Friday, May 25, 2007
MCC recently released their financial figures for last year. As a group they had more then €13.19 Billion Euros in sales( $18 Billion) and 677€ million ($911 million) in profit. Approximately half of those sales were from the industrial group, where international sales grew by 24%. In all MCC increased it sprofits by 24% since last year. Clearly, MCC as a whole is in a period of spectacular growth, thanks to the international expansion of the industrial group and the continued growth of the financial and distribution groups. Click here to read more: MCC 2006.
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6 comments:
Hi Dan:
(Sorry for not checking this site earlier.)
Nearly a $billion in profits, that's impressive. As I recall MCC is committed or required to distributing 10% of their provides ($91 million) for social and community work. So that raises several questions, which I hope you can answer or direct me to the answers.
1. Am I right about the 10%?
2. Do "workers" have any role in deciding how the $ is distributed?
3. Who is the $ distributed to?
4. Is any of this money used to promote worker/producer coops either in Spain or elsewhere?
Bill,
That is correct! According to Spanish law, cooperatives are charged significantly less taxes then normal business, they have to direct 10% of their profits to educational cause. Like most decisions taken in the coops, the workers have a role in determining where this money goes in that generally the Governing Council decides where the money is allocated and the Governing council is ellected by the workers. I don't believe it is a decision that most general assemblies vote on. I believe most cooperative choose to give the money for educational porposes directly to MCC educational fund, which funds the University and other technical and secondary and primamry schools. Plus there is a generally a discretionary amount that might be used for other purposes.
Finally, MCC has a solidarity NGO called Mundukide (http://www.mundukide.org/) that works in developing countries on very low tech development projects. The money for this organization comes from funds or can come dirctly from cooperatives if solicited. Also, part of MCC educational fund goes to support Otalora, which is th center for Cooperative Dissemination, which basically is in charge of introducing visitors to MCC.
I was turned onto Mondragon by David Schwieckarts Against Capitalism. Now I am readin Making Mondragon. I was troubled by what I saw on wikipedia, it states that coops have left the bank due to the growing pay gap btwn managers and workers. I was wondering if the situation is still the same.
Zapatista,
I checked out the Wikipedia entry on MCC. There is a short reference to how "In recent years, some co-operatives have withdrawn from MCC to try and reinstate a more personal management of each company by its workers". I am not sure what this could be referring to. In recent years this has not been a significant issue that I am aware of. Probably what it is referring to is the ULMA group which did leave MCC at some point in the 90's (I don't recall when) because they were not in agreement with the creation of MCC. They have since returned to the group. I guess that is the problem with Wikipedia, it is not always entirely reliable. There was a case earlier this year of a cooperative voting to sell itself to a Capitalist company from Sweden, Altom. However, that is an usually case. The company, Ecotecnia is from Catalunya and only became part of MCC in 1999. In fact its designation as a cooperative is probably a technicality. Only somewhere around 10 or 15% of their workers were coop members. I think the decision to let them join MCC in the first place was more one of convenience and business. They could offer capital to Ecotecnia and in exchange have a Coop from outside the Basque Region join and one that was in a cutting edge sectors, which most of the coops are not and it eventually undertook a joint venture with Fagor. But I think their relative indifference at Ecotecnia about being a coop lead MCC to not make a fuss about them selling themselves. Otherwise, not sure what that could be referring too. I think, particularly when MCC was formed there was a fear that it would be a top down corporate structure that forced a particular management style on coops or particular policies. That has not been the case. MCC does not have the power to force companies to much of anything. In general MCC can encourage or discourage behavior, but in the case of the most progressive and participatory coops, they were not pressured to change their behavior, perhaps they don't feel adequately supported but there are plenty of advantages to being in the group that make it very attractive. Making Mondragon is a good book but I would recommend reading something a little more recent. It is now 16 or 17 years old and things have really changed. There are a lot of resources posted here you might want to check out. If you have trouble finding them let me know and I can send you a copy.
I would love to have those resources. Ive been trying to find more up to date material on Mondragon but can not seem to find anything. I really appreciate the blogs you have posted. I have only just begun reading them. I was wondering what the Mondrogan University's policy is towards foreign students.
Hi All,
My name is Asier and I've just found out about this interesting blog. It's great, thanks.
I'm from Onati myself but have lived in London for few years. Now trying to go back home and I've just received a call regarding an interview with Ampo. So thanks for you previous post, Dan.
Zapatista,
I happen to be the nephew of Jesus Larranaga (one of the founders of ULGOR) and I have one of his books, "Interioridades de un utopia", in my parents place in Onati, which I can lend it to you if you want. You can also find more info here:
http://www.mcc.es/ing/informacion/publicaciones.html
Also, one of my cousin made a thesis on this subject, the MCC experience, and I can get you in touch with him, if you want.
Regarding M.U., if you tell me what info you need, I'll try to get it for you as well.
See you soon
Asier
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