{"id":6424,"date":"2017-10-08T22:43:42","date_gmt":"2017-10-09T05:43:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=6424"},"modified":"2017-10-08T22:50:19","modified_gmt":"2017-10-09T05:50:19","slug":"economic-historical-significance-mondragon-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2017\/10\/08\/economic-historical-significance-mondragon-spain\/","title":{"rendered":"The economic and historical significance of the Mondragon Corporation"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Mondragon Corporation<\/b>\u00a0is a\u00a0corporation<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0federation<\/a>\u00a0of\u00a0worker cooperatives<\/a>\u00a0based in the\u00a0Basque<\/a> region of\u00a0Spain<\/a>. It was founded in the town of\u00a0Mondragoe<\/a>\u00a0in 1956 by graduates of a local technical college. Its first product was\u00a0paraffin heaters<\/a>. It is the tenth-largest Spanish company in terms of\u00a0asset turnover<\/a>\u00a0and the leading business group in the\u00a0Basque Country<\/a>. At the end of 2014, it employed 74,117 people in 257 companies and organizations in four areas of activity: finance, industry, retail and knowledge.<\/sup>\u00a0By 2015, 74,335 people were employed.<\/p>\n

Mondragon\u00a0cooperatives<\/a>\u00a0operate in accordance with the\u00a0Statement on the Co-operative Identity<\/a>\u00a0maintained by the\u00a0International Co-operative Alliance<\/a>.<\/p>\n

History<\/span><\/h2>\n

In 1941, a young Catholic priest,\u00a0Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda Arizmendiarrieta<\/a>\u00a0settled in Mondrag\u00f3n, a town with a population of 7,000 that had not yet recovered from the poverty, hunger, exile, and tension of the\u00a0Spanish Civil War<\/a>.<\/sup>\u00a0In 1943, Arizmendiarrieta established a technical college which became a training ground for managers, engineers and skilled labour for local companies, and primarily for the co-operatives.<\/sup>\u00a0Arizmendiarrieta spent a number of years educating young people about a form of\u00a0humanism<\/a>\u00a0based on solidarity and participation, in harmony with\u00a0Catholic social teaching<\/a>, and the importance of acquiring the necessary technical knowledge before creating the first\u00a0co-operative<\/a>. In 1955, he selected five young people to set up the first company of the co-operative and industrial beginning of the Mondragon Corporation. The company was called Talleres Ulgor, an acronym derived from the surnames of Usatorre, Larra\u00f1aga, Gorro\u00f1ogoitia, Ormaechea, and Ortubay, known today as “Fagor Electrodom\u00e9sticos<\/a>“.<\/sup><\/p>\n

In the first 15 years many co-operatives were established, thanks to the\u00a0autarky<\/a>\u00a0of the market and the awakening of the\u00a0Spanish economy<\/a>. During these years, also with the encouragement of Don Jos\u00e9 Mar\u00eda,\u00a0the\u00a0Caja Laboral<\/a>\u00a0(1959) and the Social Welfare Body Lagun Aro (1966) were set up that were to play a key role. The first local group was created, Ularco. In 1969,\u00a0Eroski<\/a>\u00a0was founded by merging ten small local\u00a0consumer co-operatives<\/a>.<\/sup><\/p>\n

During the next 20 years, from 1970 to 1990, the dynamic continued, with a strong increase in new co-operatives promoted by Caja Laboral\u2019s Business Division, the promotion of co-operative associations, the formation of local groups, and the founding of the\u00a0Ikerlan Research Centre<\/a>\u00a0in 1974.<\/sup><\/p>\n

When Spain was scheduled to join the\u00a0European Economic Community<\/a>\u00a0in 1986, it was decided in 1984 to set up the “Mondragon Co-operative Group”, the forerunner to the current corporation. In-service training for managers was strengthened by creating Otalora, dedicated to training and to dissemination of co-operatives. The Group consisted of 23,130 workers at the end of 1990.<\/sup><\/p>\n

On the international stage, the aim was to respond to growing\u00a0globalisation<\/a>, expanding abroad by setting up production plants in a number of countries. The first was the Copreci plant in\u00a0Mexico<\/a>\u00a0in 1990, followed by many others: up to 73 by the end of 2008, and 122 at the end of 2013. The goals were to increase competitiveness and market share, bring component supply closer to customers\u2019 plants, especially in the\u00a0automotive<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0domestic appliance<\/a>\u00a0sectors, and to strengthen employment in the Basque Country by promoting exports of co-operatives’ products by means of new platforms.<\/sup><\/p>\n

In October 2009, the\u00a0United Steelworkers<\/a>\u00a0announced an agreement with Mondragon to create\u00a0worker cooperatives<\/a>\u00a0in the United States.\u00a0\u00a0<\/sup>On March 26, 2012, the USW, Mondragon, and the Ohio Employee Ownership Center (OEOC) announced its detailed union co-op model.<\/sup><\/p>\n

The industry component ended 2012 with a new record \u20ac4 billion in international sales, beating sales figures from before the\u00a0financial crisis of 2007-2008<\/a>. Mondragon opened 11 new production subsidiaries. International sales that year accounted for 69% of all sales, a 26% increase from 2009 to 2012, and with 14,000 employees abroad. Mondragon\u2019s share in the\u00a0BRIC<\/a>\u00a0markets increased to 20% compared to the previous year.<\/sup>\u00a0In 2013, international sales grew by 6.7% and accounted for 71.1% of total sales.<\/sup><\/p>\n

On 16 October 2013, domestic appliance company Fagor Electrodom\u00e9sticos filed for bankruptcy under Spanish law in order to renegotiate \u20ac1,1 billion of debt, after suffering heavy losses during the\u00a0eurocrisis<\/a>\u00a0and as a consequence of poor financial management, putting 5,600 employees at risk of losing their jobs.<\/sup>\u00a0This was followed by the bankruptcy of the whole Fagor group on 6 November 2013.<\/sup>\u00a0In July 2013, Fagor was bought by Catalan company\u00a0Cata<\/a>\u00a0for \u20ac42.5 million. Cata pledged to create 705 direct jobs in the Basque Country and to continue the brand names Fagor, Edesa, Aspes, and Splendid.<\/sup><\/p>\n

More at:\u00a0\u00a0https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Mondragon_Corporation<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Mondragon Corporation\u00a0is a\u00a0corporation\u00a0and\u00a0federation\u00a0of\u00a0worker cooperatives\u00a0based in the\u00a0Basque region of\u00a0Spain. It was founded in the town of\u00a0Mondragoe\u00a0in 1956 by graduates of a local technical college. Its first product was\u00a0paraffin heaters. It is the tenth-largest Spanish company in terms of\u00a0asset turnover\u00a0and the leading business group in the\u00a0Basque Country. At the end of 2014,… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6424"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6424"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6424\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6428,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6424\/revisions\/6428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6424"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6424"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6424"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}