About CECOP CICOPA-Europe

CECOP – CICOPA Europe is the European confederation of cooperatives and other employee-owned enterprises that are active in industry, services and crafts, most of them being worker and social cooperatives. It affiliates 25 national federations in 16 EU countries, which in turn affiliate approximately 50,000 enterprises which employ 1.4 million workers and generate an aggregate turnover of around €50 billion. CECOP also affiliates 4 development organisations promoting those enterprises.

Most of the enterprises of the CECOP network are SMEs, while some are large enterprises. We also find several strong horizontal cooperative groups: in Italy, we can mention CCC-ACAM in the construction sector, CNS in the service sector, and CGM among social cooperatives; another example is the well-known Mondragon group in the Basque country (intersectoral but mainly made up of industrial cooperatives), the 7th Spanish entrepreneurial group employing over 100 000 workers.

Most of these enterprises are worker cooperatives and are characterised by the fact that the majority of their staff are members-owners. Around 9,000 of them (employing 270,000 workers) are specialised in the provision of social services or in the reintegration, through work, of disadvantaged and marginalised workers (disabled, long-term unemployed, ex-prisoners, addicts etc), and are generally called social cooperatives. A further 1,000 are second degree cooperatives for small enterprises (truck drivers, taxi drivers, mechanics, masons, etc), and are often called artisans’ cooperatives. Finally, over 6000 are employee-owned enterprises that are not registered as cooperatives, but are very similar to cooperatives by the fact that, in those enterprises as well, worker-members jointly own and democratically control their enterprises.

http://www.cecop.coop

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CECOP / CICOPA Europe
An initiative of the European Confederation of Workers’ Cooperatives,
Social Cooperatives and Social and Participative Enterprises
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What is a cooperative

Cooperatives a sustainable employment solution!

A cooperative is an autonomous association of persons united voluntarily to meet their common economic, social, and cultural needs and aspirations through a jointly-owned and democratically-controlled enterprise.

Enterprises represented by CECOP are enterprises in which workers unite to satisfy their needs in terms of creation of sustainable jobs. They can be industrial enterprises or services rooted in the territories and having a long-term strategy. They are a genuine solution for sustainable jobs in Europe: they are broken down into workers’ cooperatives, social cooperatives and other types of enterprises owned by their workers.

Workers’ cooperatives: Workers’ cooperatives are enterprises subject to the same restrictions of competition, management and profitability as other companies. Their originality lies in the fact that their workers hold the majority of the shares, at least 51%. In doing so, the workers decide jointly on the major guidelines of their enterprises and appoint their leaders (managers, boards of directors, etc.). They also decide on how to share the profit with a twofold aim: to give the preference to the workers of the enterprises, in the form of refunds based on the work done and to consolidate the enterprises with a view to handing it over onto the future generations, i.e. creating reserves to reinforce the equity and ensuring thereby the sustainability of their enterprises. In all cooperatives, the internal democratic control is based on the principle of “one man, one vote” whatever the capital share held by the respective workers. Finally, the cooperative spirit promotes its employees information and training, a prerequisite to develop the autonomy, the motivation and responsibility, accountability required in an economic world which has become insecure. (Source: www.scop.coop)

Social cooperatives: Social cooperatives are specialised in the provision of social services or reintegration of disadvantaged and marginalised workers (disabled, long-term unemployed, former detainees, addicts, etc.). A large number of such cooperatives have been set up in Italy but also in other EU countries. Most of them are owned by their workers while offering the possibility or providing for the obligation (according to the national laws) to involve other types of members (users, voluntary workers, etc.).

Other types of enterprises owned by their workers: There are other types of enterprises owned by their workers such as for example the “Sociedades Laborales” in Spain which are real driving forces of economic and social activities which have contributed to lower the unemployment level and to revamp a sustained growth in Spain.