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Re: Mondragon: Re: Mondragon
I share Tom Webb's view about the importance of the two issues he raised
and the seven questions raised for the first issue and the three
questions raised by the second issue.
I have set out these ten questions below with my comments:
1.1 Can Mondragon continue indefinitely
with co-operative democracy for the Basques but non-co-operative ventures
outside the Basque Country?
I would be great pity if the MCC did not walk the talk and
replicate itself internationally. It would support arguments that its
business model is culturally specific and/or it controllers are just as
opportunistic as any other capitalist.
1.2 Can any regional or national
co-operative business or set of businesses compete with no transnational
linkages?
The answer is a resound YES for social infrastructure
projects that are now typically being privatised like freeways, bridges,
tunnels, power generation, communication, water supply, etc.
Governments should not allow such essential services with natural or
created monopoly privileges to be owned and controlled by alien
interests.
1.3 What form can these linkages take
that is consistent with co-operative values and principles?
For other types of business that may need economies of
scale or scope then this can be obtained through establishing
relationship networks as illustrated by the Mondragron Groups or a
Japanese Keiretsu. For details refer to my article on A NEW WAY TO
GOVERN at
<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=310263>.
1.4 What is a "co-operative
joint venture"?
There are many examples in the electronics and bio-tech
industries where business may both cooperate and compete at the same
time. But they are typically not inclusive to allow the
participation of all stakeholders. To achieve inclusiveness they
would need to adopt an ecological form of ownership and control as
provided by what I call Ownership Transfer Corporations in my book
Democratising
the Wealth of Nations.
<http://cog.kent.edu/lib/TurnbullBook/TurnbullBook.htm>.
OTCs convert capitalistic firms into nested network of
multi-stakeholder mutuals that create a Mondragon like architecture but
is more dynamic because change in ownership is built in to maintain
inclusiveness as stakeholders change over time.
1.5 What is A "co-operative
strategic alliance?"
Refer to 1.4 and 1.5 above
1.6 What is An "international
co-operative merger"
I can imagine and describe such an arrangement but I would
not encourage it as it is likely to combine the more unattractive
features of mullti national firms. Much better to establish
networks of strategic alliances between locally owned and controlled
multi stakeholder firms like that which would be created by
OTCs
1.7 How will co-operatives in Northern
Italy link co-operatively to Mondragon and to our consumer co-operatives
in lets say North America?
Network alliances would be my recommendation as this is
consistent with how they both link locally to other local
firms.
2.1 How do 'consumer' based co-operatives
begin to convert to [multi] stakeholder co-operatives?
This questioned is answered in my paper 'The competitive
advantages of stakeholder mutuals’, presented to the 12th Annual Meeting
of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-economics, London School of
Economics, July 9th, 2000,
<http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?cfid=196284&cftoken=90592070&abstract_id=242779>
and published in a shorter form in in The New Mutualism in Public
Policy, ed. J. Birchall Chapter 9, pp. 171-201, Routledge, 2001,
London.
The question is also answered in my public policy booklet being launched
today in London by the New Economics Foundation on A New Way to
Govern: Organisations and society after Enron. This publication
was financed by a consumer co-operative, the
Oxford, Swindon and Gloucester Co-operative
Society that wants to convert to a multi-stakeholder
cooperative. The pocket book was also commissioned to identify
alternatives to privatisation and public/private partnerships that are
not operating satisfactory or have failed like Railtrack.
2.2 Who is studying attempts to do this?
[Stakeholder mutuals]
I do not know but I would like to when people
try.
2.3 Legislation that allows it?
I do not believe that any changes in legislation would be
required in the UK, US and Australia if corporation law was used instead
of cooperative specific laws. No changes in legislation is required
to create OTCs in these countries. It is simply a matter of members
changing their corporate constitution.
Kind regards to all
Shann Turnbull
At 03:22 AM 3/7/2002, you wrote:
Dear Race
and Colleagues,
The question of democratic shop floor
management is clearly very important but let me raise two other
issues.
- As we watch the corporate global economy gathering strength and
momentum, Mondragon (and co-operatives around the world) needs to ask
what is the co-operative alternative. Can Mondragon continue
indefinitely with co-operative democracy for the Basques but
non-co-operative ventures outside the Basque Country? Can any
regional or national co-operative business or set of businesses compete
with no transnational linkages? What form can these linkages take
that is consistent with co-operative values and principles? What is
a "co-operative joint venture"? A "co-operative
strategic alliance?" An "international co-operative
merger"? How will co-operatives in Northern Italy link
co-operatively to Mondragon and to our consumer co-operatives in lets say
North America?
I have been trying to interest the MCC in
a "joint venture, and while the door has not yet closed (one way or
the other) it is not an area where much thought has been given. I
would like to see this come up for discussion as well.
- How do the enormous number of 'consumer' based co-operatives begin to
convert to stakeholder co-operatives (like Eroski) that reflect the
mutual interests of consumers and workers? Who is studying attempts
to do this? Legislation that allows it?
I have started a more lengthy response to your
paper Race but I must admit it is a slow process taking the back seat to
more mundane concerns. Yet one day it will arrive on the list
serve.
Tom Webb
----- Original Message -----
- From: RaceM
- To:
mondragon@cog.kent.edu
- Sent: Tuesday, July 02, 2002 9:13 AM
- Subject: Re: Mondragon: Re: Mondragon
-
- Dear Race, Chris and mondragon@cog:
- Lots of, uh, challenging short-term deadlines in Mondragon. Lean production, you know. Hope to add my two cents to the discussion when things slow down a bit at the end of the month or in August. I was just scratching out a handful of "key" factors I think have been in play in Mondragon in recent years and the list quickly grew to a dozen or fifteen. Reminds me of the comment made by a Canadian who visited the co-ops a year or so ago. She said, "Whenever we ask you a question about Mondragon, your first response is: 'It's complicated' or 'Yes and no' or 'It depends.' "
-
- Regards,
- Fred
- ----- Original Message -----
- From: Hsq95@aol.com
- To: mondragon@cog.kent.edu
- Cc: lr@ownershipassociates.com ; ff@ownershipassociates.com
- Sent: Monday, July 01, 2002 1:04 AM
- Subject: 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 Fred
Thanks for your message. I'll look forward to your Luther-like nailing up on the Portalon of your fifteen or so propositions of Mondragonian ambiguity in August or sooner. Meanwhile, as you will see from my reponses to Chris Macken and Shann Turnbull, one aspect of the mission of COG's Mondragon page seems to me to be to encourage as many industrial relations, human resource management and industrial democracy scholars and practitioners as possible to apply their minds to the question of how the excellence of corporate governance in the Mondragon mould can be replicated at the shopfloor level, and it is very much my hope that people on the COHG page list who know of prospective sources of advice will alert them to the discussion. Correspondingly, there is a need for respondents within the co-operatives and I wonder if you have any views as to how the interest of prospective candidates can be engaged? Best wishes, Race
--
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.
Shann Turnbull Ph.D.
P.O. Box 266 Woollahra, Sydney, Australia, 1350
Ph: +612 9328 7466 office; +612 9327 8487 home; Fax: +612 9327 1497;
Life long E-mail: sturnbull@mba1963.hbs.edu Alternate:sturnbull@optusnet.com.au
with other papers & book at http://cog.kent.edu/library.html
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