work together issue 1 - may 2009

Editorial By Felice Scalvini,

president of

CECOP CICOPA-Europe

What began as a financial crisis soon became an international

economic crisis. When and how are we going to come out of it?

Obviously nobody dares make a

guess. However we must pro-pose new ideas for the future. Although there is no definitive “solution,” it is necessary to

understand what has hap-pened, what has led us here, and see how to prevent mis-takes without renouncing the

process of global growth. Global development is still nec-essary if we want to eradicate

poverty and inequality once and for all from the face of the earth, and make it possible for our children to have a future

with a wellbeing which is not too different from the one we have been enjoying over the past fifty years.

(continued on next page)

The Cooperative Movement and the

Economic Crisis, What Is the Way Out?

COOPSPACE:

A new worldwide

web system for entre-

preneurial exchanges

between cooperatives

(page 3)

work together is a joint publication of

CICOPA and CECOP Europe

General coordination: Bruno Roelants

Editors: Olivier Biron and Antonio Amato

Graphics: jcse

© CICOPA 2009

SUMMARY

Editorial 1

Intercontinental 2

Latin America 5

Europe 7

North America 14

Asia 16

April 2009 - Issue N° 1

work together The global information bulletin for cooperatives and worker-owned enterprises in industry, services and crafts

International Organisation of Industrial, Artisanal and Service

Producers ’ Cooperatives

European Confederation of Worker Cooperatives , Social Cooperatives and

Social and Participative Enterprises

Contact: Avenue Milcamps 105

BE-1030 Brusells Phone: +(32) 2 543 10 33 Fax: +(32) 2 543 10 37

www.cicopa.coop www.cecop.coop

[email protected] [email protected]

Worker and

social cooperatives

are growing in

Europe (page 9)

Worker cooperative organisations from South Amer-

ica meet and decide to build a process of integration

among themselves (page 5)

WORK TOGETHER - ISSUE N° 1 - APRIL 2009 2

The Cooperative Movement and the Economic Crisis,

What Is the Way Out? (continued from page 1) Editorial by Felice Scalvini, president of CECOP CICOPA-Europe

MERCOSUR cooperative delegation to Brussels attends CECOP seminar and signs protocol with CICOPA

n October 2008, a delegation sent from RECM (Reunión Especializada de Cooperativas de Mercosur) made a visit in Brussels. , RECM is the MERCOSUR

official agency for cooperatives which comprises the na-tional administration of control and promotion of coopera-tives and the national confederations of cooperatives in each MERCOSUR member state (Brazil, Argentina, Uru-guay, Paraguay). As Chile is an associate member of MER-COSUR, a delegate from the Chilean cooperative state ad-ministration was also part of the study tour.

At this occasion, the delegation visited cooperative organi-sations in Belgium, France, Germany, Italy and Portugal. Above all, they took part in a one-day interregional semi-nar organised by CECOP on cooperative public policy and development, chaired by CECOP vice president Manuel Mariscal. In the morning, inter-sectoral issues were de-bated with the presence of Cooperatives Europe co-president Etienne Pflimlin, and presentations were given from RECM, Cooperatives Europe, COGECA (agriculture)

I

What can we propose?

First of all, it is necessary to go

back to developing enterprises that are structured differently

from capitalist ones, and to con-

tinue to develop a plurality of

entrepreneurial forms. It is nec-

essary for the markets, including

the financial ones, to go back to entrepreneurial diversity. We

must develop cooperatives, mu-

tuals, consortia, social and non-

profit enterprises, with the same

recognition and the same

chances of development that for-profit enterprises receive.

Only a balanced plurality of ac-

tors with different economic

goals and modalities can guaran-

tee balanced development. Re-

cent events have shown that the prevalence of enterprises that

have chosen profit as their only

creed and objective, and that are

supported by a huge scientific

and communication system,

have dried up the resources from

which they drew their suste-

nance, in the same way as monocultures drain away the

lands on which they grow.

For cooperative enterprises, and

generally speaking for all the participative and social enter-

prises, a new season is opening

up: it will be a difficult one, but

it will also be an extraordinary

and decisive one.

Now is the time to re-write the

rules, and the future of local and

global economy is at stake. We

have to be ready for this new appointment with history.

How will we accomplish this?

First of all, by having excellent

enterprises, modelled on the co-

operative principles and praxis.

Secondly, by building ever stronger links (the process has

already started, though much is

still needed to be built) between

cooperative sectors, in order to

harmonise fully integrated areas

of the cooperative economy. Thirdly, it is important to de-

velop autonomous and original

ideas, free from any type of

ideological slavery towards the

capitalist form of management

and economy. And, last but not least, we need to be proud of our

roots, our history and our contri-

bution, in the course of the last

few centuries, to the economic,

civil and moral growth of millions

of people. ◊

“Now is the time to

re-write the rules, and

the future of local and

global economy is at

stake. We have to be

ready for this new

appointment with

history. ”

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



and EUROCOOP (consumers). The afternoon focused on

our cooperative sector, with presentations from Brazil,

Uruguay, Spain and the UK.

The meeting closed with the signature of a multi-annual

agreement between CICOPA president Javier Salaberria

and RECM president Paulo Roberto da Silva, ushering in a

new era of cooperation between the two entities in the

fields of transmission of experience, international develop-

ment initiatives, strengthening of national organisations of

worker cooperatives in MERCOSUR and the links among

them, cooperativisation of enterprises in crisis, legislation,

public policies, promotion of ILO Recommendation 193 on

the promotion of cooperatives and of the World Declaration

on Worker Cooperatives, etc. (the whole text of the CI-

COPA-RECM agreement is available on www.cicopa.coop.)

On October 29th, the delegation was welcomed to Lille by

French member organisation CGSCOP vice president Chris-

tian Simon and communications director Pierre Liret to be

acquainted with several local worker cooperatives

(including a high-tech one founded by an Argentinean), the

regional union of worker cooperatives, and the SOCODEN

financial instrument of the French worker cooperative

movement. ◊

ntil now, it is only marginally that cooperatives involved in industry and services have been coop-

erating at the international level in the fields of common entre-

preneurial projects, exchange of information and skills, joint application to international tenders, etc.

We are among many who now want to change that, and to help in that process. CECOP and CICOPA are collaborating with their Uru-

guayan webmaster JCSE in the design of a new website aimed to be

an international instrument in the hands of the enterprises that are part of our European and world

network.

A French construction cooperative wishing to learn about an international public works tender in Ger-

many may want to find construction cooperatives in Italy, Germany and Poland in order to establish a

temporary consortium and apply for the tender. A new Polish cooperative established to manage a

hospital could be interested in getting some technical and management know-how from one of the dozens of Italian cooperatives involved in hospital activities. A Spanish metal industry cooperative may

have an interest in making a product in Brazil with a cooperative from Sao Paulo operating in the same

sector. A Canadian cooperative in graphics could be interested to work together with an Argentinean

consortium in the graphic industry. A Romanian cooperative producing garments could be interested in

working together with a Shanghaiese one. A Japanese tour operator cooperative could be willing to

contact some of the many tourism cooperatives in Europe to organise tours to Europe.

The possibilities are endless. Under globalisation, and in times of crisis, the need for many coopera-

tives to reach out to the international network of enterprises, which we represent, is on the agenda. COOPSPACE is meant to help them do that. The website is presently in construction and will be ready

in May. It will be divided by sectors and sub-sectors according to the international ISIC/NACE classifi-

cation system. On each sectoral page, the user will be able to see how many cooperatives in that sec-

tor or sub-sector exists within our enterprise network, and in which countries of the world. The user

will also be able to restrict his/her search to a specific country or world region. He/she will be able to

post an announcement or a request to cooperatives belonging to the corresponding sector in a specific country or group of countries.

The website will be exclusively dedicated to CICOPA and CECOP’s direct or indirect members (cooperative confederation, federations, enterprises, support organisations etc). For more information,

please write to [email protected] or [email protected]. ◊

U

COOPSPACE: a new worldwide Web system for

entrepreneurial exchanges between cooperatives By Bruno Roelants, CICOPA


I.N.D.A.C.O internationalisation processes for cooperatives Interview of Simone Mattioli by Antonio Amato, CECOP

INDACO is an Italian second-tier cooperative stemming from the integration be-tween a few cooperatives oriented towards the international market and other companies, and is within the framework of Legacoop system. INDACO was born to encourage the internationalisation of the member cooperatives and to support their entrance into foreign markets. Through INDACO, the member enterprises outsource their internationalisation work to a specific and specialized operative instrument, thus becoming more than an advisory service. Interview with its president, Simone Mattioli.

How was INDACO born, and from which needs? INDACO was born within the framework of Legacoop. During last few years the need emerged to promote processes of internationalisation for the small and medium Italian cooperatives. One of the main needs for cooperatives was a very cooperative instrument, able to support cooperatives, find partner countries, look for funding, and provide them dedicated services in their internationalisation process.

How to combine the ‘cooperative values’ with the competitiveness of en-

terprises that do not have the same ‘approach’? We move from the assump-tion of promoting internationalisation processes for cooperative enterprises, but we also work with small and medium enterprises that are not cooperatives, such as the craft coops, (and they also have a different legal nature from cooperatives, at least in Italy), but they share the same operational objectives of expanding abroad. In some cases, we observe the development of economies of scale, between cooperatives and small and me-dium enterprises acting together and completing the production chain.

What are the first projects being launched by INDACO? We have launched several projects simultaneously; the constitution of a Brazilian company active in housing made up of Italian and Brazilian cooperatives; a joint venture in Argentina involved in crystal production between an Italian and an Argentinean cooperative; another similar project in Argentina in shoe manufacturing, etc. Now we are preparing other projects; some of them are very large-scale.

What difficulties and differences did you discover working in such different regions as Latin America and

Africa? Latin America is our main region of operational activity. Throughout the years, we have built up valuable relations with cooperative organisations, entrepreneurial organisations and local governments in those countries. Ar-gentina and Brazil are our “focal points”. In Africa and in Asia, we are following the requests of our members. For the moment our focus is in South Africa, China and in the United Arab Emirates, where we are looking for new opportuni-ties.

Which are the obstacles for the small and medium enterprises and cooperatives on the way of interna-

tionalisation? They have been the same for a long time. Some difficulties are structural, such as the limited avail-ability of capital or the unavailability of relevant critical masses. Most of all, I found obstacles linked to cultural mis-trust or prejudices around foreign enterprises or foreign markets. Some of these obstacles come from cooperative directors; they are still not used to sustaining inner human resources oriented to internationalisation.

How do you feel about the current economic crisis, and what opportunities do you see (if there are any)

for small and medium enterprises, for the cooperatives and for consortia such as INDACO? This is a serious crisis, because it is new in its identity. I think that is not simply a crisis of the financial system, but rather a collapse of a development model; there is not one simple and clear solution for it. I think that this crisis is hiding opportunities that will be caught by new and innovative managerial dynamics. INDACO is following it up because it sees itself as an instrument of change. We represent one of the necessary changes in this moment: sustainable access to global mar-kets. In this sense, the cooperatives have understood that in the present economic uncertainty, their process of inter-nationalisation cannot be delayed.

What do you consider the role of international organisations such as CECOP and CICOPA to be? CECOP and CICOPA are really important. They are carrying out a fundamental role for the development of worker cooperation, sustaining it in the represented countries and acting as a network in the global area. In this sense these two organisa-tions help and sustain the processes of internationalisation.

Which are the future projects of I.N.D.A.C.O.? The first project is the fulfilment of our purposes: to significantly promote the processes of internationalisation for the cooperatives. We started well and we are growing up. There is a lot of attention around us and we do not want to disappoint those who decide to join INDACO. We have several plans for the future, from the enlargement of the action areas, to the improvement of our “focal point” all around the world: today we are active in Argentina, Brazil, and Bosnia, but we are building conditions to be operational also in South Africa, India and China. ◊

Simone Mattioli

President of INDACO

More information about INDACO at http://www.indaco.coop/en


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

Worker cooperative organisations from South America meet and decide

to build a process of integration among themselves

By CICOPA

The 3 Brazilian members of CICOPA, Cootrabalho, Anteag, and Unisol, organ-ised a CICOPA regional seminar on January 5-6 in Sao Paulo, with the presence of representatives from the federations of worker coop-eratives from Uruguay (FCPU), Argentina (FECOOTRA and FACTA) and Colombia (ASCOOP), as well as CICOPA general secretary Bruno Roelants. Fábio San-chez, Deputy Secretary of State for the Solidarity Economy under the Brazilian Ministry of Labour, also at-tended part of the seminar.

The first half of the meeting was aimed at examining the regulatory situation concerning worker cooperatives in the four countries represented, and in the rest of the world. The participants reviewed the brand new coopera-tive laws from Uruguay and Colombia, and co-signed a formal call addressed to the Brazilian senate to approve the draft worker cooperative legislation already approved by the Brazilian parliament. It also appeared that in Ar-gentina, the situation may finally be ripe to prepare a worker cooperative law.

During the second half, the representatives agreed to launch a process of integration among themselves within the framework of CICOPA, and to elaborate an agenda over the next few months in this respect.

In the common periodical of the federations of worker cooperatives of Argentina, FECOOTRA comments the following about the meeting: “In the end, we have to

admit that there is still a huge amount of work to be

done in order to build a common politico-institutional

presence in Latin America, develop projects of integration

between our enterprises, and to keep firm the commit-

ment to not let any of the enterprises which the entre-

preneurs want to lead to bankruptcy fall. …Only by unit-

ing and working together shall we be able to win the bat-

tle, and it is precisely within the framework of CICOPA

that we should meet our colleagues from South America,

and from all over the world, in order to succeed in our

efforts to strengthen worker ownership” (Autogestión Argentina, n° 3, March 2009). ◊

Argentina: With the crisis, the enterprise take-overs are back

Summary and excerpts of an article by Pablo Waisberg in Buenos Aires Económico, 2 March 2009

aving learned their lessons from the crisis of 2001, many of the workers in the city of Buenos Aires are in the proc-

ess of taking over their plants before they close, and want the help of the State to start producing again.

The companies that have been taken over by their workers are only a few in Buenos Aires but they represent important sec-tors, such as food, textile, paper and graphics. They employ a thousand workers. Managers are putting the blame on the international crisis, but in many cases a lingering disinvest-ment process can be observed, which some people define as “emptying.” In 2009, we have observed at least seven cases

of companies in the city with production problems or where the owners have abandoned the plants altogether. “The al-

most immediate response is the occupation of the buildings in

order to prevent malfunctions with the machines - without the

machines it would be impossible to restart production. This

ability for rapid response is what differentiates these workers

from those who, in 2001, guaranteed the survival of more

than two hundred establishments. But what is at stake today

is the rescue of companies that have not run bankrupt yet.

They are companies that still have an owner and in which no

open judicial process has started as yet”, Waisberg explains.


H


José Orbaiceta, president of the Federation of Worker Coop-eratives of the Argentine Republic (FECOOTRA), believes that the process will deepen: “it will worsen, at least in some sec-

tors that are linked to the crisis, such as spare parts for the

automobile industry.”

One example is the closing down of the Eagle Ottawa tannery, a Canadian multinational, leaving 450 people without work. Orbaiceta thinks that the speed with which those processes are taking place has a direct relationship with the fact that “it is now clear that the workers

can revive companies and

put them back to work.” Fur-thermore, Orbaiceta stated that “some prejudices have

fallen” in the trade unions, which are now supporting those experiences. “This is

what happens with the Bue-

nos Aires Graphic Federation

and the unions of the interior

who are also mobilizing”.

Pablo Waisberg then indi-cates that Orbaiceta: “also

forms part of the Graphic

Network, which integrates

the work of seven coopera-

tives of the same sector. For

three years now, they have

been working in a network and have ceased to compete with

each other, abandoning the feverish struggle for clients and

carrying out combined purchases. The result is striking: they

have improved their technological levels, obtained better or-

ders and increased their turnover.”

Continuing with the interview to Orbaiceta, Waisberg writes that “when evaluating the role of the State and its relationship

with the worker cooperatives, be they the traditional ones or

the taken-over ones, Orbaiceta considers that the Government

should give them the same backing as what the companies

with capitalist owners get. There are cases like Acindar and

other big companies that enjoy State support to overcome the

crisis and many cooperatives that perhaps make logistical or

other services for that company have been able to benefit

from those aid programmes. When Government aid arrives

they can survive, while other suppliers of big industries have

not been given this kind of support and have entered into cri-

sis.”

The article continues with other examples of enterprises being revived. “The case of Massuh seems to be the most complex

one. In the middle, there is a Canadian financial fund and soci-

ety, Papelera (paper mill) Alem, which has taken over the fac-

tory but has not reported itself to the authorities yet. It should

do it this on Wednesday to the Ministry of Labour. This week’s

meeting was preceded by another one between the workers of

the paper mill and officials”.

There is another case which is even more serious. It is Wyny tannery, purchased by Mexican capitals from Argentinean managers. “They bought it to raise the quality of the manufac-

tures and be able to export them as half-finished products,

without paying taxes on leather. It is a case of extractive in-

vestment”, explained Raúl Zylbersztein, who in charge of the Industrial Chamber of the Leather Manufactures. The decision of the Mexicans - as Delgadillo specifies - was to move the plant and pay 50% in compensation. But according to De-gadillo, “the take-over of the plant and a few meetings at the

Ministry of Labour convinced

them to pay 80% in compen-

sation. Now the factory con-

tinues to be occupied by its

250 employees and the trade

union is trying to ensure con-

tinuity in production. A possi-

bility is to establish a coop-

erative.”

The request of State backing of the cooperatives appears in each taken-over company, including those in which the process of recovery has arisen over the last two months. The workers of In-

dugraf and those of Arrufat requested it, and in fact, the

Arrufat workers openly announced last week that they would begin to produce handmade chocolates. They want to show that what they want is to work. But they need money to buy at least 5,000 kilos of chocolate to begin to produce Easter eggs, the products that together with the nougats built the fame of the brand name.

The workers of (…) Arrufat are already producing. Today, they the chocolates are being made by hand, and the workers are preparing to do it mechanically once again in the future. For that purpose, they printed vouchers of sales of Easter eggs - one of their emblematic products – in order to have access to working capital. The vouchers for five or ten eggs will begin to be sold this week to members of other taken over enterprises and cooperatives.

Along with the vouchers, they have planned other activities in order to gather the necessary capital. One such plan is a festi-val that will take place on Saturday, March 14. In the mean-while, they are continuing to sell fruit chocolates they have prepared with a few neighbours that came to offer them their support.

“The machines work, they work perfectly well, and we want to

continue working. We only lack the working capital to be able

to buy raw material”, Adrián Serrando said last week, during a press conference at the door of the factory. They announced that they were resuming production and that they were estab-lishing a cooperative. ◊

The workers of the Arrufat chocolate company

The Federation of Worker Cooperatives of the Argentinean Republic – FECOOTRA - has

become a new CICOPA member FECOOTRA presently affiliates 29 worker cooperatives employing 2500 workers and are in-volved in various types of economic activities, such as paper, printing and graphics, ship repair, textiles, chemical industry, crystal, meat refrigeration, etc. One year ago, FECOOTRA established a union with other worker cooperative federations existing in Argentina, which launched a periodical called ‘Autogestion Argentina’ (Argentinean Self-Management). ◊

On February 19th, the Euro-pean Parliament adopted a

resolution on social economy (cooperatives, mutuals, associa-tions, foundations) with 580 votes in favour, 27 against and 44 absten-tions.

The own-initiative report drafted by Italian MEP Patrizia Toia (from the ALDE political group) is an impor-tant act of recognition and support

for cooperatives and other social economy enterprises.

Among other demands expressed to the European Commission and Member States, the report called for the support to facilitate the transfor-mation of enterprises into worker-owned undertakings in the case of business crisis’. CECOP welcomes this reference to business transfer to employees after a five-year long

“silence” from the European com-mission on this topic. The 2004 Communication on the Promotion of Cooperative Societies in Europe is the last of the series of Commission documents which, since 1994, had consistently hailed business transfer to employees as an important and viable modality of enterprise re-structuring.


E U R O P E

CECOP works with the European Commission on social inclusion policies

By Bruno Roelants, CECOP

CECOP CICOPA Europe is involved in a three-year project with DG Employment and Social Affairs of the European Commission, to work on the issue

of EU social policies, particularly in social inclu-sion. Through the project, CECOP has been se-lected as one of the key EU networks working on this topic.

Obviously, CECOP’s contribution to this common work is related to the specificities of the enter-

prises of our network, namely worker coopera-tives, social cooperatives and other worker-owned enterprises, and is mainly to be seen in terms of concrete entrepreneurial experience of

active inclusion through work. For example, thousands of social cooperatives across Europe are involved in the labour inclusion of people who suffer from a whole series of disadvantages lead-

ing to social exclusion, that can be physical or mental (disabled persons) or social (long-term unemployed, drug addicts, ex-convicts, immi-grants etc): they do not only offer them a job,

but they offer to the majority of those disadvan-taged persons the status of co-owner of the en-terprise.

Another key contribution to the social inclusion agenda is to show to what extent we are involved in the prevention of social exclusion. When we

help transform an enterprise which is on the brink of closure into a successful worker coopera-

tive, we help save existing jobs, and we are thereby doing prevention of social exclusion of persons at risk.

Generally, the core mandate of a worker coop-erative is to create and maintain quality and

long-term jobs, not precarious jobs that are at risk to be lost. Furthermore, worker cooperatives create and maintain jobs in which the workers are the co-owners of their enterprises. The nu-

merous support institutions of our system (federations, financial instruments, training cen-tres, advisory services, groups, consortia, etc) are aimed to make those enterprises and those

jobs even more sustainable economically, and more resilient in times of crisis like the present one (even though the crisis is striking our enter-prises as well). None of our jobs delocalise, and

we lose comparatively few jobs, while we create new ones continuously. We have a key employ-ment model to promote at the European level.

We are trying to present this project to the Euro-pean Commission, and to our own enterprise net-

work, to show that we are strongly involved in social inclusion and territorial cohesion, two com-plementary and mainstream policies of the Euro-pean Union, and that we have something funda-mental to offer in the definition and in the imple-

mentation of those policies. ◊

European Parliament supports business transfer to employees

Par Diana Dovgan, CECOP

O


Nevertheless, this “silence” does not mean that business transfers to em-ployees have stopped or even de-creased since 2004: in France alone, there were 70 cases in 2007. In fact, among enterprises from the CECOP network, the opposite is

true. This model of enterprise re-structuring deserves even more at-tention right now in the context of massive closings and job losses.

The Toia report recognises the abil-ity of social economy enterprises to “generate stability in a context of

eminently cyclical economies” and even emphasises that “an economic system in which so-cial economy enter-prises play a more significant role would reduce expo-sure to speculation in financial markets on which some pri-vate companies are not subject to the supervision of share-holders and regulatory bodies”.

In a more general sense, the report expresses the need for a secure le-gal framework for those enterprises. It considers the social economy as a key operator for fulfilling the Lisbon objectives: “social economy helps rectify three major labour market imbalances: unemployment, job

instability and the social and labour exclusion of the unemployed” and create jobs that are not subject to delocalization. This observation is particularly relevant for worker and social cooperatives and other worker-owned enterprises, who have the creation of sustainable jobs as part of their core mission. ◊


The Italian MEP Patrizia Toia

European Commission conference on social enterprises in Brussels

ending with conclusions and proposals by CECOP


ECOP’s active participation to this conference (Brussels, 6th March) is linked to the fact that

the term ‘social enterprises’ in Europe, in spite of the many local differences, usually refers to not-for-profit private enterprises whose mission is the production of goods or services of general interest (such as social services or the integration through work of disadvan-taged persons). The CECOP enterprise network com-prises by far the biggest contingent of such enter-prises, with around 9000 social cooperatives across Europe, as CECOP president Felice Scalvini reminded in his conclusions.

The participants included government officials (such as from the UK), representatives from federations (including several CECOP national members) and en-terprises, as well as from research institutions such as EMES, CIRIEC, and the new Trento-based European Research Institute on Cooperatives and Social Enter-prises (EURICSE).

During a substantial part of the conference, many participants expressed very strong criticism concern-ing the report on social enterprises commissioned by the European Commission and finalised in 2007, high-

lighting its numerous mistakes and its low scientific level.

Bob Cannell from Cooperatives UK highlighted the very diverse types of social enterprises in the UK, ranging from real community and participatory enter-prises to all but conventional private enterprises, and the incoherence of the UK government policies to-wards them.

In his conclusions, Felice Scalvini said that social en-terprises needed a clear definition. They should thus be regulated at the national level, and there should be increased convergence between the various existing and future national legislations regulating them. He proposed that European Commission’s DG Enterprise launch an action in this sense under the Open Method of Coordination (OMC). He also said, while a conver-gent legal framework is gradually sought, the needs of those enterprises should be better taken into con-sideration in existing EU policies, such as on public procurement and services of general interest, and in the EU programmes stimulating entrepreneurial devel-opment. ◊

“social economy helps

rectify three major

labour market imbal-

ances: unemployment,

job instability and the so-

cial and labour exclusion

of the unemployed”

C


CECOP seminar on public procurement, held in Brussels on December 17th, stressed the need to clarify the meaning of article 19 of the Public Procurement Directive (2004/18/EC). A representa-tive of the European Commission, DG Internal Market, was present at the seminar.

This article states that “the Member

States may reserve the right to partici-

pate in public contract award proce-

dures to sheltered workshops or provide

for such contracts to be performed in

the context of sheltered employment

programmes where most of the employ-

ees concerned are handicapped per-

sons.”

The notion of “sheltered workshops” has disappeared from practically all national legislations and has not been defined at the EU level. DG Internal Market has told us that it should be interpreted

“according to the spirit rather than the letter” of the term. However, it is diffi-cult to do so when the “letter” can mean many different things.

Another problem is that this article re-fers to both “sheltered workshops” and “sheltered employment programmes” at the same time and goes on to say that it is a requirement that the majority of the workers concerned (in other words more than 50%) must be handicapped persons in both cases.

Although this threshold of 50% is well established by all European texts that refer to sheltered employment – and there is no dispute over this – this threshold has never been set out as a requirement in all of the national legis-lations on sheltered workshops and similar schemes.

Indeed, the results of a survey carried

out amongst CECOP members show that, in order to gain recognition as a “sheltered workshop” in Rumania, Finland and Italy, only 30% of the em-ployees must be handicapped persons. It should also be added that the Italian legislation deals with “disadvantaged persons”, such as former prisoners, for example, a concept which is far wider than disabled persons.

CECOP is paying particular attention to the article 19 of the 2004 Public Pro-curements Directive, first of all because it concerns cooperatives since it talks about “sheltered workshops” and “sheltered employment programmes”, but also because the clumsy wording of this article makes it almost impossible to apply.

In turn, CECOP has already proposed an interpretation of “sheltered workshops” with 3 key criteria: a) be full-fledged enterprises b) where the disabled are full-fledged workers and c) whose core mission is to do social inclusion of dis-abled and disadvantaged people through work. ◊

orker and social cooperatives, involved in various industries and services, are growing healthily all around Europe. This encouraging observation comes from the analysis of the first results of a CE-COP survey which, among other data, surveys the trends in the creation of new cooperative enter-

prises over the last five years. The growth rates take into account the new cooperative enterprises cre-ated ex novo and the ones coming from a process of transformation or buy out of enterprises of another nature.

This is the case of France where CGSCOP (French confederation of worker cooperatives) reports that the 30% of the 1900 affiliated cooperatives have been created over the last five years, and one-third of them come from a transformation process.

Positive data come also from Spain where the 30% of the existing 18 000 cooperatives, represented by COCETA (Spanish confederation of worker cooperatives), were constituted in the last five years. In the UK there has been a registration of about a hundred new cooperatives constituted by start up and this has increased the total amount of existing cooperatives by 30%.

Central and Eastern European countries are registering similar developments, as the case of the Czech Republic where the 10% of the 200 cooperatives affiliated to SCMVD have been created over the last five years. This consideration is very important in a country such as the Czech Republic where a process of erosion has affected the cooperative enterprises over the last fifteen years (which also includes other enterprises). This process of erosion has not stopped but it is gradually diminishing its effects.

In Italy, Federsolidarietà (sectoral organisation of Confcooperative, representing social cooperatives) has registered a growth of 42% of new affiliated cooperatives over the same period, to reach 4893 en-terprises at the end of 2008.

These data corroborates the conviction that the worker and social cooperative movement is a strong and sustainable system where enterprises, solidarity, equity and development can be sustained and en-forced. ◊

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Worker and social cooperatives are growing in Europe

By Antonio Amato, CECOP

Public procurements directive:

need for clarification regarding article 19

By Guy Boucquiaux , CECOP


Interview with Carlo Zini, president of ANCPL/Legacoop Europeanisation of construction and industrial cooperatives – The crisis

Regulation of concessions – Europe and its citizens ByValerio Pellirossi, CECOP

n 2007 the European Commission launched a proposal for a direc-tive which could regulate conces-

sions, particularly in the field of man-agement and maintenance of motor-ways and highways. In the consultation with the member States that followed at the end of the same year, high-lighted contrasting opinions on the topic. Member States’ reaction blocked the continuation of the works on the directive, which, in fact, was never ap-proved.

A European regulation of the sector, like in other sectors, may be a tool to create more opportunities for those enterprises able to take up the chal-lenge of a wider marketplace. An im-portant part of the enterprises which could benefit from the approval of a directive on concessions and the Euro-pean regulation of the sector are worker cooperatives working in the construction industry. Dr. Carlo Zini, recently elected president of ANCPL, one of the Italian Federations of worker cooperatives of the sector, is the presi-dent of CMB, Cooperativa Muratori e Braccianti, a worker cooperative in the construction field, with 1000 members and 900 employees and a turnover about 400 million €.

Dr. Zini, what are the possibilities

for the Cooperatives and Consortia

to access to concessions for the

management and maintenance of

highways and motorways in Italy? With the legislation that we have today, some big cooperatives in the field of construction have the possibility to be holder of a concession.

And what are the problems emerg-

ing from the failure of the project

for a European regulation of the

sector, in particular concerning the

cooperatives? It is clear that the lack of a common legislation lead to the strengthening of a non-homogeneous market in Europe. In Italy for example, as a consequence of this lack of legisla-tion, it has approved an act in favour of in-house concessions (the possibility for public institution to utilise its own bod-ies, or public-owned entities instead of contracting out, ed.) with the conse-quent contraction of the market.

What are the benefits of regulation

of the sector at the European level?

One example is by providing common definitions and clarifying the role of the actors, such as concessionaire, admin-istrator and contractor.

What is the level of europeanisa-

tion and internationalisation of the

cooperatives? In the industrial sector in general, the market is rather well developed at the European and world level. Most of our member cooperatives of our organisation consider the Euro-pean market as a domestic market and, at the same time, the level of interna-tionalisation is already high in sectors like engineering, ceramic and consul-tancy. Nevertheless, in those sectors, just a few cooperatives among the lar-ger ones are well-positioned on the international markets.

The opportunity to have access to

foreign markets implies, especially

in the European Union, the freedom

for foreign enterprises to access

domestic markets. Is the widening

and europeanisation of the market

seen as an opportunity or a critical

challenge for Cooperatives? I cer-tainly see new opportunities. We should wish a wider market where the enter-prises could meet a bigger supply, en-sured by the freedom of a plurality of actors to decide their position in the competition market.

We have recently experienced a

large protest against a foreign con-

tractor enterprise that employs for-

eign workers instead of domestic

workers. The protests were mainly

the consequence of the raising un-

employment rate in Europe. Do you

think that the current economic

crisis could negatively affect the

opening process of the European

market, and the freedom of move-

ment and establishment of workers

and enterprises? I am sure that there will be repercussions. We have to con-sider that an economic recession re-sults in the reduction of industrial pro-duction, a decrease of the domestic demand, and the export to foreign markets.

The Italian cooperatives of our organi-sation, ANCPL, have the objective of growth in their dimension, the en-hancement of the management and the valorisation and improvement of the skills of the workers. In order to

achieve these objectives, they will open to new market horizons, broaden their activities and launch new products. This strategy will be supported by invest-ments in research and the technological innovation.

It is not possible to deny the fact

that European Institutions can

deeply influence the everyday ac-

tivity of the cooperatives, as well

as the life of the European citizens.

However, citizens and the civil so-

ciety in general still feel distant

from the European Union and are

distrustful of the European Policies.

What do you think the EU can make

in the future, in order to improve

the relationship with its citizens? The awareness of the European citizens of the importance of the European pro-ject is still weak. The enhancement should start from the improvement of the quantity and the quality of the in-formation on European Institutions and EU issues, as well as the involvement of the citizens and the civil society in the public debate and decision making process. The active participation of the citizens in the EU life and the perma-nent dialogue can be the solution to this problem.

We completely share a vision of the

future for the European Union

based the dialogue and active par-

ticipation of the citizens. ◊

Carlo Zini

President of ANCPL-Legacoop

I


Being reborn with extra strength. Company buy-outs in Spain By Olga Ruiz, Virginia del Peso, Mar Pernas, David de la Puente, Ana Real, Pilar Villaverde y Mariana Vilnitzky, COCETA

There are many stories that have remained hidden in the history of Spain. Among them are the bankrupt companies that have been restructured by their workers and transformed into cooperatives. Although little is known of them, they are very profitable companies that went through very hard times. The current crisis has taken these stories out of the drawer of oblivion.

At the end of 2007, the workers of the Aragonese company Low Power, which is dedicated to metallurgy, began to notice that something was going wrong. The usual suppliers created difficulties in the delivery of the orders, and it was only in January this year that they could pay last year’s wages. Far from giving explanations, the manager denied that there was any problem, but at the end of March, Low Power closed, leaving all their workers without job, debts in the millions, and, most surpris-ingly, orders that could not be carried out. After several conflicts, the workers formed a cooperative: Metalva. Now they are tracing back their clients and are continuing their metallurgical activity. In order to get trained, they counted on, among other thing, their collaboration of some suppliers. Does this ring a bell to anybody? This is a well-known type of story from the 1970s and 1980s, which the protagonists themselves had forgotten to tell.

“What is so special about us? I don’t know, maybe it is that we in-

voice about three million Euros per year?” says Casto Duque Ramírez, who belongs to the metallurgical cooperative Cosemap in Castilla la Mancha, when asked what was so special about her com-pany. Then, he thinks it over and hesitates a little while. As if he was recalling that in the past he fed himself on potatoes, he adds: “Of course, this company was not a cooperative at

the beginning. We were the workers of a Basque company which, one day in 1982, decided to close down and leave

us without a job and even without compensations. We did everything we could to continue with the company: demon-

strations, lock-ins, hunger strikes... Everything so that they would pay us. And, at the end, after many fights, we got

the right to keep the machinery and the client list.” I t was a time of deep economic crisis, convulsed by the transition to democracy.

This story that Duque tells almost by chance, and along with the history of Metalva, also shares the history of many cooperative companies who have been in activity for some time: Ciatco, Olea Metal, Pannosco, Sherlimp, Mol-Matric… They have never been properly told, but those who lived those years from the Justice system remember them as a mountain of files. The trade union “Comisiones Obreras” ended up creating a dedicated section exclusively to the tran-sition of the means of production.

“I spent every morning between the Labour court, today called Social Tribu-

nals, and the Institute of Mediation, Arbitration and Reconciliation”, a labour lawyer remembers. “There were demonstrations almost every day in Orense

Street in Madrid. Some owners abandoned the factories without paying com-

pensations or social security. Thus, in order to pay the workers, it was even

necessary to value the assets, if they existed. An expert calculated the value

of what was left: sewing machines, printers... and sometimes that was part

of the compensations”, she explains.

Mol-Matric is a company that was born in similar circumstances to those of Cosemap. It began its story in the 1970s with much optimism but not without problems. The cooperative members did not have the slightest notion of enterprise management, which resulted in the leadership positions being distributed to function with the aptitudes of each person. The person in charge of production was an employee that distinguished himself by being orderly and methodical; and the present director that entered the company as a cleaner, took charge of computerization 15 years ago, because of his keen interest in computers. Today it is a very profitable company.

In order to make it possible for cooperatives such as Mol-Matric or Cosemap to start producing, the Government of that time established the National Fund for the Protection of Work, granting soft credits for members who wanted to set up a cooperative and a special credit line to hire a manager for one year.

“It was a crisis, like now, related with petroleum”, remembers Rafael Calvo Ortega, former minister of labour in 1978, and creator of the measure and today president of the Ibero-American Foundation for the Social Economy (Fundibes), “…it was a very correct measure because the degree of survival of those enterprises, cooperatives and worker-owned

societies, was much higher that other types. The employees, being also owners, were more involved”.

“An expert calculated the

value of what was left:

sewing machines,

printers... and sometimes

that was part of the

compensations”

Metalva Cooperative


The carpet cooperative Sherlimp, established by 42 workers who purchased the company from the owner, used the option of hiring a manager. “Many people, including the Ministry of Labour, thought the cooperative would barely

survive two months”, explains Marco Antonio Canelo, director of Sherlimp. “They completely forgot the human capi-

tal. With solidarity and companionship we have gone through 30

years of existence and we have 30,000 clients, which is not negligi-

ble.”

Not all stories are a struggle between the workers and the employer. Some company owners could simply not pay and they decided, in a good way, to leave the factory to the workers as a payment in kind. Cartonajes Aitana, a company of the Valencian Community which also went bankrupt in the 1970s, not only became profitable when it was acquired by its workers, but the same workers even decided to accept the children of the ex-owners as members. In order to move ahead, the members initially worked “day and night like ants.” Today they carry out an activity which is deeply rooted in their district.

Another company with a similar experience, also in the Valencian Community, is the one of the Manclús family, dedicated to the repair of church steeples, whose owners decided to close down and re-launch as a cooperative. “When you leave a situation in which there

have been conflicts, there is a certain mistrust among the parties

involved, and the best way to clarify everything and to make every-

body participate in the new project was to establish a cooperative”, Salvador Manclús, one of the founders, explains.

Not all the companies requested State aid. At that time already, what was then known as “inter-cooperation” worked well. The Galician cooperative bakery Noroeste, that came out of a process of business transfer from the company Paefsa, acquired the factory with the effort of 35 workers and a mortgage linked to the old com-pany which was difficult to pay. In order to make it, they got the backing of another cooperative, Meirás, today a consumers’ coopera-tive, and they became a very well-known bakery in the district of Ferrolterra, where they are located.

In 1984, Spain approved a new law, which is still effective, that al-lows people that become unemployed to receive their unemployment benefit in a lump sum to create a cooperative. Hundred of coopera-tives have been created from then on thanks to this law. ◊

Modern times

Today, the situation is completely different from that of those years: Spain has become a rich country, and it is far more shaped intellec-tually and politically; however, we are again hearing the word “crisis.” Unemployment in-creased in May for the first time since 1979, and some companies are closing down. Stories like those of 30 years ago are again appearing.

Apart from Metalva, there are smaller compa-nies that are closing, and, finding themselves unemployed, the workers take advantage of the fact that they can receive the whole unem-ployment benefit in a lump sum to start the cooperative. It is the case of Taller Salaman-dra, in the mountains near Madrid. “After 15

years working in a handicraft factory, our

bosses found out that by importing Asian prod-

ucts they would earn much more money”, one of their members tells. The Taller Salamandra has now been open for two years, they have opened a shop and they are going ahead with-out problems.

“There is a tendency to link the social economy

with the crisis, and that is an idea that we

should reject”, the former minister and instiga-tor of the measures that 30 years ago helped those types of business transfers, Rafael Calvo Ortega, points out. “They are companies that

go ahead when there is crisis, and they can

better overcome the difficulties, but that does

not mean that they are linked to crisis situa-

tions. They are good options in other times

because a person who a worker, is also an

owner of the company, and thus takes deci-

sions it is more responsible”, he concludes.


An article taken from “Empresa y Trabajo” (http://www.empresaytrabajo.coop)

National workshops in Italy , France, and Spain on workers’ involvement in worker

cooperatives and other worker-owned enterprises


Those workshops were run within the framework of a EU project on the European Cooperative Society and workers’

involvement, which is coordinated by Italian confederation Legacoop with the help of the Diesis cooperative. In each of the workshops (Paris - 18 March, Murcia - 2 April, Rome - 8 April), national CECOP member organisations and trade union confederations, together with CECOP, discussed the issue of worker participation in worker coop-eratives, social cooperatives and other worker-owned enterprises. One of the main aims of these workshops is to popularize the results of the Involve project implemented in 2007 between CECOP and ETUC (European Trade Un-

ion Confederation) with the help of Diesis, and in particular: the common CECOP-ETUC conclusions on worker par-ticipation in CECOP’s constituency of enterprises, including future European cooperative societies; the analysis of the relation between workers that are cooperative members and those that are not, and of the different types of non-members; a survey of concrete practices of worker participation in individual cooperative enterprises (for more information on the Involve project, please go to: www.cecop.coop/article.php?id_article=798). ◊


European Conference on the participation of workers

in social cooperatives, Krakow, Poland, 23-24 March

By Joanna Brzozowka (NAUWC) and Bruno Roelants (CECOP)

his was the main conference of an ongoing EU co-financed project called ‘Social cooperatives East and West’ led by CECOP Polish member NAUWC with

the help of the Diesis cooperative, and participated by CECOP members in the Czech republic, Bulgaria and Italy, by Italian social cooperative consortium CGM, by an Italian trade union research institute and by CE-COP itself. Like for the above-mentioned national workshops in Italy, France and Spain, one of the main aims of this meeting was to popularize the results of the Involve project (see above and www.cecop.coop/article.php?id_article=798). Another chief aim was to present best practices and share experiences in area of information, consultation and participation of worker’s in co-operative enterprises, especially social co-operatives. The specific situation of Polish and Italian social cooperatives in terms of worker participation and relations with the trade unions was examined in detail. Several concrete examples of Polish and Italian social cooperatives (including among Rom people, disabled and immigrants) were presented. The partici-pants also visited a series of social cooperatives in Cracow. ◊

Czech Republic: International Conference on Social

Economy and Social Entrepreneurship, Prague By Lucie Brančíková, Union of Czech Production Co-operatives (SCMVD)

n International European Conference on Social Economy and Social Enterprise will take place from 16th to 18th April 2009, in Prague as part of the official programme of events under the Czech Republic's Presidency of the EU Council.

The organisers of the conference are the Union of Czech Production Co-operatives (CECOP Czech member organisation), the Co-operative Association of the Czech Republic, the Confederation of Employers and En-trepreneurs' Associations of the Czech Republic, and the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs of the Czech Republic.

The event is held under the aegis of European Commissioner Vladimír Špidla and the Prime Minister Mirek Topolánek. The conference will certainly reflect the concerns of social economy actors, institutions and or-ganisations at the national and European levels over the impact of the current economic crisis on the devel-opment of the social economy in EU member states. Further information about the conference programme, workshops and the registration procedure is available at www.seconference.cz. ◊

Worker Co-operatives on Facebook

By John Atherton – Cooperatives UK

orker Co-operatives are joining together on the web using the social networking site Facebook. Co-operativesUK has created a Facebook group for UK worker Co-operatives. This group now has over 130 members and growing. “This is a place to find out about worker co-operatives and ask for advice. Experi-enced worker co-operatives are also using this group to talk, share ideas and co-operate with other worker co-operatives.” The UK is not alone there are also US and Canadian Worker Co-operatives Groups. The International Co-operative Alliance also has a group with over 200 members.

There are probably a lot more countries with groups active on Facebook or other social networking sites. If you know of any, please send us the details. ◊

A

W

T


N O R T H A M E R I C A

Barack Obama is a cooperative member Source: Confcooperative, Rome (http://www.confcooperative.it)

Barack Obama: President – Cooperator.

Barack Obama has been member of a

bookseller cooperative in Chicago since

1986. This news has been revealed by the

Italian weekly newspaper Italia Coopera-

tiva, the official journal of Confcoopera-

tive.

The President of United States of America is member of the bookseller cooperative “The

Seminary Coop”, a consumer owned bookstore with three Chicago locations. This co-op has been a radiant cultural presence in the Chicago

area since it was established in 1961, but 2008 brought a distinct upgrade in its prof ile when it

emerged that Barack Obama and his family were frequent visitors to the store, which is

only about half a mile from their home. The co-op has about 53,000 members and in 2007,

the three stores in the co-operative racked up about $6 million in sales, with about $4.5 mil-lion of that coming from the members.

“This is a fact”- says Luigi Marino, president of Confcooperative- “which denies a provincial and reductive vision of cooperatives as a typi-

cal Italian reality. Cooperatives are spread all

around the world and are stronger where in developed economies.” ◊

Some numbers

In the USA the co-operatives count on 20 million members, 290 billion dollars of ag-gregate turnover and are active in several economic sectors: credit, social services, ag-riculture, and one of the most active sectors is linked to users’ cooperation model on the electrical sector. It could be enough to think about 864 cooperatives supplying energy for 40 million citizens.

Leaders from the worker co-op and trade union movements in Western Canada have been actively collaborating since September 2006, when the Western Labour-Worker Co-op Council (the “Council”) was formed. The Council is attempting to replicate the approach taken by the Ohio Employee Ownership Center to provide technical assis-tance to employee buy-outs. Lynn Williams, then 82, legendary leader of the Steelworkers’ plant rescues across North America, was the opening speaker at the group’s first meeting and declared it “historic.” Williams is a pio-neer of North American union-led buyouts.

The Council’s mandate includes building the capacity to respond where unionized employees want to explore buy-ing out a business as a worker co-operative or other type of employee-owned enterprise due to business succes-sion or a crisis situation.

The Canadian Worker Co-op & Trade Union Movements: Joint Action

Par Hazel Corcoran, Canadian Worker Co-op Federation (CWCF)


Speakers at later Council meetings include David Levi, CEO of GrowthWorks, the second largest La-bour-Sponsored Investment Fund in the country, Tom Croft, of the Heartland Labor-Capital Network in Pennsylvania, Michael MacIsaac, Executive Direc-tor of the Canadian Labour Congress, and Dave Si-taram, President of the Canadian Co-operative As-sociation. The Council is run on a volunteer basis by representatives from CWCF, the Canadian Labour Congress, and other supportive organizations from the worker co-op and trade union movements.

With the global recession gathering steam, trade unionists and worker co-operators have more and more reasons to work together. In the context of escalating job losses in resource and manufacturing industries, there is a great deal of good will and enthusiasm within the Council, and by co-operating, we aim to provide working people with greater control over their economic life. ◊

For more information, see: www.coopzone.coop/en/taxonomy/term/178/9 ,

or write to Hazel Corcoran, [email protected]

Participants at the first meeting of the

Western Labour-Worker Coop Council

In autumn 2008, the Réseau de la coopération du travail du Québec (more commonly known as "Network") became a member of the Canadian Worker Cooperative Federation (CWCF), which is the first time a Quebec federation has joined the CWCF. The worker co-op movement in Quebec represents two-thirds of the worker coopera-tives in Canada, so it is a very im-portant event for the CWCF. One implication is that Quebec is now represented on the Board of Direc-tors of the CWCF. Alain Bridault of the Orion Co-operative, now sits on the board of CWCF for the Network. In November, Alain was elected as a Director and then immediately ap-pointed Vice President of the CWCF.

The Network is a relatively new or-

ganization created by the merger of Québéc Federation of Worker Coop-eratives (FQCT) and the “Regroupement québécois pour la coopération du travail” (RQCT). After many months of study, analy-sis, and consultation, the Network, which is incorporated as a solidarity cooperative, was established in the spring of 2007.

The new Network brings together the services of both organizations (FQCT and RQCT), while serving the mandate to develop a variety of ser-vices dedicated specifically to worker co-operative training and consulting services related to collec-tive management by workers, net-working and mentoring, referral to specialized resources, political rep-resentation, etc.

One of the services offered by the Network is the Cooperative Youth Services (CJS). Each CJS project consists of twelve to fifteen young people aged between fourteen and seventeen years, who create worker co-ops over the summer months. Together with the support of their community, they face the challenge of establishing their worker coop-erative to create employment in their locality. These young people offer many services to their commu-nity.

There are nearly 300 worker coop-eratives in Quebec operating in sec-tors as diverse as forestry, ambu-lance services, arts and culture, ca-tering, information technology and health care services. ◊

Le Réseau de la coopération du travail du Québec (Quebec Worker

Co-operative Network) joins the Canadian Worker Co-op Federation

By the Canadian Worker Co-op Federation (CWCF)

For more information, in French, see: www.reseau.coop



A S I A

Worker Cooperative Legislative Movement in Japan

By Yoshiko Yamada, JWCU

Although the concept of worker cooperatives is relatively uncommon in Japan, there are more than 30,000 people are already involved.

Japan is one of the few developed countries with-out a cooperative law which worker cooperatives can use. In order to achieve legal recognition of worker cooperatives, Japanese Workers’ Co-operative Union (JWCU), in collaboration with various organizations and people throughout the world, has been working hard for the approval of a worker cooperative law. For example, the Worker Cooperative Legislation Civic Council was founded in November 2000, and JWCU has been holding a series of citizen forums for the law

throughout the nation since 2001.

Moreover, a non-partisan, all-party parliamentary group was founded in February 2008 to promote the legislation. As of January 2009, this group has 164 members. At a local level, 411 out of 1,800 local assemblies have sent the Diet letters recommending the immediate approval of the law (as of January 20, 2009).

We have high hopes that the Diet will finally ap-prove the law this year.

JWCU appreciates all the support in this legisla-tive movement. ◊

This cooperative was established in October 2007 and has 109 members, all of whom are women. The cooperative functions under the cooperative

principles to produce handicraft needlework, which allows them to increase their capacities to study, organise, and enter the market. They have launched a needlework brand with characteristics

from China’s North East.

The establishment of the cooperative has in-creased their income, improved their living condi-tions, and contributed to local development. The

long-term goal of the cooperative is to channel the women’s wisdom and skills to develop the lo-cal handicraft needlework techniques, and help them enter the domestic and international market to increase their income, obtain the recognition of

their labour, raise their general capacities, stimu-late a world vision based on autonomy and trust in their own strength, reinforce their sense of self-recognition and of social responsibility, and create

new rural development. ◊

China: The Hundred Flowers Needlework Cooperative

in Magao village, Ningxia autonomous region

By Gung Ho - ICCIC


Wu Cuiyu leads the Shanghai Women’s Experimental Correspondence Training Institute, is a school for ordinary women, under the guidance of the pedagogical philosophy of Chi-nese educationalist, Tao Xinghe. Throughout the 14 years since it was established in June 1994, the school has organised free technical training in over 20 specialities for approxi-mately 20 000 poor women trainees from Jiangxi and Shaanxi provinces and from the Inner Mongolia autonomous region. It has also helped establish 15 cooperatives among the Shanghai trainees. Those cooperatives are a way to develop home-based industries and thus solve employment and income problems for many laid off women workers and poor rural women.

Since the year 2000, the institute has helped laid off women workers from Shanghai’s urban area, the wives of migrant workers from inside China, and ex-farmers from the Shanghai suburbs who have left agricul-ture, to find a path towards employment based on home-made handicrafts. In order to do this, the institute has dedicated a significant amount of time and resources to organise training sessions in differ-ent handicraft techniques based on the Gung Ho cooperative principles of “working hard, working together, cooperating in solidarity, becoming well-off together”. It has helped organise one coopera-tive after the other, allowing many trainees to give full play to their talents, raise their income, and en-joy the situation in which “each person is a master, each one is a boss”. ◊

Wu Cuiyu and her Sisters’ Cooperatives

By Gung Ho - ICCIC

Wu Cuiyu

A hand that lifts India's downtrodden women Excerpts from an article by Somini Sengupta, published on 6 March 2009 in the International Herald Tribune

Ahmedabad, India. Thirty-five years ago in this once-thriving tex-tile town, Ela Bhatt fought for higher wages for women who ferried bolts of cloth on their heads. Then, she created India's first

women's bank.

Since then, her Self-Employed Women's Association, or Sewa, has offered retirement accounts and health insurance to women who never had a safety net, lent working capital to entrepreneurs to open beauty salons in the slums, helped artisans sell their handiwork to

new urban department stores, and trained its members to become gasoline station attendants - an audacious job for women on the bot-tom of the social ladder.

Small, soft-spoken and usually dressed in a grandmotherly hand-

spun cotton sari, Bhatt, 76, is a Gandhian pragmatist for the new India.

She is a critic of some aspects of India's embrace of market reforms. But she wants to see the poorest of Indian workers get a stake in the

country's swelling and swiftly globalizing economy. Ela Bhatt


She has built a formidable empire of women-run coopera-

tives - 100, at last count - some providing child care for

working mothers, others selling sesame seeds to Indian

food processing firms, and they are all modeled on the Gan-

dhian ideal of self-sufficiency, while also advancing mod-

ern ambitions.

(…) Tinsmiths or pickle-makers, embroiderers or vendors of

onions, Sewa's members are mostly employed in the infor-

mal sector. They get no regular paychecks, sick leave or

holidays. (…) Without Sewa, they would be hard-pressed to

have health benefits or access to credit.

With 500,000 members in the western state of Gujarat

alone, the Sewa empire also includes two profit-making

firms that stitch and embroider women's clothing sold by an

upscale department store chain. More than 100,000 women

are enrolled in its health and life insurance plans. Its bank

has 350,000 depositors and a very high repayment rate - as

much as 97 percent. Loans range from around $100 to

$1,100, with a steep interest rate of 15 percent. "We don't

have a liquidity problem," its manager, Jayshree Vyas, pointed out merrily. "Women save."

On a recent morning, Behrampura buzzed with work and hustle. Men dissembled old television sets and

filled new sofas. A woman pushed a hand cart loaded with used

suitcases. Another herded a half-dozen donkeys piled with con-

struction debris.

(…) Bhatt's Gandhian approach is evident in the way she lives.

Her two-bedroom bungalow is small and spare. The one bit of

whimsy is a white swing that hangs from the ceiling in the center

of the living room. She uses her bed as a desk chair. Her grand-

son has painted a child's pastoral mural on the bedroom wall.

She is known for having no indulgences.

"Above all, you should emphasize her simplicity," said Anil

Gupta, a professor at the In-

dian Institute of Management

here who has followed Sewa's

work for over a decade, some-

times critically. "In her per-

sonal life, there is not the

slightest tinge of hypocrisy."

(…) Not long ago, Bhatt asked Sewa members what freedom meant to them. Some said it was the ability to

step out of the house. Others said it was having a door to the bathroom. Some said it meant having their

own money, a cellphone or "fresh clothes everyday." Then she told of her favorite. Freedom, one woman

said, was "looking a policeman in the eye." ◊

Source: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/07/world/asia/07bhatt.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=SEWA&st=cse

If you have any questions, suggestions or criticisms about “Work Together”,

please write to us at [email protected]


“Freedom, one

woman said, was

"looking a policeman

in the eye”

work together issue 1 - may 2009

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