Message-ID: <199612232051.MAA11027@igc2.igc.apc.org> Date: Mon, 23 Dec 1996 12:51:40 -0800 From: Catholic Social Service Bureau <mailto:cssb@IGC.APC.ORG> Subject: '97 Mondragon (Spain) Co-ops Study Tour, To: Multiple recipients of list DEVEL-L <mailto:DEVEL-L@AMERICAN.EDU>
Announcing: Mondragon Cooperatives Study Tour # 6 In the Basque Region of No. Spain March 7 - 18, 1997Contact: Alice Gerdeman, INTERCOMMUNITY JUSTICE and PEACE CENTER, 215 East 14th St., Cincinnati, Ohio 45210 USA (513) 579-8547 (Mon.- Thurs., 8 a.m. - 3 p.m. E.S.T.), Fax: (513) 579-0674, Email: mailto:IJPCCinti@aol.com http://www.iac.net/~dlature/itseminary/mondragon.html
How are workers, local communities and their regional governments to defend their shared economic interests in the face of the global transformation of business enterprises that have outgrown governments? Can cities, counties and states imagine an internally-focused alternative to no-win, taxpayer-funded, external business- attraction subsidies? Or must drain our public budgets for education, research and technology -- things on which our community futures depend? Will there be jobs for American workers in the information age? Will vast productivity gains and profits in the high-tech information market- place trickle down? Will traditionally-organized companies provide working families with good jobs? These difficult but crucial questions concern the economic future of our communities, yet are often side-stepped by politicians and commentators. To ask "What can our economy do for people?," Cincinnati's Intercommunity Justice and Peace Center (IJPC) is taking community leaders, journalists and others to investigate a working alternative. IJPC is sponsoring its sixth Spain study tour to the Mondragon Cooperatives and other Spanish co-ops. This 11-day tour promotes serious exploration of democratic worker- ownership and other regional community-based, economic-development strategies. Traditional corporate restructuring, changes in technology, trade policy and global wage competition continue to result in absentee-owned manufacturing facilities moving to or emulating lower-wage states and countries. North Americans are increasingly concerned about their communities where this globalization of work, capital flight and changes in corporate strategy are resulting in net job losses, wage reductions, plant closings and increased local poverty. In contrast, the community-based Mondragon firms are one of the world's largest, most successful group of worker-owned companies. They have annual industrial sales $2.6 Billion (U.S.), 25% of which were to foreign markets. 100 highly productive co-ops, 74 of which are industrial or financial, employ over 25,000 people who produce a broad range of goods and services. In this democratically-governed, integrated complex of high-tech firms, worker-owners benefit themselves through wages, pensions, growth of their capital investments in their own diversified groups of companies and job security. Internal democratic balancing of various interests ("equilibrio") within this "group capitalism" has led to both high efficiency and stability. Worker-owners' self-interest has also led them to make the necessary collective investments in technical education and occupational retraining that are needed in today's workplaces. They have not suffered the growing and polarizing income- and skill- inequality of North American workers. One industrial company is Spain's largest producer of electrical appliances and Spain's 7th largest manufacturer. Another Mondragon co-op is one of Spain's major machine tool producers. Over 400,000 families deposit money in the major community development bank of these Basque cooperatives. The complex also includes a large and growing chain of supermarkets, and agricultural, construction, service co-ops. This study tour examines the development strategies of these dynamic companies. Together with the wider, Basque worker-owned sector they form the core of a remarkable, multi-state, regional development strategy with the autono- mous Basque government that is of growing interest. Here well-paying manufacturing jobs are being anchored within supportive, strategic, public and private structures of the "Basque Social Economy." This tour also investigates the dramatic restructuring now underway by these businesses as they adapt to challenges in a globalizing European economy. Previous Mondragon Cooperatives Study Tours have included leaders from community and business development, labor, public policy, journalism, anti-poverty work and co-op, religious, tribal and educational institutions. Their shared interest is to analyze, experiment with and educate about new models and strategies of development. The next study tour is March 7 - 18, 1997. The $2600 (U.S.) price of this escorted tour from Madrid includes English language translation, accommodations, ground travel and some meals. The tour is limited to 20 persons. If interested, inquire as soon as possible. Contact: Alice Gerdeman (513) 579-8547 (Mon. - Thurs., 8 a.m. - 3 p.m. E.S.T.), Fax: (513) 579-0674, Email: mailto:IJPCCinti@aol.com http://www.iac.net/~dlature/itseminary/mondragon.html