PITTSBURGH - The United Steelworkers (USW) and MONDRAGON Internacional, S.A.
today announced a framework agreement for collaboration in establishing
MONDRAGON cooperatives in the manufacturing sector within the United States and
Canada. The USW and MONDRAGON will work to establish manufacturing
cooperatives that adapt collective bargaining principles to the MONDRAGON
worker ownership model of “one worker, one vote.”
“We see today’s agreement as a historic first step towards making union
co-ops a viable business model that can create good jobs, empower workers, and
support communities in the United States and Canada,” said USW International
President Leo W. Gerard. “Too often we have
seen Wall Street hollow out companies by draining their cash and assets and
hollowing out communities by shedding jobs and shuttering plants. We need
a new business model that invests in workers and invests in communities.”
Josu Ugarte, President of MONDGRAGON Internacional added: “What we are
announcing today represents a historic first – combining the world’s largest
industrial worker cooperative with one of the world’s most progressive and
forward-thinking manufacturing unions to work together so that our combined
know-how and complimentary visions can transform manufacturing practices in
North America.”
Highlighting the differences between Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOPs)
and union co-ops, Gerard said, “We have lots of experience with ESOPs, but have
found that it doesn’t take long for the Wall Street types to push workers aside
and take back control. We see Mondragon’s cooperative model with ‘one
worker, one vote’ ownership as a means to re-empower workers and make business
accountable to Main Street instead of Wall Street.”
Both the USW and MONDRAGON emphasized the shared values that will drive this
collaboration. Mr. Ugarte commented, “We feel inspired to take this step
based on our common set of values with the Steelworkers who have proved time
and again that the future belongs to those who connect vision and values to
people and put all three first. We are excited about working with Mondragon
because of our shared values, that work should empower workers and sustain
families and communities,” Gerard added.
In the coming months, the USW and MONDRAGON will seek opportunities to
implement this union co-op hybrid approach by sharing the common values put
forward by the USW and MONDGRAGON and by operating in similar manufacturing
segments in which both the USW and MONDRAGON already participate.
Click here for the full text of the
Agreement.
About MONDRAGON:
The MONDRAGON Corporation mission is to produce and sell goods and provide
services and distribution using democratic methods in its organizational
structure and distributing the assets generated for the benefit of its members
and the community, as a measure of solidarity. MONDRAGON began its
activities in 1956 in the Basque town of Mondragon by a rural village priest
with a transformative vision who believed in the values of worker collaboration
and working hard to reach for and realize the common good.
Today, with approximately 100,000 cooperative members in over 260 cooperative
enterprises present in more than forty countries; MONDRAGON Corporation is
committed to the creation of greater social wealth through customer
satisfaction, job creation, technological and business development, continuous
improvement, the promotion of education, and respect for the
environment. In 2008, MONDRAGON Corporation reached annual sales of
more than sixteen billion euros with its own cooperative university,
cooperative bank, and cooperative social security mutual and is ranked as the
top Basque business group, the seventh largest in Spain, and the world’s
largest industrial workers cooperative.
About the USW:
The USW is North America’s largest industrial union representing 1.2 million
active and retired members in a diverse range of industries.
