Last night was the first day of the Town Festival for Oñati. It is a pretty wild affair and goes on until Monday, but then Tuesday everything is closed so people can recover from five days of partying. I am not sure what it celebrates, I will have to ask somebody that. But it is quite a big deal, it really seemed like every citizen was out there. In some ways it was reminiscent of a four of July Parade in the US, but late at night with a lot more drinking and mixing of age groups. People come from other towns, everyone goes out to the plaza, to the bars and carouse and socialize in the street. The few pictures I have are from when a rock band that sings in Basque and Spanish are playing and the "tamborada" which is basically a parade that starts at 11pm.

The unique part is the way people are dressed up, one part of the procession is chefs (presumably a nod to the famous culinary traditions of Basques), while another part is made of people dressed as blacksmiths, (which is because of the long tradition of metal forging, and mining etc in the area) others in traditional Basque peasant clothes. For a small town this is quit a party, all of the bars are packed with people, young and old until at least 4:30 (which is when I went home). People seemed to be pretty voracious drinkers, too (I couldn’t keep up). It was really a lively scene on the street, roving packs of young people go from bar to bar to bar, I think I was 7 or 8 myself. Everywhere was full of people and lots of kid playing and dancing in the plaza to the band (especially early). Will have some more posts for the next few nights.

Mondragón/Arrasate and Eroski Coop
Today I went to the birthplace and headquarters of the MCC, Mondragón, or Arrasate as it is known in Basque. Mondragon is a bustling town of at least 30,000. But just like Oñati it is a town that appears much bigger because it is squeezed in a valley (also, there is a huge imposing rocky mountain just outside of town). Consequently, there are a lot of tall buildings narrow streets and a lot of hustle and bustle people in the street in the middle of the day. The middle of town is a picturesque medieval town square. In the main square of Mondragon, on a balcony of the city hall building there was a banner hanging that said a Basque independence slogan and "Zero Pobrezia" or Zero Poverty in Basque. Mondragon, itself is not a poor place. There was a lot of construction, and brand new, fancy apartment buildings and stores. This is clearly a place that is dong well. Nevertheless, the two slogans are about independence and eradicating poverty. That says a lot about the way things are run in Mondragon.
Unfortunately, I didn't spend too much time there or even see any of the industrial coops. I actually went there to go to Eroski, which is Spain's 2nd largest retailer and the largest company in MCC. It is a worker and consumer coop and has about 30,000 workers, only about 12,000 of whom are worker-owners. The chain consists largely of supermarkets, but is increasingly using the Hiper-mercado format which is like the Wal-Mart Super Center. An all-in-one store that has a full service supermarket, clothes, house wares, electronics, a restaurant, cellphone dealer, travel agent, realtor and more stuff, I forget. Affordable stuff, not fancy. Although you have never seen a seafood section like this in a supermarket in the US. All kinds of crazy seafood, eels, unidentifiable stuff. Should have taken a picture.
The predominance of non-owner workers (more than 60%) is due to an aggressive and rapid expansion on the part of Eroski to preempt the competition (large retailers like Carrefour from France) and prevent the possibility of companies like Wal-Mart from coming into the country. The strategy is to go head-to-head with these companies and then go about incorporating the workers into an ownership structure. As for my experience at Eroski it was pretty cool. The bus dropped me off downtown and the Hiper-mercado is located on the edge of town so after a 20 minute walk through a light-industrial zone along the river. As you can see from the picture, there are a lot construction cranes. Lots of nice apartments. The store is huge, super clean, super orderly and the workers really nice. It was very much like being in a store in the US, except forthe fish.
As for my experience at Eroski it was pretty cool. The bus dropped me off downtown and the Hiper-mercado is located on the edge of town so after a 20 minute walk through a light-industrial zone along the river. As you can see from the picture, there are a lot construction cranes. Lots of nice apartments. The store is huge, super clean, super orderly and the workers really nice. It was very much like being in a store in the US, except for the fish.
They have also recently announced that all of the brands they sell under the Eroski name will be ranked environmentally. That is, organic products, recycled paper etc. will be labeled and have priority positions on shelves.
I hope to go back to Mondragon soon and give you an update.

If you are wondering where Oñati is, here are a couple of maps of the area:
Oñati

This is about five minutes from my dorm and just across the river from the center of Oñati. I believe it is an old monastery.

Mondragon Resources:
I want to recommend some resources for those who are interested in learning more about MCC.
Despite its size, complexity and importance as a development model, in the US in particular, very few people are aware of MCC. However, there are a few good books out that give a great overview. In addition if you write me I can get you some of MCC's materials right from the source in English.
Here is the list:

We Build the Road as We Travel: Mondragon A Cooperative Social System
Roy Morrison 1997

Making Mondragon: The Growth and Dynamics of the Worker Cooperative Complex
William Foote Whyte and Kathleen King Whyte 1991

Values at Work Employee Participation Meets Market Pressure at Mondragon George
Cheney 2002

From Mondragon to America: Experiments in Community Development
Greg MacLeod 1998

Finally, I give a less than whole-hearted recommendation to read:
The Myth of Mondragon: Cooperative, Politics, and Working-Class Life in a Basque Town
Sharryn Kasmir 1996
I say that not only because it is critical of the cooperatives, but because it clearly written by someone who makes her conclusions first then goes about trying to find the evidence. From a methodological standpoint this book is garbage. Ultimately, her attack on the coops is not based on very much or very solid evidence and is mostly the view of a naïve, utopian mind set. Kasmir was, it seems, disappointed to find out that Mondragon was not paradise, her conclusion then was that it must be really bad for workers, even worse then regular capitalist companies. The leap is rather self-righteous. However, it does include more about life beyond the coops than the other books and raises important issues about democracy in the coops.

Finally a note about this list, some of these books are dated, but are still very much worth reading to learn the history and structure of the Mondragon Coops. At lot is still relevant today.

I will try to post some stuff soon that gives a more up to date view of MCC.

One quick note about an earlier post. MH had asked about cooperative buying other companies. I stated that that does not happen, but I was wrong. Not only to coops often own no cooperative subsidiaries in other countries they also do so within Spain. Additionally, the cooperative law has even been modified to allow other coops to act as shareholders in other coops.

I have finally arrived in Basque country. Well, actually I got here on Saturday after a long trip and my bags have yet to arrive, but I made it safe and sound. After a day and a half spent in Guernica at the house of Universitatea Mondargon Professor Fred Freundlich (who has been nice enough to show me around and take me under his wing here) I am now in Oñati. Oñati (or Oñate in spanish) is a small town of less than 10,000 residents near the town of Mondragon (about 7 miles away). It is located in the Alto Deba region of Guipuzcoa, which has traditionally been the heart of the Mondragon Coops. There are number of coops here including the ULMA group. The Business Department of the Universitatea Mondragon is located here, it is known as ETEO. The area is lush, the town tightly packed with apartment buildings that give it an urban-ness that a town of a similar size in the US would lack. Basque is widely spoken and most things in the street are written in Basque. I am still jetlagged and getting my bearings. My bags haven’t arrived and this is my fourth day wearing the same pants. Classes start in two weeks. More soon. DB

While I will be in Spain for the next year or so, I am actually currently employed at the The Center for Labor and Community Research(CLCR) in Chicago, USA. CLCR is a consulting and research organization that specializes in new approaches to community development, having a particular expertise in manufacturing and creating effective partnerships between labor, community, and business. We currently are involved in serveral initiatives that are advancing High Road manufacturing and development in the US. These are based on joint partnerships among top business, labor, governmental, and educational leaders with the goal of launching a long-term initiative for making Chicago and State of Illinois world leaders in modern manufacturing.
We are at the center of numerous projects that have the goal of promoting the "High Road", which seeks to have a long term vision of development, enhance worker’s skills, while making a commitment to innovation, such as developing new niches and markets, adding value to existing products, investing in research and development, expanding market share, and improving the efficiency of the productive process and the productivity of employees.
The influence of the Mondragon Cooperative Corporation on CLCR's vision for developing our City, State and Nation’s economy is critical. Along with the Italian experience in Emilia-Romagna, MCC is one of the most significant examples of a sophisticated, industrial and competitive cooperatives actively participating and competing in the economy. MCC represents a competent and advanced alternative that is not relegated to marginal industries or confined to small scale firms. The structural elements of the MCC, the Caja Laboal, the dedication to reinvesting income, to Research and Development, to providing aid to ailing firms, scientific innovation and an emphasis on worker training are all exceedingly important elements of the Mondragon model that have influenced our vision for development.
Despite the fact that our vision for development is highly influnced by MCC, it is not exclusively focused on developing cooperatives as the only means of transforming and democractizing the workplace and society, instead MMC's model represents one significant trend and an important model for development. However, to truely be transformative cooperatives and the kinds of structures pioneered by the MCC must be part of a larger movement that takes into account the political sphere, as well as organized labor, elements of the business community and the community.