Work Together Issue 4 - May 2011

Work Together

The global information magazine on cooperatives and worker-owned enterprises in industry, services and crafts

May 2011 - Issue N°4

JWCU, the Japanese organisation for worker’s

cooperatives is reporting an extremely hard situa-

tion within their members with the aftershocks that

are still hitting the country. A relief fund has been

set up to help the cooperatives. Report on page 24.

IN THIS ISSUE

INTERVIEW WITH ISABELLE DURANT VICE-PRESIDENT OF THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT (page 14)

SUSTAINABLE EMPLOYMENT: A KEY FOR THE FUTURE OF EUROPE (page 7)

SIGNS OF HOPE FOR COOPERATIVES IN EGYPT (page 23)

Japan’s recovery JWCU set up a relief fund 

COOPERATIVE ENTERPRISES BUILD A BETTER WORLD (page 3) EDITORIAL 2

INTERCONTINENTAL 3

EUROPE 7

INTERVIEW 14

SOUTH AMERICA 16

NORTH AMERICA 19

AFRICA 22

ASIA 24

SPECIAL EDITION ON

SUSTAINABLE EMPLOYMENT

When CECOP requested that I write the magazine’s editorial that you have in your hands, I had two thoughts: on the one hand the re-sponsibility of writing words that include all those cooperative feel-ings and thoughts and, on the other hand, I felt the satisfaction of being able to talk about a topic which I defend at every possible opportu-nity.

Sustainable employment is a funda-mental pillar on which our business model is built, and it is linked to the International Co-operative Alliance (ICA)’s cooperative principles : the sev-enth principle is about the community interest. Coopera-tives work to achieve their communities’ sustainable develop-ment through poli-cies approved by their members. Everyone knows that cooperatives are the companies that make the most effort to maintain long-lasting employment embedded in the terri-tory.

Under the Treaty of Lisbon, and within it, Chapter II of the Charter of Fundamental Rights, sets out various points about the freedom to choose an occupation, the right to engage in work and the freedom to conduct a business. Also, the Chap-ter III of the Charter analyzes equality between men and women; based on the ICA goals, we note that it appears to promote and strengthen self-governing coopera-tives throughout the world and pro-mote sustainable human develop-ment and human, economic and social progress.

From COCETA, we are actively working for the inclusion of social clauses in the contractual docu-ments for public tenders, based pri-marily on employment sustainabil-ity and its characteristics. We can-not forget that cooperatives are an ideal company model to work with public administration; while tradi-tional enterprises give contracts according to the length of time of a specific service, cooperatives try to keep people employed for longer and they do not only maintain jobs,

but this has an impact on local areas, with all the benefits that this entails.

Another important concept in this field is Corporate Social R e s p o n s i b i l i t y (CSR). According to the Word Business Council for Sustain-

able Development, CSR is : "the commitment that takes a company to contribute to sustainable eco-nomic development through col-laboration with employees, their families, local community and soci-ety in order to improve quality of life”. This idea is dynamic and is constantly evolving and changing, but it is vital and it is in harmony with sustainable employment.

I hope you find this Work Together issue interesting and that it makes us think and further develop these topics. Happy reading!

Editorial By Manuel Mariscal, COCETA

WORK TOGETHER - ISSUE N° 4 - MAY 2011

Work Together Issue Nº 4 - May 2011

Work Together is the magazine of

the world (CICOPA) and European

(CECOP) Confederation of coopera-

tives and worker-owned enterprises

active in industry and services

CICOPA is a sectoral organisation of

the International Cooperative

Alliance (ICA).

Avenue Milcamps 105 - BE-1030

Brussels, Belgium

Contact: [email protected]

www.cicopa.coop

www.cecop.coop

SECRETARY GENERAL

Bruno Roelants

COORDINATION AND EDITION

Olivier Biron and Leire Luengo

COLLABORATORS

Virginia Pérez and Natalia Acerenza

GRAPHIC DESIGN

Jorge Cabrera for jcse

TRANSLATIONS AND PROOFREAD-

ING OF THE THREE LINGUISTIC

VERSIONS

Guy Boucquiaux, Francine Feret,

Arantza Garrido Altuna, Helen Rob-

inson and Celia Martín del Pozo

PICTURES

Self-production and copyright-free

photographs from flickr.com

The editorial staff would like to thank

all the members of CICOPA and CE-

COP CICOPA Europe for their con-

tribution.

Edited in English, French and Spanish

Manuel Mariscal Sigüenza is vice-

president of CECOP, vice-president of COCETA (The Spanish Confederation

of workers' cooperatives) and president of FAECTA (Federation of coopera-

tives enterprises of Andalusia).

“Sustainable

employment is

a fundamental

pillar on which

our business

model is built...”

2 | EDITORIAL

International Year of Cooperatives: “Cooperative enterprises build a better world” Olivier Biron, CICOPA

‘Cooperative Enterprises build a better world’ will be the slogan of the 2012 United Nations Interna-tional Year of Cooperatives. It highlights the contribution of coop-eratives to socio-economic develop-ment, in particular recognizing their impact on poverty reduction, employment generation and social integration: "Cooperatives are a reminder to the international com-munity that it is possible to pursue both economic viability and social responsibility", declared the United Nations Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon.

The UN resolution which proclaimed this international year invites all member states to consider taking ac-tion towards establishing national mechanisms, such as national com-mittees, to prepare for, observe and follow up on the International Year of Cooperatives.

The mains objectives are to increase public awareness about cooperatives and their contributions to socio-economic development and promote

the formation and growth of coopera-tives. The International Year of Coop-eratives encourages governments to establish policies, laws and regula-tions conducive to the formation, growth and stability of cooperatives.

The United Nations have also re-cently revealed the logo of the Inter-national Year which features seven persons working together to lift and support a cube. It evokes the defini-tion of a cooperative enterprise as

“an autonomous associations of per-sons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, cultural needs and aspirations, through a jointly owned and democratically controlled enterprise” 1. ■

INTERCONTINENTAL | 3 WORK TOGETHER - ISSUE N° 4 - MAY 2011

'Co-operative Press' has recently launched 'Dash.coop', a website that displays news and blog feeds from cooperatives across the world. It also provides an interactive dashboard for cooperators and anyone interested in the sector to view feeds by subject or through custom searches.

'Dash.coop' has the particularity that

users have control over the site. Any-one can join up and add feeds to con-tribute to a source of information about cooperatives. Any article can be shared through Twitter, Facebook, MySpace, Delicious or email. A more in-depth analysis allows feeds to be viewed by country, as well as the most popular subjects, such as con-

ferences and special events.

'Dash.coop' editor Anthony Murray emphasizes the wealth of co-operative news: “Dash.coop is here to share this information and coopera-tives together”. Moreover, he insists that cooperatives need to be in con-stant communication and see what others are doing, especially during the global recession and in the up-coming International Year of Coop-eratives in 2012. ■

Launch of an interactive news platform about cooperatives Leire Luengo, CICOPA

I N T E R C O N T I N E N T A L

For more information, please check: http://social.un.org/coopsyear

Website: http://www.dash.coop

1 ILO Recommendation 193/2002 on the promotion of cooperatives

Building gender equality through cooperatives Leire Luengo, CICOPA

n 8th March 2011 it was the centenary of International

Women's Day. To mark this occa-sion, Work Together is coming back to the crucial role of women in worker cooperatives.

Despite signs of progress in gender equality over the past 15 years, there is still a significant gap between women and men in terms of job op-portunities and quality of employ-ment, according to the International Labour Office (ILO). In turn, women have always had a strong presence in worker cooperatives given that this business model combines economic viability and social responsibility. The agro-tourism women’s coopera-tive TO Kastri, is an example. Since 2000, Anna Darzenta and 27 active housewives came together to begin working outside the home and opened their own catering company in the Greek island of Syros where there is high unemployment. The EQUAL program for female entre-preneurs, funded through the Euro-pean Social Fund, has helped them.

"With an egalitarian ethos, participa-tory decision-making, common own-ership and commitment to goals be-yond the motive of profit, coopera-tives are expanding opportunities for women in local economies and socie-ties throughout the world", declared UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon at the occasion of last year’s Interna-tional Day of Cooperatives, for which the motto was 'Cooperative enter-prises empower women'. About gen-der equality, he also underlines that the cooperative approach is not only an economically sustainable model, but also an enterprise system in which there are equality indicators between men and women above the rest of the business formulas. Ac-cording to the Spanish Confederation

of Worker Cooperatives (COCETA), 49% of people in worker coopera-tives are women. Amongst them, 39% have directors’ positions, though in other enterprises which do not adopt this model, the percentage of women that work in these positions is barely 6%.

In Italy, according to ANCPL-Legacoop, the presence of women in worker cooperatives in the fashion industry is 95%, a significant exam-ple is the cooperative Stienta CAPA (Rovigo), consisting of around 100 workers who are nearly all members, in a leading producer of the Dolce & Gabbana range which conducts an annual turnover of more than three million euros. In others sectors where there are fewer women, such as the metalworks, chemical and paper pro-duction sector had a 20% of female presence in directors’ positions. In addition, during the last six years the female presence in the manufacturing sector has increased significantly from both the qualitative and quanti-tative point of view.

The New Zealand China Friendship Society (NZCFS), and the Interna-tional Committee for the Promotion of Chinese Industrial Cooperatives (ICCIC), have begun a project with Shaanxi Province Women's Federa-tion, focused on encouraging Chinese women in cooperatives. The first phase of training has finished, and vice chair of ICCIC, Dave Brom-wich, believes that “cooperatives give women an opportunity to lead, and help them to develop confidence in themselves”.

While the world economy is facing difficult challenges, cooperatives provide a valuable service to many women, especially those in vulner-able communities. The cooperative business model is more resilient in a crisis situation compared to capitalis-tic companies because of the very fact that those workers are the owners of the company and therefore, it is a model which prevails over individual capital and in which profits are shared with a collective approach. ■

O

Two workers from the Spanish cooperative Sherlimp

WORK TOGETHER - ISSUE N° 4 - MAY 2011 4 | INTERCONTINENTAL

Rossano Rimelli is the new president of CECOP-CICOPA Europe Olivier Biron, CICOPA

ossano Rimelli was elected as president of CECOP-

CICOPA Europe at its extraordi-nary general assembly which was held on 4th November in Brus-sels. With this election, he also becomes vice-president of CI-COPA for Europe. Industrial ex-pert, graduated in economy and business, Rossano Rimelli has been active in the cooperative movement in Italy for more than 25 years.

Since 2007, he has been General Di-rector of ANCPL, the sectoral or-ganisation of Legacoop for industrial cooperatives. He succeeds to Felice Scalvini who has recently been elected co-president of Cooperatives Europe. Felice Scalvini had been

president of CECOP for the last 14 years, a period that saw historical changes in Europe, and that was marked by a profound transformation of the institutional architecture of the international cooperative movement, to which he himself contributed.

At his election, Rossano Rimelli de-clared: "Being president of CECOP means having the important duty to represent the whole organisation. But the activity of the organisation itself requires the involvement of most members. I am also convinced of the fact that, beyond the cooperative sec-tor in which one evolves, what we do must be seen as an entrepreneurial activity. In Italy, Spain, France and many other countries in Europe, co-operatives have a great competitive

capacity, at both national and inter-national levels, and facts show that cooperation can be done in many different ways. In this time of crisis, cooperatives can make a difference in front of other more lucrative forms of enterprises”. ■

R

WORK TOGETHER - ISSUE N° 4 - MAY 2011

Rossano Rimelli

INTERCONTINENTAL | 5

EU co-financed Project encourages collaboration between Brazil and Uruguay cooperatives Rosana Perdomo, Red del Sur

ed del Sur (Southern Net-work) has launched in 2010

an EU co-financed project, where processes focused in cross-border cooperation are rein-forced. Organizations from Bra-zil and Uruguay, respectively UNISOL and FCPU, are already taking important steps in this regard (read more about Red del Sur on page 16).

Last February, a Brazilian delega-tion, formed by cooperatives and government officials of Brazil’s Río Grande do Sul state, visited Uru-guayan companies and established several agreements with government

representatives from Uruguay. Hence the collaboration that would involve various links of the textile chain based on recycled polymers.

Classifiers cooperatives (recyclers), firstly from Brazil, would do the primary job of collecting plastic con-tainers to transform them in clean sheet of polyethylene terephthalate (PET)-kind of clear plastic. This would be the raw material needed by Coopima, an Uruguayan cooperative that would be in charge of producing the polyester fiber which would re-turn to Brazil to be processed by Coopertextil, a self-managed textile spinning mill.

This regional network would join and complement Justa Trama, a chain of fair trade fabric production and garment based in Brazil and in-volving about six companies. There-fore, this provides a great opportu-nity, from a regional strategy, to pro-vide jobs to several sectors of the Social Economy of both countries. ■

R

Brazilian cooperatives delegation

and officials visit Coopima, Uruguay

Series of documentaries about the world cooperative movement Leire Luengo, CICOPA

he Spanish audiovisual pro-duction cooperative m30m

made a documentary about coop-eratives around the world and are currently in the editing proc-ess of the first episode recorded in Chile. They are also working on the development of the second episode that will be filmed in Co-lombia; they have conducted an initial investigation into the sector during the month of November.

The balance of this first approach has been "very positive", as pointed out by the spokesperson, Ana Sánchez: “Firstly, because we have known the cooperative movement first hand and at the same time, we could share and exchange experiences. We believe that the cooperative movement needs to be more interconnected.”

The series will be initially available on the Internet, though m30m hope to find another way of broadcasting in the future, such as on public televi-sion. The production company has expressed their desire to find other European audiovisual companies, who are also cooperatives, and with whom they can approach the project in col-laboration.

For the time being, the series has no institutional financial support. M30m is looking for potential project pro-moters in the countries where they are broadcasting and also on an interna-tional level. In fact, the episodes filmed in Chile are being financed with cooperative resources and with the help of the International Centre for Social and Cooperative Economy (CIESCOOP) at the University of Santiago in Chile and the Andalusia Foundation School of Social Econ-omy.

Increasing visibility

The objectives of this documentary are, on the one hand the visibility of

the cooperative movement in the world; to get to know the countries and regions worldwide through the companies and cooperative organisa-tions, and display the values and the cooperative principles in practice. At the same time, the cooperative sector wants to start a world meeting forum and promotion of the cooperative identity.

“Many members of cooperatives are aware that there is a challenge in ex-plaining what we do, in order to show what we are and how we do it. Per-haps we engage ourselves more in action than words, but we must learn to speak out for the world to know us and recognise us”, says Ana Sanchez.

The cooperative idea is a phenomenon present in most countries, and it has survived and has grown, even though their conditions have not always been favorable. “We believe that sharing experiences in each country will allow us to strengthen the cooperative movement”, Ana Sanchez says. “It is an inclusive and supportive way of doing business, which responds to peoples’ needs. Although the coopera-tive also has something unique in each region and that is where we are con-

vinced that sharing the experiences of individual countries will allow us to strengthen the cooperative move-ment”.

Cooperative spreading

The m30m cooperative, which has been based in Andalusia for nine years, has an aim to make coopera-tives and social economy more popu-lar. It is not the first time m30m have done this type of audiovisual work; in 2003 it began making nine documen-tary episodes called The Andalusian Social Economy promoted by CEPES Andalucía. In 2009 they began the production of another series for the same entity called Undertaking from the Social Economy.

“In 2008 we started to consider the importance of going beyond the sphere of our region and we began designing a self-produced series that allows us to broadcast and learn about the cooperative movement throughout the world. We wanted to experience new things and to report them”, says Ana Sanchez. ■

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The Mundart artisans’ cooperative in Santiago de Chile

WORK TOGETHER - ISSUE N° 4 - MAY 2011 6 | INTERCONTINENTAL

For more information, please check: http://www.m30m.com/

EUROPEAN UNION Sustainable employment: a key for the future of Europe Olivier Biron, CECOP

ECOP - CICOPA Europe launched a campaign on

sustainable employment high-lighting the fact that worker co-operatives, social cooperatives and other types of enterprises owned by their workers allow a more sustainable type of employ-ment. Why? In fact, those enter-prises are controlled by owners-stakeholders who are actively present on the territory, and are aimed to satisfy their common economic, social, cultural and/or environmental needs and aspira-tions.

“I really believe that people become empowered by doing things them-selves, not by having handouts” ex-plains Becky Johnson from Who made your pants?, a worker coopera-tive formed to empower marginalised women by providing flexible em-ployment, education and a social and community space. For this campaign, CECOP has been collecting stories of cooperative members from all over Europe. All those testimonies are presented on the campaign website (www.sustainableemployment.eu). The website includes also news and videos.

In recent years, there has been a growing interest for the worker coop-eratives model. A largely unsustain-able financial-economic system at a global level paved the way towards the global crisis which has left entire EU member states in a very critical situation. Since then, cooperatives have appeared as generally more re-silient to the crisis than the average of enterprises, also in terms of jobs, and as a realistic option to save enter-

prises and jobs through the restructur-ing of enterprises in crisis or without heirs. Nevertheless, cooperatives in general and worker cooperatives in particular suffer from a lack of recog-nition in European employment poli-cies. “An emblematic example of that lack of recognition can be found in the EU 2020 strategy”, underlines CECOP secretary general, Bruno Roelants. However, the recently pub-lished European Commission Com-munication on the Single Market Act does recognize that the cooperative sector is more vibrant than ever 1.

Despite the enthusiasm cooperatives have enjoyed in the past few years, the CECOP campaign does not pic-ture them as the medicine that would cure all the diseases. As any other type of company, cooperatives have many problems but, most of the time, these are solved jointly by their mem-bers. “It is not easy to operate as a cooperative. The initial enthusiasm soon gives way to individualism and demands that can easily endanger the integrity of the company. It is there-fore absolutely necessary to share the issues and problems faced by all members of the workforce with the fierce conviction that all actions are taken in the common interest” ex-plains Elena Purinan from the Aus-sametal cooperative in the North of Italy.

All members have their word to say and are directly interested in the suc-cess of the business thanks to the re-distribution of surplus: “If more busi-nesses were run this way, with highly motivated worker owners, then eve-ryone would be better off”, says Scott Muir, a worker from Infinity Food in the UK.

Recently, CECOP wrote a letter to several high-level EU decision mak-ers to raise their awareness on the worker cooperative business model. The letter was sent to EU Commis-sioners László Andor (Employment), Antonio Tajani (Enterprise) and Mi-chel Barnier (Internal Market), sev-eral MEPs, Commission civil ser-vants, etc. As stated in the letter, “by providing sustainable employment in economically sustainable enterprises geared towards the long term, we consider ourselves to be part of a wider socio-economic trend, which is trying to generate and distribute long-term wealth in the territories, going in the opposite direction of the tenden-cies which caused the crisis”. ■

C

WORK TOGETHER - ISSUE N° 4 - MAY 2011

E U R O P E

1 European Commission Communication COM(2011) 206/4: “Single Market Act : Twelve levers to boost growth and strengthen confidence” - http://s.coop/15v6.

EUROPE | 7

The letter is available on the campaign website at

http://www.sustainableemployment.eu

he transformation of companies into cooperatives is an option

which is not always taken into ac-count as part of corporate restructur-ing due to a crisis or in businesses without heirs. The global economic crisis has demonstrated the success of this entrepreneurial leap towards a more democratic and more sustain-able employments. Examples of suc-cessful buyouts of enterprises in cri-sis by their workers are numerous.

Several guidelines have been recently published for all those interested in joining the cooperative movement, especially in the UK, Spain and France. The Spanish Confederation of Worker Cooperatives (COCETA) and, in France, the General Confed-eration of worker cooperatives (CG Scop) have published very practical guides, which describe the most im-portant steps to take and which are aimed at future developers. Each con-federation has given its national touch (legislation, financing, business environment, etc.), but both pursue the same objective: to publicize and promote the cooperative option.

The guide published by COCETA offers very practical information, including several tables that allow new cooperatives to establish a diag-nosis in relation to the starting point found where the new entity should work more cooperatively and thor-oughly to ensure its success. Both, CG SCOP as COCETA include a list of tools on which these companies can find support, such as entities or public and private institutions, which specialize in providing assistance in such situations. COCETA’s guide also includes a list of public grants and technical assistance from which entrepreneurs can benefit.

For its part, Co-operatives UK has recently launched a guide to promote the cooperative movement in the creative industries, namely to ensure that these professionals (who are of-ten self-employed) work together. The document gives the necessary keys and indicates the way for the creation of a cooperative. Co-operatives UK also released in 2008 a generic guide for establishing coop-eratives. ■

FRANCE / SPAIN / UNITED KINGDOM

Keys to the creation of cooperatives: the example of three practical guides Leire Luengo, CECOP

WORK TOGETHER - ISSUE N° 4 - MAY 2011

Single market act: “the cooperative sector more vibrant than ever” Diana Dovgan, CECOP The European Commissioner for Inter-nal Market and Services, Michel Barnier, has presented on 13th of April the ‘Single Market Act’, a text re-grouping twelve priorities designed to boost growth and reinforce citizens' confidence. Key actions for each lever should be adopted by the end of 2012.

The text specifies that the cooperative sectors is “more vibrant than ever” and highlights its important contribution in terms of employment in the European Union.

CECOP’s position on the Single Mar-ket Act can be found on its website: http://s.coop/15vq. ■

Entrepreneurial restructuring and anticipation of change Olivier Biron, CECOP In 2010, CECOP-CICOPA Europe led an EU-financed project on restructur-ing called 'Anticipate'. This project focused on entrepreneurial restructur-ing and anticipation in worker and so-cial cooperatives and other employee-owned enterprises in Italy, Spain and France. In these three countries, the phenomenon of workers owning their enterprise is important from both a qualitative and quantitative point of view. Following the project, a book called 'Beyond the Crisis: Coopera-tives, Work, Finance - Generating Wealth for the Long Term' is about to be published in English, French, Ital-ian, and Spanish. The study has set out to identify the dynamics of the coop-eratives involved and their ability to adjust to change and to anticipate it. This might be particularly interesting in the context of the crisis which flared up the world economy.

The book can be purchased on the CE-COP website at www.cecop.coop.

“Beyond the Crisis: Cooperatives, Work, Finance - Generating Wealth for the Long Term” (CECOP Publications) by Alberto Zevi, Antonio Zanotti, François Soulage and Adrian Zelaia. ■

Practical guides to promote the creation of cooperatives

8 | EUROPE

T

To access these guides refer to :

SPAIN De empresa en crisis a empresa co-operativa: Guía para la transforma-

ción de empresas mercantiles en co-operativas de trabajo. COCETA

(Download)

FRANCE Guide “Transmission d’entreprise en

Scop”. CG Scop. (Download)

UNITED KINGDOM Creative cooperatives. A guide to

starting a cooperative in the creative industries. Co-operatives UK.

(Download)

Guide “Starting a Co-operative”. Co-operatives UK. (Download)

he jobs consolidation in the Sociedades Laborales (SAL)

in Spain has been made reality thanks to the fact it is a worker-owned enterprise. “If four people join together to create a company and own it, then they will do their very best to survive in any eco-nomic environment”, said Jose Luis Núñez, spokesperson for the Confederation of Employers and Industrial Societies Spain (Confesal). In addition, the Span-ish SAL law restricts the hiring of temporary employees. So to stay as SAL they must meet a mini-mum number of permanently contracted working partners. “This ensures that industrial so-cieties are creating stable employ-ment”, said Núñez.

The SAL governance model scheme

is similar to a traditional company

with the difference that the majority

of the Board of Directors is com-

posed of working members (at least

two-thirds). The SAL sector is inte-

grated in Spain for about 17,000

companies and 100,000 workers, ac-

cording to data available from 2010.

In addition, these companies recorded

a turnover of 16,000 million Euros in

the last fiscal year.

The Galician SAL Nor Rubber en-

gaged in the manufacture of rubber

products is a clear example. In 2001,

following the collapse of GESRUB-

BER, Inc. the new company was cre-

ated, “with a small portfolio of cli-

ents, with little funding but with a

good product and a huge desire to

move forward with this project from

133 workers who were looking to

secure their jobs”, says the company

Board of Directors president, José

Manuel Quintana.

After ten years of existence, they are

clear about it, if they had not been a

SAL, the adverse circumstances

would have been solved in another

way: “We should have gone to exter-

nal financing, which could have led

to a more complex situation. Surely

we would have suffered more and the

workforce would not be so involved

in the management and progress of

the company”.

Zuray Andrea Melgarejo, a professor

at the National University of Colom-

bia and a PhD in Business Admini-

stration from the University of

Navarra, performed the first com-

parative study between the SAL and

the traditional companies in Navarra

region (North of Spain). The study

concluded that SAL are in a favoura-

bly competitive position compared to

other commercial companies: “This

business formula creates a job differ-

ent from other small and medium

enterprises characterized, among

other factors, by a balance between

sustainability, solidarity and adapta-

bility to new markets, more likely to

generate permanent employment and

legal flexibility as well as flexibility

for salaries”, the study written by

Professor Melgarejo concludes. ■

T

Workers from Nor Rubber

WORK TOGETHER - ISSUE N° 4 - MAY 2011

SPAIN The ‘Sociedades laborales’ secure jobs in time Leire Luengo, CECOP

“This business

formula creates a job

characterized by a

balance between

sustainability,

solidarity and

adaptability to new

markets...”

EUROPE | 9

he number of workers coop-eratives increased by 7% last

year compared to the same period in 2009, according to the Spanish worker’s cooperatives association, COCETA. At the same time, the confederation announced that it had contributed to the creation of 10,000 jobs per year since 1986, with an average of 500 new enter-prises created every year.

COCETA has equally participated in an increase of 4.5% in the quantity of jobs created within the same time period. The sector of workers coop-eratives in Spain now represents around 17,000 businesses which gen-

erate a turnover of nearly 54,000€.

These businesses employ around 205,7000 workers compared to 70,000 when COCETA was first cre-ated in 1986.

In addition, according to the last CO-CETA directory, 49% of people in workers cooperatives are women. Amongst these, 39% have directors positions, though in other enterprises which do not adopt this model, the percentage of women that work in these positions is barely 6%.

During a ceremony which took place in Valence, where the activities for the 25th anniversary of the organisa-tion were unveiled, its president Juan Antonio Pedreño underlined the fi-nancial difficulties across the sector. “Cooperatives keep up thanks to the efforts of their members” he added and asked the public to support the cooperative model. Our challenge for 2011 is to achieve a larger role in institutional dialogue, and in order to achieve it, we should familiarise po-litical organs of our potential.”

Pedreño underlined the role of these enterprises in the local development and declared that they represent a model for the future: “Cooperatives obtain mainly positive results whereas other models demonstrate their limits at a time when it will be difficult to increase jobs in the public sector”.

The president of COCETA under-lined the role of the organisation in the creation and the continuation of jobs within its 25 years of activity. “In this time of crisis, cooperatives committed themselves to balance incomes and outgoings and to main-tain jobs”, he underlined.

Felice Scalvini, co-president of Co-operatives Europe, who assisted at the COCETA event, insisted on the fact that everywhere in Europe, co-operative enterprises are more able to resist the crisis: “Everyone says that things are not going well. However, in asking our organisations in differ-ent countries during the past three years, I have established that even if difficulties exist, the situation is not that bad. To a certain extent, history proves us right”. ■

Spanish workers cooperatives have grown by 7% during the first three months in 2010 Mariana Vilnitzky, COCETA

WORK TOGETHER - ISSUE N° 4 - MAY 2011

UNITED KINGDOM Co-operatives UK to launch petition calling for action to narrow the gap between rich and poor John Atherton, Cooperatives UK In 2010, the whole cooperative move-ment mobilised at the occasion of the first 'Co-operatives Fortnight'. The campaign got 2.3 million people in-volved, around 70,000 were active online and the media coverage reached over 43 million people.

Inequality is at its highest since records began: 50% of the United Kingdom (UK) population owns just 1% of the wealth. The richest 10% of the UK has 100 times the wealth of the bottom 10%. Last year, together, the coopera-tive sector in the UK The 'Co-operatives Fortnight' looks for raise awareness of how cooperatives offer a way of doing business in which every-day employees, customers and resi-dents have an equal say in decisions and share the profits.

The 2011 Fortnight will take place from 25 June to 9 July with the theme ‘Yours to share’ which represents the shared ownership and the share in prof-its that makes cooperatives different. In order to show how cooperatives share, Co-operatives UK aims to get 100,000 signatures for a petition calling for co-operative action to narrow the gap be-tween rich and poor.

Co-operatives UK is calling on the British Government to support action to share ownership and wealth in a cooperative way encouraging business to share profits with workers for exam-ple, as it is the case for worker coop-eratives or cutting red tape so that it is as easy to start a cooperative as any other form of business. ■

10 | EUROPE

COCETA 25th anniversary opening ceremony

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FRANCE

France: Democracy succeeds in cooperatives! Olivier Biron, CECOP

or the first time in its history, the General Confederation of

worker cooperatives (CG Scop) has launched a big campaign across the whole country. Its goal: to educate the working world that ‘scops’ (worker cooperatives) are businesses tailored to work in this century and that they represent a model that deserves to be taken into consideration.

CG SCOP’s campaign has been an-nounced by the written press, radio and internet. It re-explains the typical cooperative principles represented by CICOPA on a worldwide scale: sus-tainability and local roots, wealth sharing, leaders elected by worker members, the principle of one person/one vote on major decisions, etc.

It comes right one year after the launch of the new 'Les Scop' (the worker cooperatives) brand and the ‘Democracy suits us’ slogan.

An original approach

For the purpose of the campaign, it was the worker cooperatives employ-ees’ themselves who took a stand in their work environment. They are the emblem of this campaign since who could be better to express the human and collective dimension of their busi-ness model? The photos from the campaign appeared in newspapers and are accompanied by various messages such as 'We will not delocalise our business. We are the Board' or other-wise 'Sharing decisions, risks, pleas-ures, profits, is normal for us'.

“At the time it was logical and appro-priate to involve cooperatives, whose members have expressed themselves in the campaign, just as they would do naturally, in real life. The way in which many cooperatives in very dif-ferent sectors of activity have been directed allowed us to equally illus-

trate the diversity and wealth of the cooperative movement” confides Syl-vain Cathébras, from the Alma coop-erative which has participated in the campaign.

The movement of worker coopera-tives in France - now named coopera-tives and participatory societies - to-day represents more than 2,000 com-panies and more than 40,000 workers.

Opening up to the general public

As President of the General Confed-eration of worker cooperatives since 2006, Patrick Lenancker takes stock of this new campaign in France.

QUESTION: What is your first im-pression of this campaign?

ANSWER: The feedback we have on this campaign is very positive. Our external contacts are finding that the campaign is a success and the new brand very appealing. Internally, our cooperatives show appreciation and pride of belonging to our Movement. Quantitatively, our website has seen its traffic grow by nearly 40%. Strongly focused on reputation and image, the campaign has also enabled to create contacts on cooperative pro-jects that may start this year.

Q: Concerning the campaign that CE-COP - CICOPA Europe launched at E u r o p e a n l e v e l ( c f . www.sustainableemployment.eu), which role do you think that coopera-tives could play in terms of employ-ment?

A: It is obvious. By nature, coopera-tives are intended to help their mem-bers and not to yield shareholders’ profit. In worker cooperatives, which include cooperative and participatory societies, the members are the em-ployees themselves with the primary aim of sustaining their means of working in order to maintain and de-velop jobs, both in quantity and qual-ity. Fortunately, many conventional enterprises are intent to keep their business and jobs. However, there is always a risk that the company aims and legacy could end up being taken away, as we witness every day, read-ing about restructuring and discordant relocations in the economic press. In worker cooperatives, employment is the very aim. ■

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WORK TOGETHER - ISSUE N° 4 - MAY 2011 EUROPE | 11

Workers of the Acome cooperative group

Website: http://www.les-scop.coop . To read the complete interview of Patrick Lenancker, you can go on

http://s.coop/15ws

ITALY (OPINION)

Social Cohesion and sustainable employment : a network to fight against the crisis Sabina Bellione, Legacoopsociali

aced with the crisis which affects the world economy,

social cohesion could be one of the solutions: the institutions, conventional enterprises and co-operatives or other companies controlled by their workers rep-resent a possible foundation to stimulate the resumption of the labour market.

The social cohesion network is made possible thanks to the common val-ues and complementary factors be-tween diverse characteristics: con-ventional companies, through a bet-ter internal organisation and a focus on investment in order to reinforce their presence on the market; the institutions, which are a driving force of territorial agreements with the present enterprises by favoring investments; cooperatives and other enterprises owned by workers and

particularly social cooperatives. Thanks to their presence on the terri-tory, social cooperatives encourage the connections with different stake-

holders and the integration of com-munities through the current social, economic and cultural situations and which can be defined as 'generators of solidarity' including the workers, who participate in the efforts to overcome the crisis and who sacri-fice a part of their wage in the accep-tance of a contract of solidarity.

In short, everyone becomes an active link of the social cohesion chain. One of the important steps in this process is the stability of the links of cohesion: the networks to which the key players belong will have to change by adapting themselves from time to time to the requests from the territories: one should start talking about 'flexible subsidiarity'.

This process, of which human beings are at the centre, (workers, entrepre-neurs, politicians, etc.), experiences greater success when all stake-holders are informed and involved: one cannot talk about social cohe-sion without mentioning a 'shared sustainability' either for the choices or the proposed solutions.

Thus, social cohesion should go through thus the knowledge of dif-ferent action modalities in order to find shared solutions more easily. ■

Save employment : Italtac shows the way Adriana Assini, ANCPL

he Italian Italtac company is a cooperative recently cre-

ated and specialized in the pro-duction of self-adhesive material. It has a high level of technical expertise thanks to its highly qualified workforce.

The cooperative headquartered in Soliera in the Modena province was created thanks to the involvement of the former workers of Diaures, a company which went into crisis fol-lowing financial problems and which had to file for bankruptcy. The 24

workers – after being forced to stop work for one year - decided to save their jobs and created the coopera-tive. They had to invest their own money in buying machinery and hir-ing the work place. Such an opera-tion was made possible thanks to the support of various financial institu-tions linked to the Italian coopera-tive organisation Legacoop such as CFI, Coopfond and Sofinco. The 'Italtac-Self-Adhesive materials & coatings' cooperative was born on 17 March 2011. Italtac manufactures a large variety

of standard and customized products in order to respond to the increasing requirements of the labelling market. The company wants to reinforce its presence on the international market as a reliable provider and a long term partner and to develop strong commercial alliances with clients and other providers.

The 24 workers of the Italtac coop-erative are deeply involved in the production process which allows them to guarantee an efficient, opti-mal and quality service to its cli-ents.■

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WORK TOGETHER - ISSUE N° 4 - MAY 2011 12 | EUROPE

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“Social cohesion should

go through the

knowledge of different

action modalities in

order to find shared

solutions more easily”

CZECH REPUBLIC Czech Labour Minister supports cooperatives Olivier Biron, CECOP

he Czech Minister of La-bour and Social Affairs,

Jaromír Drábek, raised the pro-file of the CECOP-CICOPA Europe Board meeting in Prague by attending the opening of the event, which took place on 29th March in the offices of SČMVD, the Czech union of worker coop-eratives.

The Minister, Jaromír Drábek, re-minded those present of the impor-tance of cooperatives during his ad-dress: “The platform of cooperatives is nothing new for me. The coopera-tive movement has a long history in the Czech Republic and it is an inevi-table part of the Czech economy and of the Czech society. The Union of Czech Production Cooperatives

(SČMVD) is one of the basic partners for negotiations between the govern-ment bodies and the cooperative sec-tor. The cooperative movement has considerable advantages: the stake-holders are also the co-owners of those enterprises therefore they have much wider possibilities to decide about their own activities. I believe that the discussion that is taking place at the European level to strengthen the role of the cooperative movement is a good way to stimulate people to take responsibility for themselves in their own lives”.

The Minister also underlined that he visited two worker cooperatives this month in his effort to constantly im-prove the support of cooperatives by the government in the country.

Indeed, the cooperative movement is deep-rooted within the Czech society, reaching as far back as the 19th cen-tury. SČMVD affiliates 252 coopera-tives with 18,000 workers active in several economic sectors such as art handicraft, household equipment, building industry, electric equipment, wood, machines tools, textiles, cloth-ing and chemicals. Their aggregate turnover is around €730 million. The

organisation was originally created in 1953 in order to promote and defend the interests of production coopera-tives in the Czech region of the ex-Czechoslovakia. ■

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ROMANIA The Romanian Minister of Culture and National Heritage denounces counterfeiting Carmen Biban, UCECOM

n an interview with the newspaper ‘Viata C’ pub-

lished by UCECOM, the organi-sation Romanian worker coop-eratives, Irina Cajal Marin, the deputy Secretary of the State along with the Romanian Minis-ter of Culture and National Heri-tage, re-affirms her support for production of handcrafted prod-ucts. She declared that she is “convinced that the invaluable artistic heritage of the Romanian people should be enriched and protected in the name of those who love it”.

Irina Cajal Marin participated in a conference on the theme of ‘The tra-ditional craftsman - the challenges of the modern world’, during the na-tional fair of popular art and crafts of Romanian worker cooperatives. She was questioned by the exhibitors, who expressed concerns about the conse-quences of the counterfeiting of their products. The deputy Secretary had suggested that the cooperatives make "concrete propositions to stop coun-terfeiting which generates unaccept-able profits and damages the value of national heritage". She suggested tak-ing descriptive measures to better supervise handicrafts production and

notably to “determine criteria in order to identify the issued products of popular art and handicrafts which can be bought by the public or cultural institutions, or linked to education about the country.

In 2009, counterfeiting in Romania represented approximately 26% of the total production in the market1. In this situation handicraft cooperatives are part of the rare businesses which ap-pear to maintain crafts production that respond to the demands of tradition and authenticity. ■

WORK TOGETHER - ISSUE N° 4 - MAY 2011

Jaromír Drábek (right) with CECOP president

Rossano Rimelli at the CECOP Board meeting

EUROPE | 13

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1 Source: REACT - The European Anti-Counterfeiting Network (www.react.org).

WORK TOGETHER - ISSUE N° 4 - MAY 2011 14 | INTERVIEW

Isabelle Durant : “Employment sustainability is also reflected in the management of the company that produces it”

I N T E R V I E W

Question: The concept of sustain-able employment is totally absent in European policies. This concept is the main mission of cooperatives and companies run by their workers and represented by CECOP. How-ever, according to you, how can sus-tainable employment be defined?

Answer: Employment sustainability is not only a contractual issue for

workers who practice it (ideally with an open-ended contract) but also a question of purpose and influence of the activity to which it contributes in its territorial, economic, physical, and human environment. Sustain-ability is also reflected in the man-agement of a company that produces it: a prudent management, who an-ticipates and controls its expansion

Isabelle Durant, Vice-President of the European Parliament and MEP (EFA / The Greens), has agreed to answer the questions of "Work Together" on the occasion of this special issue on sustainable employment. Isabelle Durant aspires to a more social Europe. On her website, she explains how she contributed to reach an agreement with the European Parliament and the Commission in 2001 about the working hours of lorry drivers: “Social aspects are always put off. First we liberalize and deregulate” she said “and at the very best, afterwards we realize which the consequences are for workers, their health, and our security. That's also the Social Europe” Let’s see what Isabelle Durant thinks about Europe, where companies would care more about their workers...

“It is regrettable that the 2020

strategy, without exclude it formally,

considers this method of recovery by the workers just as a

stopgap…”

and who invests in human capital of training for all its workers.

Q.: Have you ever been aware of co-operatives as a citizen or as an MEP and in which way?

A.: Absolutely. Here at the European Parliament, several cooperatives, es-pecially those focused on agriculture and food production fields, contact us regarding some aspects of the forth-coming reform of the Common Agri-cultural Policy (CAP). In a trade where individual producers’ income is isolated and placed in jeopardy struc-turally, the organisation into workers’ cooperatives, where workers run their own companies, turns out to be par-ticularly appropriate and adequate. In this troubled sector, adequacy, should lead us to analyse the usage and pro-motion of a model like this one not only in sectors undergoing restructur-ing or due to company closure, but also in areas of small innovative firms, allowing the creation of new jobs.

Q.: The takeover of companies in cri-sis or without heirs by their workers has already saved many jobs in

Europe. Don’t you find that this method should be taken more into account in European policies?

A.: It is regrettable that the 2020 strat-egy, without exclude it formally, con-siders this method of recovery by the workers just as a stopgap...

Q.: The vast majority of cooperatives have so far shown a better resistance to the crisis compared with average companies from the same sectors and

the same countries. Do you believe that their governance and manage-ment system has something to do with this?

A.: It's obvious that companies from sectors more touched by competition and that, because of this reason, have developed short-term strategies for surviving to a wild dumping are those that are more threatened.

Q.: Finally, if you wished to create a cooperative, which would be its main activity?

A.: I have already participated and I am member of a housing cooperative for social purposes, offering a dozen of associations working in the social fields of premise shared services, a common work ethic, a knowledge platform and services. If I had to cre-ate another, it would be based on the field of art production (cinema, thea-tre, image, new technologies): I am convinced that in this matter which cannot be conceived without a real human commitment, without a guide-line that makes sense; there is a huge need for sharing strategies and re-sources. ■

WORK TOGETHER - ISSUE N° 4 - MAY 2011 INTERVIEW | 15

“In a trade where

individual producers’

income is isolated and

placed in jeopardy

structurally, the

organisation into

workers’ cooperatives,

running their own

company, turns out

to be particularly

appropriate and

adequate”

→ 1994-1999: Co-president of the Ecolo party in Belgium

→ 1999-2003: Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Mobility and Transport

in the Belgian government of Guy Verhofstadt

→ 2004-2009: re-elected as Co-president of the Ecolo party

→ 2009: elected MEP (EFA / The Greens) and Vice-President of the European Parliament

BIO

GR

AP

HY

Interview conducted by Olivier Biron, CECOP

http://s.coop/1e4z 

http://twitter.com/cicopa 

http://www.youtube.com/user/SustainableEmpl 

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WORK TOGETHER - ISSUE N° 4 - MAY 2011 16 | SOUTH AMERICA

S O U T H A M E R I C A

he new political and socio-economic context of MER-

COSUR highlights the role of the Social and Solidarity Economy as an alternative to boost job oppor-tunities and employment inclu-sion of extensive social sectors in the region. The worker coopera-tives block not only have influ-enced the construction of this new reality in every Mercosur coun-try, but also they have taken a major leap to be a forum for po-litical, social, economic and cul-tural heritage expression, called Red del Sur (Southern Network).

This network, established in 2007 by several organisations representing worker cooperatives of the region, is formed by the Producers’ Coopera-tives Federation of Uruguay (FCPU), the Regional Union of Cooperatives and Solidarity Enterprises of Brazil (UNISOL), the National Confedera-tion of Worker Cooperatives (CNCT) from Argentina (in which we should emphasize the role of FE-COOTRA, FACTA and Metalworker Cooperatives Network), and the Paraguayan Cooperatives Confedera-tion (CONPACOOP).

Political representation of worker cooperatives before national and lo-cal government agencies and MER-COSUR agencies, as well as devel-opment of a common regional iden-tity by integrating knowledge, val-ues, and professional trajectories are the main objectives of this network. Moreover, Red del Sur also aims to

gain a bigger position for the social economy in regional economy, espe-cially for worker cooperatives through the development of eco-nomic networks between coopera-tives, strengthening workers’ coop-eratives in strategic areas.

International cooperation towards South

Red del Sur has been able to realize its potential thanks to the support of several development organizations that have been strategic to strengthen the sector, including most notably Cooperazione per lo Sviluppo dei Paesi Emergenti (COSPE, Italy), the Cooperation and Research Founda-tion CIDEAL (CIDEAL, Spain), Isti-tuto Sindacale per la Cooperazione e lo Sviluppo (ISCOS Nazionale and ISCOS ER, Italy) and Nexus (Italy).

The network’s role at MERCOSUR

level was essential in the adoption by the European Union of a support pro-ject to this regional cooperative proc-ess called Promoting worker coop-eratives and strengthening networks of Mercosur Social Economy Enter-prises as a strategy for fighting pov-erty and building a more democratic and sustainable society.

The project, launched in April 2010 (see article page 5), allows for the implementation of strategies aimed to the strengthen the participation of regional companies in the market; to develop initiatives between coopera-tives creating production chains; and to combine tools to promote public policies and social development pro-grams. All these lines are crucial to promote social and solidary enter-prises as a strategy to encourage a more human and sustainable devel-opment model. ■

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Cooperativa de Trabajadores Navales, member of the Federation of Worker Cooperatives of Uruguay (FCPU) - Photo: Manlio Masucci (ISCOS)

MERCOSUR

CICOPA looks towards the South Rosana Perdomo, Red del Sur

WORK TOGETHER - ISSUE N° 4 - MAY 2011 SOUTH AMERICA | 17

here plants are closed down, worker cooperatives

reopen them. Out of 16,000 co-operatives in Argentina, half of them are worker cooperatives. They created 300,000 jobs and account for 10% of the gross do-mestic product (GDP). Out of some 40 million inhabitants in this South-American country, 10 million are linked directly or in-directly to cooperatives and mu-tual societies.

These data unveil that the challenge for worker cooperative is to enhance their visibility as a sector. Many citizens consume products and/or services of cooperatives without being aware. With this in mind, the president of the Federation of W o r k e r C o o p e r a t i v e s (FECOOTRA), José Orbaiceta, made clear: “a new map of the so-cial economy is taking shape. Worker cooperatives emerge as a new political, economic and social reality. They are mak-ing their own voice heard, the workers’ voice in the constella-tion of the social economy”.

Some of the achieve-ments are the follow-ing: to revamp CI-COPA-Americas, to create a National Confederation of Worker Cooperatives (CNCT), to weave networks of joint manage-ment, to reopen plants, to set up worker cooperatives of young pro-fessionals in the various sectors (communication, free software,

graphic design, financial, account-ing and legal services). Managing social inclusion programs at State level has also been possible. One example is the program ‘Argentina Trabaja’ (‘Argentina works’) which in its first phase has succeeded in rescuing the jobs of 1,984 unem-

p loy ed worke r s through the creation of worker coopera-tives.

Worker cooperatives mean to recover jobs with dignity, i.e. meeting the economic needs and enhance the persons who be-come genuinely ac-

tors, giving greater importance to the member worker members than to capital. The challenge is to ensure that this means be sustainable and worker cooperatives in Argentina are heading toward this objective. ■

ARGENTINA

Worker cooperatives rehabilitate both employment and dignity Fabián Silveira, FECOOTRA

CICOPA keeps expanding in the American continent Virginia Pérez for CICOPA As for November 2010, CICOPA counts seven members in Latin Amer-ica. The last two which joined CI-COPA are the ‘Confederación Nacional de Cooperativas de Actividades Diver-s a s d e l a R e p ú b l i c a M e x i -cana’ (Mexico) and the ‘Confederación Paraguaya de Cooperativas, CON-PACOOP’ (Paraguay).

The Mexican organisation has 247 af-filiated cooperatives in various sectors such as mining, building, broadcasting and ports services. It is the only Mexi-can organisation affiliating worker co-operatives. CONPACOOP is an inter-sectoral confederation grouping mainly farmers’ and credit cooperatives. One of the main goals of this affiliation is to develop worker cooperatives in Para-guay. ■

Argentina works, teaches and learns Fabián Silveira, FECOOTRA The program ‘Argentina Tra-baja’ (’Argentina works’) is aimed at rescuing more than 150,000 workers’ jobs through the involvement of the concerned employees in worker coop-eratives. It is managed jointly by the national government, worker coopera-tives, the Federation of Worker Coop-eratives, FECOOTRA, and the National Confederation of Worker Cooperatives of Argentina (CNCT). In its first phase, the constitution of cooperatives enabled the federation to safeguard 2,000 jobs.

The work, more precisely repairs of municipal buildings and rehabilitation of public areas, is carried out in social clubs, community integration centres, mobile services, etc. The workers can decide what in their community they will transform. With a model of integral development in mind, the Labour Min-istry, the Social Development Ministry and FECOOTRA have proposed a con-sistent capacity-building program of school literacy training, secondary schools, capacity-building in coopera-tives and vocational training. ■

Participants to the

'Argentina Trabaja' programme

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“Worker

cooperatives

emerge as a new

political,

economic and

social reality”

WORK TOGETHER - ISSUE N° 4 - MAY 2011 18 | SOUTH AMERICA

BRAZIL Building sustainable employment in Brazilian cooperatives Geraldo Magela da Silva, OCB

espite a consolidated Labour Law since 1st May 1943 in

Brazil, there is some adversity in the legal and socio-economic fields. However, worker cooperatives have played an important role in the sustainability of jobs: retaining the workforce, promoting competi-tive conditions for cooperatives and dignity for their members.

Cooperatives have been established as a third way. It is less costly because a cooperative member is the master of his or her own business and supplier of workforce; and more plausible be-cause the cooperative member is able to negotiate and establish better work-ing conditions.

Worker cooperatives have made a huge effort to strengthen their organi-sations and principles. Under the OCB leadership there is a process of adding cooperative organisations to the docu-ment entitled ‘Criteria for identifica-

tion of worker cooperatives’ which gives guidelines for two very impor-tant initiatives in the sector. On the one hand by the elaboration of a spe-cific draft legislation aimed to regu-late worker cooperatives and on the other hand by the National Compli-ance Program for Worker Coopera-tives (PNC-Labour).

The new legislation reaffirms the worker cooperative and is independ-ent from traditional Brazilian labour laws. This legal project is still pending in National Congress but it is ready to be approved by parliament in 2011 and signed by the President. After that, all cooperatives will have to comply with the requirements of the new law in order to be recognized and this will create clear standards to iden-tify legitimate worker cooperatives.

The PNC provides worker coopera-tives with the opportunity to officially differentiate themselves on the mar-

ket. Companies hiring worker coop-eratives which are participants in the PNC are assured a good standard of business. The company has the assur-ance that the cooperatives will follow the law and comply with the demands of the new draft legislation mentioned above. The cooperatives that have been awarded the title have an in-creasing number of customers and increasing revenue. They have in-creased the number of employees, increased membership and have credi-bility on the market. ■

PARAGUAY Developments and challenges of cooperatives in Paraguay Natalia Acerenza for CICOPA

ince the emergence of the first cooperatives in Paraguay, 80

years ago, the cooperative sector has continued growing and unifying itself. The Paraguayan Cooperative Confederation (CONPACOOP) comprises a total of almost 700 co-operatives, especially those from the savings, credit and farmer sectors, and to a lesser extent, worker coop-eratives.

Worker cooperatives are living an incipient growth in Paraguay. CON-PACOOP has set as one of its objec-tives, in the framework of its now strategic plan to develop and

strengthen the worker cooperative sector. This objective has been largely driven by the cooperative movement of MERCOSUR, which has encour-aged CONPACOOP to continue along this road.

CONPACOOP's commitment to boost the creation and sustainability of this sector has led this organization to link with Red del Sur (Southern Network) as a regional place of expression for such cooperatives in the MERCOSUR region, receiving the support of the federations of workers’ cooperatives of Argentina, Brazil and Uruguay.

Among the difficulties that the move-

ment faces to achieve this goal, we can find the unfavorable regulatory framework. "Here the law only pro-vides with normal facilities to other kinds of cooperatives, but workers cooperatives need more than tax ex-emptions to be created”, pointed out Antonio Ortiz Guanes, President of the National Institute of Cooperatives (INCOOP). Just to give you an illus-trative comparison, in Brazil, for ex-ample, fewer people are needed to create a worker cooperative; they are granted allocations, lower interest rates and free expert technical assis-tance from the State. ■

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D

Logo of the ‘PNC- Trabalho’ standard

To know more about this program visit http://s.coop/1641

Key conferences scheduled in Quebec about worker cooperation Hazel Corcoran, CWCF

rom October 11th to 15th 2011 tow key conferences

will be held in Quebec. The first conference titled ‘Business Suc-cession and Employee Ownership Conference’ will take place from the 11th to 13th of October. The second one named ‘CICOPA North America Conference: Co-operation without Borders’ will be from the 13th to 15th of Octo-ber.

The objective of the first conference is to raise awareness of worker coop-eratives as an alternative for busi-nesses without successors and to de-velop the expertise of stakeholders through the exchange and analysis of their experience. In the coming years the world is facing a very significant phenomenon, and one with major socio-economic consequences: the mass exodus to retirement by busi-ness owners from the so-called "baby boomer" generation. It is estimated that about 200,000 Canadian busi-nesses will change hands in the next fifteen years. The phenomenon will be proportionately comparable in the U.S., Europe and elsewhere.

The exceptional scale of this transi-tion may cause the loss of many en-terprises for lack of buyers, or for being sold to competitors. A recent study by the Quebec Department of Economic Development, Innovation and Exports (MDEIE) has shown that although the phenomenon is already under way, we are currently witness-ing only its very earliest beginnings and that departures should reach their peak between 2017 and 2020 and that, when we are approaching this peak in 4 to 5 years’ time, there will

no longer be sufficient individuals willing to purchase these companies. This phenomenon of a missing next generation of individual entrepre-neurs should also manifest itself much earlier in rural areas. The social and economic risk is substantial and many companies risk closure; as a result tens of thousands of jobs could disappear, whole villages and com-munities could go into decline.

Faced with this threat of business disintegration and accompanying massive job losses, the alternative to transfer these companies to their em-ployees through the worker coopera-tive model appears increasingly to be the ideal solution and a tremendous opportunity for the worker coopera-tive movement to grow. The worker cooperative model (along with re-lated models like multi-stakeholder cooperatives) helps to maintain and develop these enterprises, and helps workers maintain local control over their future.

The second conference, “Co-operation without Borders", has the objectives to provide a venue for the worker cooperative movements in Quebec, the rest of Canada and the United States to come together and share experiences. The organization of this Conference is a historic event. For the first time, hundreds of mem-bers of worker cooperatives from across North America will meet and share their experiences together to improve their governance practices and democratic management of their businesses, and to demonstrate to-gether their solidarity and common will to build a caring economy based on ownership and control of enter-prises by workers. The Conference is being organized by CWCF with sup-port from 'le Réseau de la coopéra-tion du travail du Québec', the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives and other partners. ■

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Member of the Canadian delivery business Shift Delivery Co-op

N O R T H A M E R I C A WORK TOGETHER - ISSUE N° 4 - MAY 2011 NORTH AMERICA | 19

For more information : http://www.cooperation2011.coop

UNITED STATES

Melissa Hoover: “Worker cooperatives are crucial to creating sustainable employment”

Virginia Pérez for CICOPA

ork Together’ interviewed Melissa Hoover to know the

United States’ cooperative sec-tor’s situation in depth and its vision as an engine for worldwide sustainable jobs.

Melissa Hoover is the executive di-rector of the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives (USFWC) since its beginning in 2004. The fed-eration now has 75 members and represents about 1.400 people. Hoo-ver says that their membership in-cludes about a third of the worker cooperatives in the United States. On the topic of the cooperative contribu-tion to sustainable employment, Melissa Hoover says: “I believe co-operatives and worker cooperatives in particular are crucial to creating sustainable employment, sustainable for the humans employed, and for the earth we depend on”.

For Melissa Hoover, much of the cooperative contribution to sustain-able work is given by the fact that cooperatives “are a powerful combi-nation of abstract and practical”, she says, “valuing autonomy, democracy and education and basically valuing people. It is a powerful statement to make and one that directly counters the profit motive and individualism that are embedded into our public dialogue, at least here in the United States”.

She explains that on a practical level “to conduct business according to these values and to do it well and successfully is inspiring to so many people who see the problems of an unfair economy and do not want to just protest but to build an actual so-lution”.

Melissa Hoover believes that the

principles of cooperation between cooperatives and concern for the community are the cornerstones to sustainability. “Cooperating with other cooperatives keeps us in mind of the myriad of interests we are al-ways balancing, and contradicts the

dominant message that competition is the only way to succeed”. She added that a worker cooperative is generally environmentally sustainable “because worker-owners tend to live in the community in which they work and make workplace decisions, they are

less likely to make decisions to dam-age that environment”.

On the other hand, she indicated that cooperatives, rather than laying off workers, may decide to re-train and relocate them. “They can share the burden of an economic downturn rather than displace it onto the most vulnerable. Self-management brings dignity to work, and it offers opportu-nities for significant growth as work-ers engage not just in their daily tasks but in the larger operations and coop-erative decisions”.

“It is this human-centred job security, and personal growth through the ex-ercise of democratic rights, that I find inspiring and potentially transforma-tive for society. I believe worker co-operatives and the capacity they build for democratic participation make us better citizens, better family mem-bers, better neighbours and better advocates of sustainable values”, she stressed. ■

The Arizmendi Bakery worker cooperative group has 5 bakeries in the US

Photo: Myleen Hollero

WORK TOGETHER - ISSUE N° 4 - MAY 2011 20 | NORTH AMERICA

“Worker cooperatives

are crucial to

creating sustainable

employment,

sustainable for the

humans employed,

and for the earth

we depend on”

To access to the full interview of Melissa Hoover, click here

‘W

lthough this model is far from being a marginal econ-

omy, there are no precise figures for the number and influence of cooperatives in Mexico. There is a lack of recognition and promo-tion required for this sector’s de-velopment. A new Cooperative Societies Act aims to find solu-tions to the obstacles this move-ment is facing.

In the production cooperatives sector in Mexico we find a number of illus-trative and very strong companies such as Pascual, Cruz Azul, El Grullo (Jalisco) and Trado. They show that it is possible to reach high levels of economic success. How-ever, there are still a large number of small cooperatives not organized or not affiliated to any second level or-ganizations that could represent them.

“One of the objectives of our confed-eration is to achieve the integration of this large number of production cooperatives - present throughout the country- into a broader representative framework”, pointed out the director of the Mexican cooperative confed-eration for all the sectors (CMC), Dov Orian.

The current law governing coopera-tives dates from 1994 and presents some gaps that have created barriers in its implementation. Moreover, this law is more oriented to the control and management of cooperatives than to their development and pro-motion. “Regarding production coop-eratives, they often find difficulties in size and access to credits; there-fore it is hard for them to live up to today's modern technological devel-

opment”, states Orian. These are some of the aspects that the proposed new Cooperative Societies Act seeks to correct in Mexico, and that were launched last week at the Chamber of Deputies by the Senior Council of Cooperatives (COSUCOOP).

One of the points which the new Co-operative Societies Act desires to highlight is the fact that the govern-ment should be involved in support-ing, encouraging and promoting the cooperative concept within the movement as well as outside.

Another challenge this sector is fac-ing constitutes the sector’s fragmen-tation and the lack of statistical infor-mation reporting on its real size. “Since Mexico is a large country, with significant geographic dis-tances, we often do not even know of the existence of some cooperatives”, stated the Headquarters Chair of the Mexican Confederation. The new law envisages that Mexico´s National Institute of Geography and Statistics incorporates the cooperative title in the resident registration in order to overcome this problem. ■

MEXICO

New cooperative law will be used to promote cooperative work

Natalia Acerenza for CICOPA

WORK TOGETHER - ISSUE N° 4 - MAY 2011 NORTH AMERICA | 21

A

Dov Orian, director of the Mexican

cooperative confederation

for all the sectors (CMC)

A cooperative of journalists works with the New York Times Virginia Pérez for CICOPA Launched in late October 2009, the 'Chicago News Cooperative' produces public-interest journalism, focused especially on the reality of Chicago (United States). The cooperative is composed of the former Chicago Trib-une managing editor, James O’Shea, and other recognized professionals.

Their contents are published in the 'New York Times' twice a week, being the first outside news organization to produce entire pages to this prominent American newspaper. In 2011, Chi-cago News Cooperative expects to launch a website that will be the centre of its operations and introduce new ways of communication for the com-munity. ■

Colors Restaurant: cooperative in the heart of New York Natalia Acerenza for CICOPA Worker cooperatives in the United States cover all sectors of activity and catering is no exception. The restaurant cooperative Colors, located in the city of New York, has shown how the crisis can be an opportunity.

The worker cooperative Colors Restau-rant was founded in 2006 by surviving workers from the World Trade Center tragedy that occurred on 11th Septem-ber 2001.

The restaurant offers international cui-sine based on locally produced ingredi-ents. Being organized in the form of a cooperative means to the staff-owners that they have access to better working conditions, better salary and racial equality, together with an economically viable activity. Worker members come from more than a dozen countries.

The group is part of the Restaurant Opportunities Center (ROC), an or-ganization that fights for fair working conditions for workers in the foodser-vice industry, and also launched cam-paigns to fight against exploitation of restaurant workers. ■

UGANDA

Uganda towards a modern and powerful cooperative movement

Leonard Msemakweli, UCA

010 was a good year for co-operatives in Uganda. A

number of milestones were reached, showing that in recent times, it had made good progress towards the building of a new cooperative movement. In 2009 and 2010 a number of new coop-eratives were created in several economic sectors, including worker cooperatives. Some of the cooperatives created outside the agricultural sector come from the energy sector and there are also new handicrafts and furniture cooperatives, as well as irrigation cooperatives.

This means that more and more peo-ple from different fields continue to recognise the role of the cooperative model in improving their standard of living. At a governmental level, the cooperative movement has also re-ceived more support with a new coop-

erative policy which was launched during the year. It recognizes coopera-tives as part of the private sector and therefore lays a good foundation for a modern cooperative law.

During 2010, the Uganda Cooperative Alliance (UCA) turned its attention to the concept of horizontal integration and its benefits could quickly be seen in the conduct of cooperative busi-

ness. “This is now contributing to the good reputation and reliability of our cooperatives in the eyes of big buyers. Horizontal and vertical integration will strengthen the whole cooperative system by making it more effective and efficient, and increasing its power both in the market and society as a whole”, says Leonard Msemakweli, UCA’s Secretary General. ■

Worker take-overs have become a phenomenon which saves many enter-prises around the world. There are many examples in Europe or South America of workers deciding to not let their enterprise disappear and to be-come owners of the enterprise. This is not where it ends! South Africa has also opened the path to worker buy-outs. In October 2010, the workers of the Mine Line/TAP Engineering fac-

tory in Krugersdorp, just outside Soweto, started an occupation of their workplace to stop the former owner from stripping the factory of machin-ery and other assets and to fight to save their jobs.

They occupied the plant and began a campaign of solidarity, demanding that the state takes over of the factory. Now the factory has re-opened and is a democratically run worker coopera-

tive. However, in order to succeed in this activity, they need the support of the Industrial Development Coopera-tion, a state-owned national develop-ment institution that provides financ-ing to entrepreneurs and businesses engaged in competitive industries. “If they do assist this cooperative, it would open up a door from the gov-ernment to many other worker coop-eratives” says Athish Kirun from CO-PAC, an independent agency active in the development of worker coopera-tives in South Africa. “If they don’t help the cooperative, we will then go back to demonstrate in the streets”. ■

SOUTH AFRICA

Worker buy-outs save jobs!

Olivier Biron, CICOPA

A F R I C A WORK TOGETHER - ISSUE N° 4 - MAY 2011 22 | AFRICA

2

Uganda Co-operative Alliance's members

gypt has experienced an un-

precedented revolution

which led to the fall of President

Hosni Moubarack. Essam

Charaf, the new Prime Minister,

has been nominated by Egypt’s

Supreme Council of the Armed

Forces. In the meantime, it has

been announced that presidential

elections will be held by the end

of the year. So far, the first step

towards democracy has been

reached with the referendum on

constitutional amendments ap-

proved by 77.2% of Egyptians.

The Egyptian revolution has com-pletely modified the destiny of the country which till recently was in the regime’s hands, leaving little space for the freedom of thought or to do business. For 30 years, the fallen president relied on police control and a political party which answered to him, in a country where more than 40% of the population lives on only 2 dollars per day. “Egypt has woken up to a new political consciousness; and will not be fooled by anyone!” de-clared the Egyptian writer Alaa el-Aswany to the French newspaper 'Libération'.

The chaotic situation in Egypt has had important consequences for the econ-omy of the country. A drop of 25% is foreseen in the income generated by tourism. In this respect, cooperatives represented by the Production Co-operatives Union (PCU) have also felt the pinch. “The Egyptian economy is experiencing a slow-down, everything has stopped. The unrest in the streets doesn’t help. All this has affected the

activity of the cooperatives, although what has happened to the country is something positive” says Mounir Shaarawy, the PCU Secretary Gen-eral. “We are very proud of our noble revolution and are optimistic that re-forms are coming, especially for as-pects of cooperative work. Hope is now floating as the control of some big businesses over the Egyptian ad-ministration has disintegrated. Former business magnates controlled laws and the decisions of the ministries undermined the efforts of coopera-tives as they threatened corrupt activi-ties”.

Until now, cooperatives were con-trolled by the ruling power. Needless to say, worker cooperatives which are based on democratic values and prin-ciples did not have any advantages granted. Today, it seems that things are better for cooperatives. “The re-gime had no trust in cooperatives since they were always working

against decisions made about the wel-fare of workers and small businesses. They aimed at making cooperatives suffer by cancelling many of their legal privileges, such as tax exemp-tions, in order to increase their operat-ing costs and making their work more difficult” says Shaarawy.

Mounir Shaarawy is confident about the future. “We are on the right track” he says. “We have seen positive signs. With reforms and a new administra-tion that arose from the Egyptian peo-ple, we believe that the new laws to be enforced will be to the benefit of the cooperatives, workers, and trade un-ions to create a call for social justice.”

Today, Egypt is slowly waking up to this revolution and there is quite a long way to go. Things will gradually turn back to normal for the Egyptian people. At least they can be assured that they will re-emerge much stronger from this Nile revolution. ■

E

Photo by Peter Macdiarmid/Getty Images

WORK TOGETHER - ISSUE N° 4 - MAY 2011

EGYPT The Nile revolution suggests a better future for cooperatives Olivier Biron, CICOPA

AFRICA | 23

WORK TOGETHER - ISSUE N° 4 - MAY 2011 24 | ASIA

A S I A Six weeks after the earthquake

and tsunami which hit Japan on

11th March, the country is ex-

periencing a number of after-

shocks and the situation of the

power plants in Fukushima Pre-

fecture is very unstable. The au-

thorities have raised the nuclear

threat to seven, its highest level.

Despite the hardship, JWCU, the

Japanese organisation for worker’s

cooperatives is still working ex-

tremely hard: “We are moving for-

ward, and our global members are

helping us” said a spokesperson of the

organisation. In order to help the

worker cooperative movement in the

affected areas, JWCU set up a relief

fund that will help the organisation to

provide its members with essential

supplies and financial support (see

frame).

There is a myriad of examples of soli-

darity which show how cooperatives

are trying to recover from the disaster.

In Senai, the biggest city of the To-

hoku region, two children’s centres

managed by a worker cooperative

opened in April. Children, particularly

those who had to evacuate, are having

an extremely tough time, as their

usual daily routines have been se-

verely disrupted. They now have to

come to terms with the instability of

the situation and a completely new

environment. “Our members are de-

Japan’s recovery

JWCU, the Japanese organisation for worker’s

cooperatives is reporting an extremely hard

situation within their members with the after-

shocks that are still hitting the country. A relief

fund has been set up to help the cooperatives.

Yoshiko Yamada, JWCU

JWCU set up a relief fund

“The need for supplies

and co-ordination is

expected to continue

for a long time”

WORK TOGETHER - ISSUE N° 4 - MAY 2011 ASIA | 25

termined to provide a safe and en-

joyable environment for these chil-

dren”, declared JWCU. Over

200,000 yens (around 1,700 Euros)

were dutifully raised in a charity

concert on 27th March in Tokyo to

support the region of Tohoku. The

Worker Coop Art Project (WAP)

composed of JWCU members and

friends talented in music and art

have organised this concert.

Severe damages amongst

cooperatives

JWCU are regularly reporting severe

damages among its members. The

chaotic situation has made the rescue

work even more difficult. Despite

the challenges, the aid has been or-

ganised and people are working to-

gether and demonstrating solidarity.

The JWCU head office and regional

offices were receiving goods and

supplies from members throughout

the country. In a message to the co-

operative movement, JWCU de-

clared last month that “since there is

an urgent need for food, we are fo-

cusing on delivering suitable food

which is practical and quick to pre-

pare, as well as vegetables. The need

for supplies and co-ordination is ex-

pected to continue for a long time”.

The first delivery trucks arrived

from Tokyo in the Tohoku regions,

(the cities of Noda, Ohsaki, Ishi-

nomaki, and Onagawa). The resi-

dents from the affected areas needed

practical help with removing debris

and cleaning the damaged houses.

Several cooperatives offered the use

of trucks and to send more people to

help, which was necessary to clear

up the devastated zones. ■

For more information: http://english.roukyou.gr.jp/

index.html

The Noda village has been completely devastated

“There is a myriad

of examples of

solidarity which

show how

cooperatives are

trying to recover

from the disaster”

WORK TOGETHER - ISSUE N° 4 - MAY 2011 26 | ASIA

Relief fund for worker cooperatives in Japan:

As a job-creating organisation, JWCU is determined to support its members in securing jobs and in-

come to reconstruct peoples’ lives. In a statement, the organisation declared: “While there is still a

need for food and supplies in order to survive each day, we will continue to respond to those material

needs. Some of our members (and numerous other people) have lost their jobs, homes and belongings.

Others have been evacuated to different cities and do not know when they will be able to return to their

homes or if they can be moved into temporary housing. Under these extremely difficult circumstances,

however, the local people still need to make a living. The needs exist in many regions, including Tokyo

and its surrounding areas, where evacuees are staying”.

If you want to know more about the relief fund or if you wish to make a donation, you can visit the

JWCU website on: http://english.roukyou.gr.jp/JWCU2011Earthquake_Relief_Fund.pdf

Boxes of foods are loaded on a truck, heading to Tohoku

Charity concert on 27th March in Tokyo Children' hall in Sendai

Solidarity among JWCU members

outh Korea has a specific cooperative legislation sys-

tem in which each cooperative sector is regulated by its own leg-islation which depends on differ-ent ministries. As a direct conse-quence, although there are strong cooperative sectors such as agri-culture, the interests of the coop-erative movement as a whole can-not be protected by legislation, but only by its sectoral interests. This is the case for consumer co-operatives in particular, for which it is always very difficult to get a legal status as a cooperative.

To solve this problem, several or-ganisations in the newly emerging cooperative movement, including KASEE, the Korean CICOPA mem-ber, launched a project for enacting a legislation which could cover various types of cooperatives, which were lacking a proper legal status. The main target of this legislation is worker cooperatives, which KASEE represents. However, there are also differing needs. For instance, medical users’ cooperatives, are actually con-sidered as partly consumer coopera-tives, and would need to acquire a new legal status enabling them to

open more to non-members by en-forcing non-surplus distribution con-straints.

There are also several care workers’ associations, which call for legal rec-ognition to give their workers a status, which is neither 'employed' nor unemployed. To cover those dif-ferent needs, these organisations reached an agreement on a draft leg-islation to cover various types of co-operatives which are not covered by the existing sectoral cooperative leg-islation.

This new legislation would have a similar form to general laws on coop-eratives but it would also mention specific types of cooperatives. KASEE, Solidarity of Medical Con-sumer Cooperatives, the Korean As-sociation of Local Centres for the inclusion through the Economic Ac-tivity, the Institute for Cooperative Research, the Social Investment Foundation and several care workers’ associations are taking part in this project. They expect to design a new legislation within the next year. ■

A KASEE member enterprise in the construction sector

KOREA

Cooperative legislation in South Korea requires reform

HyungSik Eum, KASEE S

WORK TOGETHER - ISSUE N° 4 - MAY 2011 ASIA | 27

CECOP-CICOPA Europe has launched its campaign

on sustainable employment because Europe

urgently needs quality jobs to ensure a better

future for all workers and all enterprises.

WORK TOGETHER - ISSUE N° 4 - MAY 2011 28 |