business
and financial circumstances.
And in 2009, the US Steelworkers union entered into an agreement with
Mondragon to jointly develop manufacturing cooperatives in the US and
Canada, that has yet to be given effect.
A record of so remarkable a character gives rise inevitably to pertinent
questions. What contribution to productivity and workplace wellbeing
might countries other than Spain have to gain from attitudinal change
such as Mondragon has so successfully engendered?
And why is the Church in the English speaking world so largely silent
about the Mondragon cooperatives' success in bringing to fruition the
long struggle in the cause of its social teachings?
Race Mathews returned recently from the fifth of a series of visits to
Mondragon, dating back to the early 1980s. He is a former federal and
state MP. His book Jobs of Our Own: Building a Stakeholder Society
details the origins of the Mondragon idea and how the cooperatives work.
--
Dan Clore
New book: _Weird Words: A Lovecraftian Lexicon_:
http://tinyurl.com/yd3bxkw
My collected fiction: _The Unspeakable and Others_
http://www.lulu.com/product/paperback/the-unspeakable-and-others/6124911
Lord Weÿrdgliffe & Necronomicon Page:
http://tinyurl.com/292yz9
News & Views for Anarchists & Activists:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/smygo
"From the point of view of the defense of our society,
there only exists one danger -- that workers succeed in
speaking to each other about their condition and their
aspirations _without intermediaries_."
--Censor (Gianfranco Sanguinetti), _The Real Report on
the Last Chance to Save Capitalism in Italy_
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