SOB George and the Mondragon.

[Matthew X]

The Challange of Mondragon.
In the Beginning . . . .
The Basque region of Spain has, in recent years, seen the rise of a system 
of cooperatives that is unparalleled in its dynamism, growth, and economic 
impact on a region. The system, which spreads throughout the surrounding 
Basque region, is named after Mondragon, a town in the mountains of 
Guipuzkoa Province near Bilbao, the place where the first cooperatives 
started. Since its start over thirty years ago, it has gained an 
international reputation, with similar models now being developed in 
England, Wales, and the United States. While its explicit connections to 
the anarchist tradition are unclear, the Mondragon system is an example of 
liberatory [sic] organization which, like its predecessors in the Spanish 
Civil War, has achieved success on a scale unequaled in any other part of 
the world.

The Mondragon network was founded by a Catholic priest, Don Jose Maria 
Arizmendi, a man who had narrowly missed being put to death by Franco as a 
result of his participation in the Spanish Civil War on the Republican 
side. With the help of collections from citizens of Mondragon, he founded 
an elementary technical school in 1943. The first graduates numbered among 
them five men who, in 1956, founded a small worker-owned and managed 
factory named ULGOR, numbering initially 24 members, and given to the 
manufacture of a copied kerosene stove.

This cooperative venture proved successful and developed into the flagship 
enterprise of the whole system which later was to come into being. At one 
point ULGOR numbered over 3,000 members, although this was later recognized 
as too large and was reduced. The structure of this enterprise served as 
the model for the latter enterprises forming the system. Following the 
Rochedale principles, it had one member-one vote; open membership; equity 
held by members and hence external capitalization by debt, not equity; and 
continuing education


Mondragon Corporación Cooperativa

17/06/2002.- MCC increased sales by 14.7% in 2001 and created 6,800 new jobs

In a year like 2001, characterised by an acute slowdown in the economy all 
over the world, made worse in the second half of the year by the tragic 
events of 11 September, MCC companies performed reasonably well. They 
increased their sales by 14.7%, with significant international expansion in 
the industrial area and 6,800 new jobs created, although overall 
profitability fell somewhat. For 2002, the forecasts are for a 14% rise in 
sales and 5,000 new jobs

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