A Prototype School for
the Solidarity Economy:
Chicago Students
Meet With Italian
Worker Coop Leader
Austin High School
Chicago IL
January, 2008
Manufacturing cooperatives was the topic of discussion recently when a leading manufacturing executive from Italy met with students from Austin Polytechnical Academy.
The visit with Benito Benati, of Imola, Italy, was the students' first exposure to the international marketplace.
With students huddled around him, Benati explained to them the concept behind manufacturing cooperatives and how they improve businesses' overall competitiveness in the global marketplace. Specifically, Benati relayed the story of an employee-owned cooperative called SACMI Imola that was started by nine unemployed metalworkers in 1919. Now known as the SACMI Group, Benati, the former controller and chief financial officer of the cooperative, said it now employs 3,000 people in 75 subsidiaries worldwide. Today, SACMI is considered a world leader in high-tech machinery and production lines for the ceramics and beverage industries.
"Cooperatives like SACMI are regular businesses that compete in the marketplace but whose mission is to provide meaningful work and promote solidarity," Benati said.
Benati's visit was students' first encounter with the global manufacturing economy and the possibilities it holds for them. He met with the students for an hour-and-a-half, during which they showed him their engineering project portfolios. Benati said he was impressed by their creativity and skill.
Benati encouraged students to study, work hard and strive to become their own bosses by creating cooperative businesses.
"You should be optimistic," he told the students. "If these nine unemployed workers could build SACMI after World War I, you can succeed at it, too."
Benati fielded a range of questions from students about SACMI. Michael Harris asked how the company created their ice-cream bar production lines. Nelson Vasquez was interested in understanding the company's product development strategy.
But the question asked by Jordan Moore was, perhaps, the one that was on everyone's mind: "Would you tell me exactly what I need to do so that I can come and work for SACMI in Italy?"
"It's definitely possible. You have to study hard and learn a technical skill extremely well," said Benati, who, before leaving, offered to arrange paid summer jobs at SACMI's U.S. headquarters in Des Moines, Iowa, for Austin Polytech students.
Benati's visit was co-sponsored by the Center for Labor and Community Research (a Chicago-based non-profit organization) and the Cooperative League of Imola.
-Matt Hancock, project director,
Center for Labor & Community Research
mhancock@clcr.org
