Home

  Gregory Patmore, Emeritus Professor of Business and Labour History, University of Sydney. Worker cooperatives may sound like something out of the 19th century, but they still exist in the age of global capitalism. In Spain, for instance, the Mondragon Corporation is a huge worker-run cooperative based around 95 collectives – the largest cooperative in the world. Worker cooperatives produce products or services. But they are run very differently. Workers can become members of the cooperative they work for by buying a share of the business. This gives them a vote in how the business is run and a share of net income, after costs have come out. Co-ops do not have external shareholders – the profits stay with workers. Rather than bosses deciding and workers carrying out the tasks, worker cooperatives are based on democratic principles. Big decisions are discussed and then voted on, and each member gets one vote. They offer a direct way for workers to control their production and shape the economy. In Australia, these models peaked in the 1980s. Most are gone, though a few older cooperatives are still running, such as Tasmanian recycling cooperative Resource Work Collective, founded in 1993. In recent years, there’s been renewed interest in the model. The Earthworker cooperative network focused on Victoria’s Latrobe Valley. The goal: find new types of employment and products in a coal area undergoing transition. Coal plants in the Latrobe Valley provided jobs for generations of workers. Their closure poses real challenges. Pictured: worker hardhats left on the fence at Hazelwood Power Station after it closed in 2017. Dorothy Chiron/Shutterstock How well does the model work? Mondragon is the most well-known example. Founded in 1956 in the Basque region of northern Spain, Mondragon grew and became self-sustaining. It has developed supporting institutions such as research and development companies and even a university. It also established a credit […]