Re: Mondragon: Fwd: New ILO Recommendation on the Promotion of Cooperatives

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

on 10/9/02 1:39 am, RaceM at race@netspace.net.au wrote:

>> on 8/9/02 5:49 am, RaceM at race@netspace.net.au wrote:
>> 
>>> 
>>> Dear Robert
>>> 
>>> Thanks for your message, and for your appreciative comments about
>>> 'Jobs of Our Own'. As to 'Rerum Novarum', I had always until I wrote
>>> the book called the encyclical just that, but in the course of the
>>> research I came across 'De Rerum Novarum' in what I took to be an
>>> authoritative source, and adopted it as translating to 'Of New
>>> Things'. Which shows among other things that a distant recollection
>>> of schooldays Latin is a dangerous thing. I haven't commented on your
>>> 'Jobs and Fairness' because I haven't yet had the opportunity to read
>>> it properly - the Parliamentary Library here came up with a copy on
>>> inter-library loan, but it had to be returned before I had had time
>>> to do any more than a first skim through, so I've now ordered it from
>>> my local bookseller who tells me that I have a few more weeks still
>>> to wait. One section that interested me greatly was the end game in
>>> regard to the National Freight Corporation - I'd read Peter
>>> Thompson's account in his memoirs some years ago and frequently
>>> referred to it in speeches, but never got round to finding out what
>>> had been the final washup. Meanwhile, I still don't know whether I
>>> will be able to make Bilbao, less for financial reasons than that I
>>> have recently taken on a fairly substantial short term consultancy on
>>> early childhood education and care for a government deparyment, that
>>> has to be completed by Christmas, so getting to the conference will
>>> depend on how the work is progressing. Best wishes, Race Mathews
>> dear race, thanks for both your e-mails. I shall certainly make a point of
>> visiting the GKC institute at Orange in New Jersey when I am next in
>> America. About the employee ownership end-game at NFC, I suppose the key
>> fact is that "a significant majority of NFC's employee shareholders, some
>> 60%, voted in 1988 to authorise the directors to seek a flotation". Of
>> course, that isn't the VERY end of the story; and Sir Peter was rightly
>> incensed by what he saw as the subsequent betrayal - after his retirement -
>> by the successor top management of the "rank and file " employee
>> shareholders. That is all dealt with fairly fully in my book. Incidently I
>> had originally intended in my comments about Jobs of Our Own to bring up the
>> comparison (p226) between behaviour in Japanese and Mondragon businesses. Do
>> you know Ronald Dore's TAKING JAPAN SERIOUSLY with its striking sub-title- A
>> CONFUCIAN PERSPECTIVE ON LEADING ECONOMIC ISSUES. If not I can only
>> recommend it most strongly. He introduces most persuasively a distinction
>> between the COMPANY LAW MODEL of capitalist businesses and the Community
>> Model and argues that DE FACTO even if not DE JURE the latter is what you
>> find in Japan. For what it's worth I reviewed the book at some length in the
>> April-June 1988 issue of Political Quarterly, to which you may have
>> relatively easy access....I shall keep my fingers crossed and hope that your
>> other commitments will allow you to make the journey to Mondragon and Bilbao
>> in late Novemenber - and to stop off here either on the way or the way back.
>> I have two spare rooms so there would be no difficulty about the offer of a
>> bed. With renewed thanks and all the best from robert.
> 
> Dear Robert
> 
> Thanks for your message, and I'll get the library to look out a copy
> of the 'Political Quarterly' article for me. Meanwhile, I'd like to
> think that, irrespective of whether I make it to Bilbao, the
> conference might consider putting formally to the MCC a proposal for
> jointly resuming the action research that was initiated by the
> Greenwood/Gonzalez team at Fagor in the late 1980s. It seems to me
> that no single issue is more important for the future of the MCC as a
> co-operative entity, and for the 'evolved distributism' to which it
> so eloquently gives expression, than to get to the bottom of the
> shopfloor disaffection that the Greenwood and Gonzalez research
> identified - and that apparently also shows up in more recent survey
> data - and develop an agreed program of remedial measures. In my
> view, the task is in no sense insuperable, providing that it draws on
> the best sources of industrial relations and industrial democracy
> insight, information and guidance, irrespective of where they are to
> be found,and does not try to operate on a wholly in-houses basis, as
> would be understandable in the light of the success of the
> co-operatives in fending for themselves in so many other spheres.I
> also wonder whether - in the light of your long association with
> Mondragon and the wide range of cases you have covered in 'Jobs and
> Fairness'- you might not be admirably qualified  - either alone or
> perhaps in association with others such as, say, Jeff Gates -  to
> steer such a project to external sources of advice that would be both
> effective and congenial for the co-operatives? And might not a
> measure at least of funding be accessible from Brussels or the ILO?
> Not least, it seems to me that getting off the ground such a program
> with an appropriate sense of urgency would in itself make the
> conference worthwhile, irrespective of the whatever other positive
> outcomes may be achieved. It would not be the MCC co-operatives alone
> that benefited, but all those of us who wish them well and would
> like to see their lessons put to work in our own countries. I'd hoped
> originally that something similar might be triggered from discussion
> on the Mondragon page of the COG web site, but on indications to date
> it isn't going to happen, and an entity with clout and credibility is
> required. Best wishes, Race Mathews.
dear race, this is an overdue response to your latest email. Rather
unusually I have been out of London for the past two days. In principle I
greatly favour your "action research" proposal: for a thoroughly
professional investigation into the causes of management/shopfloor
discontents within MCC and the resulting indentification of a set of changed
policies to confront them. I might also be able to point to a candidate who
could do a good job. For what it's worth Ron Dore would probably be my
preferred researcher. I failed to pass on when I flagged him up in my last
e-mail what has always seemed to me his most persuasive contrast between how
western and japanes managements are perceived by the "lads". The latter are
seen as the "trusted elders of a working community" the former as "the paid
agents of the shareholders". And if the project was really going to come
off- and the sponsors wanted a competition to get the job - I could almost
certainly suggest some other names. But I also have two initial caveats: a)
if the proposal is to be considered by the conference I would favour seeking
to establish in advance what MCC reaction was likely to be and b) getting an
advance reaction from Mark Mathieu. Friendly Fred might be prepared to act
as an intemediary in the first case. You are, I'm sure, the best agent in
the second. Well, that's about it for now. But one final query. Have you an
address and other contact details for John Thomson, preferably here in the
UK but also useful to me if he is elsewhere. With best wishes from Robert.