Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Mondragon Corp
Mondragon Corp
Corporation
Founded 1956
History
In 1941, a young Catholic priest, José
María Arizmendiarrieta settled in
Mondragón, a town with a population of
7,000 that had not yet recovered from the
poverty, hunger, exile, and tension of the
Spanish Civil War.[4] In 1943,
Arizmendiarrieta established a technical
college which became a training ground
for managers, engineers and skilled
labour for local companies, and primarily
for the co-operatives.[5] Arizmendiarrieta
spent a number of years educating young
people about a form of humanism based
on solidarity and participation, in
harmony with Catholic social teaching,
and the importance of acquiring the
necessary technical knowledge before
creating the first co-operative. In 1955, he
selected five young people to set up the
first company of the co-operative and
industrial beginning of the Mondragon
Corporation. The company was called
Talleres Ulgor, an acronym derived from
the surnames of Usatorre, Larrañaga,
Gorroñogoitia, Ormaechea, and Ortubay,
known today as "Fagor
Electrodomésticos".[6]
Business culture
Wage regulation
Business sectors
Mondragon Corporation operates in four
areas: finance, industry, retail, and
knowledge, with the latter distinguishing
Mondragon from other business groups.
In 2013, the corporation posted a total
revenue of over €12 billion (roughly $16
billion USD), and employed 74,061
workers,[3] making it Spain's fourth-
largest industrial and tenth-largest
financial group.[25]
Finance
This area includes the banking business
of Laboral Kutxa, the insurance company
Seguros Lagun Aro, and the Voluntary
Social Welfare Body Lagun Aro, which
had an asset fund totalling €5.566 million
at the end of 2014. The yield obtained
from this fund is used to cover long-term
retirement, widowhood, and invalidity
benefits, complementary to those offered
by the Spanish social security system.
Industry
Retail
Knowledge
This area has a dual focus: education-
training and innovation, which have both
been key elements in the development of
the Corporation. Training-education is
mainly linked to the dynamism of
Mondragon University, the significant role
that Politeknika Ikastegia Txorierri,
Arizmendi Ikastola and Lea Artibai
Ikastetxea play in their respective areas
and the activity of the Management and
Co-operative Development Centre
Otalora.
Reactions
In 2012 Richard D. Wolff, American
professor of economics, hailed the
Mondragon set of enterprises, including
the good wages it provides for
employees, the empowerment of
ordinary workers in decision making, and
the measure of equality for female
workers, as a major success and cited it
as a working model of an alternative to
the capitalist mode of production.[38]
Mondragón in fiction
In 2312, a science fiction novel by Kim
Stanley Robinson, the Mondragón
Corporation has evolved into a planned
economy system called the Mondragon
Accord.[40] The Mondragon Accord is
controlled by means of a network of AI's
running on quantum computers, and rules
large parts of the Solar System, including
Mercury and most of the moons of the
gas giants; only part of Earth, and its
colonies in space, retain remnants of
capitalist economies, while Mars has
withdrawn from the Accord in the century
preceding the story. The Mondragón
Corporation already appeared in
Robinson's earlier Mars trilogy, as one of
the Terran groups involved in the
colonization and terraforming of Mars;
the coop is also portrayed as the
inspiration of both the bogdanovist
movement[41] and the libertarian-leaning
Praxis Corporation[42] two of the main
forces leading the revolution for the
independence of Mars.
See also
Basque Cooperative Movement
Cecosesola, association of
cooperatives in Venezuela
Distributism
Horizontalidad
John Lewis Partnership
List of worker cooperatives
Workers' self-management
References
1. "Annual Report 2015" . Mondragon
Corporation. Archived from the original
on 14 June 2016. Retrieved 7 June 2016.
2. "Annual Report 2014" (PDF).
Mondragon Corporation. Retrieved
13 February 2016.
3. Mondragon Corporation. "Annual
Report 2012" . Archived from the original
on 21 September 2013. Retrieved
21 September 2013.
4. The Mondragón Experiment - Corporate
Cooperativism (1980) FULL You Tube
5. Molina, Fernando (2005). José María
Arizmendiarreta. Caja Laboral. ISBN 84-
920246-2-3.
6. Foote, William (1991). Making
Mondragón. IRL Press. ISBN 0-87546-182-
4.
7. Conosce Eroski una empresa diferente
Eroski
8.
http://www.euskomedia.org/aunamendi/7
6338 euskomedia.org
9. Staff writer(s). "Year-on-year
Development, MONDRAGON
Corporation" . www.mondragon-
corporation.com. Archived from the
original on 2011-12-31.
10. Ormaetxe, Jose Maria (2003). Medio
siglo de la experiencia cooperativa de
Mondragon. Azatza. SS-1433/2003.
11. Wilson, Amanda. Bendable Business:
Cooperatives less likely to break in
economic crises. The Dominion. 4
December 2009.
12. The-Union-Co-op-Model United
Steelworkers, March 26 2012
13. Internationalisation consolidates
MONDRAGON’s industrial business with
sales abroad in excess of €4bn Jun 17,
2013 tulankide.com
14. Internationalisation and innovation,
keys to the evolution of MONDRAGON
cooperatives in 2013 Archived 10
September 2014 at the Wayback Machine
8 September 2014, mondragon-
corporation.com
15. Spanish white goods company Fagor
seeks protection from creditors Oct 16,
2013 reuters.com/
16. Fagor et sa filiale française déposent
le bilan Le Monde.fr, AFP and Reuters, 6
November 2013
17. Catalan company Cata buys bankrupt
domestic appliance business Fagor 29
July 2014 catalan news agency
Intracatalònia, SA
18. Larrañaga, Jesus (1998). El
cooperativismo en Mondragon. Azatza.
ISBN 84-88125-12-7.
19. "Mondragon Corporation" . Archived
from the original on 24 October 2010.
Retrieved 11 November 2010.
20. "Mondragon Corporation. Co-operative
Culture" . Archived from the original on
25 November 2010. Retrieved
11 November 2010.
21. Foote, William (1991). Making
Mondragon. ILR. ISBN 0-87546-182-4.
22. "Mondragon Corporation. Co-
operatives bodies and terminology" .
Archived from the original on 24 October
2010. Retrieved 11 November 2010.
23. Herrera, David (2004). "Mondragon: a
for-profit organization that embodies
Catholic social thought" (PDF). Review of
Business. The Peter J. Tobin College of
Business, St. John's University. 25 (1):
56–68. Archived from the original (PDF)
on 2010-07-14. Retrieved August 29,
2014.
24. Vincent Navarro, What About
Cooperatives as a Solution? The Case of
Mondragon , CounterPunch, 2014.04.30
25. Jeffrey Hollender (June 27, 2011).
"The Rise Of Shared Ownership And The
Fall Of Business As Usual" . Fast
Company. Retrieved 2011-06-28.
26. LABORAL KUTXA OBTUVO EN 2014
UN BENEFICIO CONSOLIDADO DE 109,2
MILLONES DE EUROS 19 february 2015
27. / Organisational Estructure in
Mondragon, consumer goods
28. / Organisational estructure in
Mondragon, capital goods
29. / Organisational Estructure in
Mondragon, industrial components
30. "/ Corporative Profile 2010" . Archived
from the original on 2 March 2011.
Retrieved 11 March 2011.
31. Tu Lankide,"Internationalisation
consolidates Mondragon’s industrial
business with sales abroad in excess of
€4bn" , 17 June 2013.
32. Tu Lankide MONDRAGON
cooperatives in industrial sector create
1.000 jobs in 2014 July 14, 2015
33. Datos destacados de 2014 Eroski
34. "/ Magnitudes económicas de
Eroski" . Archived from the original on 19
March 2011. Retrieved 11 March 2011.
35. "Erkop" . Erkop.
36. "Mondragon Annual Corporate Profile
for 2010" . Archived from the original on
2 March 2011. Retrieved 11 March 2011.
37. "/ Mondragon Yearly Report 2010" .
Archived from the original on 15 April
2011. Retrieved 11 March 2011.
38. Wolff, Richard (24 June 2012). Yes,
there is an alternative to capitalism:
Mondragon shows the way . The
Guardian.
39. Talking With Chomsky , Laura
Flanders, 30 April 2012 CounterPunch.
40.
http://kimstanleyrobinson.info/node/445
41.
http://kimstanleyrobinson.info/content/m
ars-trilogy-groups
42.
https://claecceity.wordpress.com/2015/0
3/04/a-rebuke-by-vlad-taneev-from-kim-
stanley-robinsons-blue-mars/
Further reading
Azurmendi, Joxe 1984: El hombre
cooperativo
Spanish white goods company Fagor
seeks protection from creditors
(October 2013)
Thousands of Fagor employees
demand in Mondragon town to keep
their jobs (October 2013)
White-goods giant Fagor goes into
administration (October 2013)
Cooperation for Economic Success.
The Mondragon Case (2011) in Analyse
& Kritik, 33 (1), 157-170 . Ramon Flecha
& Iñaqui Santa
Cruz.http://www.analyse-und-
kritik.net/en/abstracts_current.php#56
2
Making Mondragon: The Growth and
Dynamics of the Worker Cooperative
Complex (1991), William Whyte.
ISBN 0-87546-182-4
We Build the Road as We Travel:
Mondragon, A Cooperative Social
System, Roy Morrison. ISBN 0-86571-
173-9
The Mondragon Cooperative Experience
(1993), J. Ormachea.
Cooperation at Work: The Mondragon
Experience (1983), K. Bradely & A.
Gelb.
Values at Work: Employees
participation meets market pressure at
Mondragon (1999), G. Cheney.
Mondragon: An economic analysis
(1982), C. Logan & H. Thomas.
The Myth of Mondragon: Cooperatives,
Politics, and Working-Class Life in a
Basque Town (1996), by Sharryn
Kasmir, State University of New York
Press.
From Mondragon to America:
Experiments in Community Economic
Development (1997), by G. MacLeod,
University College of Cape Breton
Press. ISBN 0-920336-53-1
"Jobs of Our Own: Building a
Stakeholder Society" (1999), by Race
Mathews, Pluto Press (Australia) and
Comerford & Miller (London). ISBN 1-
86403-064-X. US reprint 2009, The
Distributist Review Press. ISBN 978-0-
9679707-9-0. ISBN 0-9679707-9-2.
"Rag Radio: Carl Davidson on
Mondragon and Workers'
Cooperatives," The Rag Blog,
September 15, 2011 Interview by
Thorne Dreyer (44:05)
Articles about the Mondragon
Corporation on The Rag Blog
External links
This article's use of external links may not follow
Wikipedia's policies or guidelines.
Learn more
Official website
El PNV asegura que Fagor y
Mondragon han actuado tarde, mal y a
destiempo EL CORREO Newspaper
MONDRAGON Corporation - Google
Maps
CEPES MCC is member of the
Spanish National Confederation of
social economy Enterprises.
Mondragón: The Remarkable
Achievement article from In Context
magazine, 1983
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