Re: Mondragon: Re: Mondragon

[RaceM <race@netspace.net.au>]

Title: Re: Mondragon: Re: Mondragon

> Race -
>
> I believe that through past correspondence you have acknowledged an
> acquaintance with my partner Fred Freundlich who teaches on the
> faculty of Mondragon University.  He and his colleague Luxio
> Ugarte have a long standing theoretical and practical interest in the
> democratization issues you describe as they are being played out in
> Mondragon.  Those questions are also a major focus of our work
> here at Ownership Associates in ESOP and cooperative companies that
> are our clients.
>
> If you aren't in touch with Fred and Luxio on these topics, you may
> want to consider doing so (ff@ownershipassociates.com).  You can
> see for yourself if our work at Ownership Associates has anything to
> contribute to these questions.  My partner Loren Rodgers who
> takes the lead on our Ownership Culture Survey (OCS) work and other
> responsibilities is nearly finished with a re-tooling of our web page
> that will provide easier access to people who wish to make use of our
> work.  This note will hopefully spur him on to get the revised
> web page done in the coming week. 
>
> Loren will be presenting on some of that work at the Eastern States
> Worker Cooperative Conference along with Tim Huet and others July
> 10-21 at the University of Maryland.  I will unfortunately be
> tied up at a competing conference in Philadelphia most of that weekend
> on behalf of the Mondragon inspired Sweat X project.  I may be in
> there that Friday night.  Are you planning to attend?
>
> Finally, in my opinion Tim Huet and his colleagues in the Bay area
> have gone further than anyone else in this country in digging in to
> the details of how to make Mondragon style cooperative structures
> work.  As far as the gray hairs go though David Ellerman, Robert
> Oakeshott and probably yourself still set the standard.
>
> Chris Mackin
> www.ownershipassociates.com

Dear Chris

Thanks for your message. The idea of an International Mondragon Studies Association was discussed with Fred Freundlich and Luxio Ugarte when David Ellerman and I spoke at a conference in Mondragon last year, and I see COG's Mondragon page as a bridging measure pending the establishment of either the association or some other entity to facilitate discussion among members of the co-operatives and their well-wishers, based either in Mondragon or elsewhere. At the time of the conference, there seemed to be real possibility that something might be inititiated from within Mondragon, but nothing further so far seems to have eventuated. Meanwhile, my own concern and sense of urgency stems in part from the discussion in George Cheney's recent book - 'Values at Work: Employee Participation Meets Market Pressure at Mondragon' - of what Mondragon managers read and from where they derive their professional inspiration, and the apparent absence of any emphasis on innovative shopfloor participatory mechanisms commensuate with their importance for the future well-being of the co-operatives.

All this makes your comments about the relevance of work being done both by your own firm and by Tim Huet and his associates in San Francisco the more welcome, and I wonder if you and Tim might at this stage be able to offer some guidance as to whether and if so how your respective bodies of experience relates to the situation of the co-operatives, and, more particularly  to what Dafyd Greenwood has identified as the unfinished business arising from the work of his team's participatory action reseach team in the late 1980s. Is there a direct nexus, and, if so, do you have any views as to what might be an appropriate strategy for injecting your observations and conclusions into debate within and around the co-operatives? Unfortunately, having just returned from lecturing about Mondragon in the US, and being due back there for the COG conference in Washington in October, I can't also make this month in Maryland, but it will be good if the COG conference can be an opportunity for as many as possible of us to get together and compare notes.Best wishes, Race Mathews.          

-- 

Dr Race Mathews,
Senior Research Fellow,
Government and Governance Unit,
Faculty of Business and Economics
Monash University.

Postal Address:
123 Alexandra Avenue,
South Yarra, Vic, 3141,
Australia.

Phone/Fax: (03) 9826 0104.