Re: Mondragon: Re: MDRGN: Re: MDRGN Inaugural Message

[robert oakeshott <robert.oakeshott@virgin.net>]

on 2/4/02 11:52 pm, RaceM at race@netspace.net.au wrote:

>> 
> 
> Dear Chris
> 
> Thanks for your message. The Team X project sounds fascinating, and I
> hope that you will provide updates on progess as it unfolds. In
> particular, I am interested in the role which you foresee for unions,
> and how it will play out in the Team X context. In my view, Mondragon
> is a good example of why unions need to expand their service menues
> to encompass the delivery of financial and legal advice to members
> whose jobs are structured on other than traditional lines. One source
> of frustration that has come to light in Mondragon is the difficulty
> that some members experience in interpreting and putting to use the
> copious financial data that their co-operatives make available to
> them. The skilling programs which the co-operatives are now
> undertaking is part of the answer, and it seems to me that another
> might be for unions to become the preferred providers of high quality
> independent professional assistance. Best wishes, Race Mathews
dear race mathews. just a very brief comment about Mondragon. For what it's
worth - probably not much - I devoted between 40 & 50 pages, or between
15000 and 20,000 words, to the Mondragon group in my recent book JOBS &
Fairness (Michael Russell 2,000, ISBN o 85955 256 X. The book has the
subtitle: the logic and experience of employee ownership. Whatever the
outcome of any detailed linguistic and defintional discussions I believe
that it would be both intuitively and logicly wrong to classify the group as
falling outside the broad church family of employee owned businesses. It
would be wrong because ownership in the relevant sense is less about
financial participation that about where the power of final decision making
lies. Having said that I should add that in the heading of the chapter in
which I discuss the group I characterise it "as one of a kind." Sadly the
book has not been at all widely reviewed though it would be ungrateful not
to acknowledge what was written about it in two rather different
publications: the Financial Times in London and Owners at Work in Ohio. I
feel bound in conclusion to express the view that I for one will be most
disappointed by your new entity if it allows itself to become bogged down in
essentially linguistic and definitional discussions. With that proviso, I
wish you all the best. yours sincerely robert oakeshott.