Mondragon
Mondragon is a federation of industrial cooperative associations with over 260 companies subsidiaries in thirty-five countries, founded in 1959 in Spain’s Basque Region. Today it employs seventy-five thousand workers producing revenues of approximately $14 billion. Membership of the cooperative gives employees equal rights to vote and ownership; management boards consist of employees from all levels of the organization; the highest managers earn no more than six times the salary of the lowest paid workers; no more than 20 per cent of workers can be temporary contractors; and the general assembly of worker-owners decides how to distribute 70 per cent of profits after tax. An illustration of the effect of the structure came with the collapse of the white-goods manufacturer and one of Mondragon’s largest cooperatives, Fagor. With 1,800 jobs at risk, Mondragon invested in cross-training employees to take on different roles at other cooperatives, transferred capital from stable to vulnerable cooperatives and placed 1,500 people in other cooperatives in the group.