Mondragon Cooperatives

From the Basque region of Spain comes a flourishing new business model that emphasizes cooperation as a key to innovation.

{mp3remote}http://media.krcb.org/audio/nbr/11-19-08.mp3{/mp3remote}

Georgia Kelly(left) is the founder of the Sonoma-based Praxis Peace Institute. The Praxis website has details about the seminar they hosted at Mondragon in September, as well as a schedule of upcoming events, including their annual lunch, Dec. 6 with featured guests Swami Beyondanada and actress/activist Mimi Kennedy.

Cooperative governance also leads to unorthodox responses to typical business problems. In the audio clip below, Kelly describes how the leadership and workforce at one of the Mondragon companies dealt with a unanticipated slowdown.

{mp3remote}http://media.krcb.org/audio/nbr/problem.mp3{/mp3remote}

The workforce at the Mondragon Cooperative's technology center.