Word: mondragone
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Dates: during 2000-2009
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...Mondragon Corp. (MCC), based in northern Spain, is a multilayered business group with 256 independent companies (more than 100 of which are worker-owned cooperatives) that employs more than 100,000 people. It has long been legendary among scholars and activists seeking to bolster workers' rights. (See the top 10 everything...
...Mondragon story began in 1941, when a Catholic priest, Jose Maria Arizmendiarrieta (often shortened to Arizmendi), found in the Basque town war-torn devastation where there had been a thriving manufacturing base. He opened a polytechnic school, which in 1956 spawned its first cooperative, a stove factory. Half a century later, the Mondragon enterprise encompasses firms making everything from machine tools to electronics to bicycles, along with a retail division, a university and a significant financial sector, with the large cooperative bank Caja Laboral at its core...
...While many think of cooperatives as a small-scale hippie mainstay, the Mondragon Corp. is huge, hard-nosed business-wise and successful; in 2008, with Spain's economy in the doldrums, MCC's income rose 6%, to 16.8 billion euros. The Mondragon Corp. maintains its commitment to one-worker, one-vote democratic governance through a complex, carefully honed organizational structure in which the corporation serves as a kind of metacooperative for the individual companies. Through representatives and resources drawn from the larger network, it provides support for planning, research and generation funding for new businesses...
...Several nonprofit and medical institutions in Cleveland have turned to the Mondragon model for a consortium of businesses that will provide needed services and bolster an impoverished community. Evergreen Cooperative Laundry, a state-of-the-art commercial launderer designed to be LEED silver-certified, opened for business this fall in Cleveland's University Circle, an area where the average annual household income is $18,500. Rather than just bringing home wages, its eight employees will gain equity through "patronage accounts," a portion of earnings put aside to both build personal assets and reinvest in the company...
...City. Shop owner Humberto Garcia says that he is not worried about getting the virus himself. "I'm strong, I'll resist it," he says, flexing his arm muscles. Architect Maria Aguilera, 31, is also unmoved. "People are just freaking out a bit," she says. However, government worker Victor Mondragon, 45, says he may vacate the city in the next few days. "I want to see how bad this thing is," he says. "If thousands start dropping dead, then I am going to run for my life...