Antonio Sánchez Dovado

Cooperative: Ecotono
City: Sevilla
Country: Spain
Sector: Environmental education
Founded:

Cooperatives are competitive and I must say that worker cooperatives are just as competitive as other forms of enterprises. They could be even more competitive if more structures dedicated to sales and management were created.

My professional experiences before participating in the cooperative project were varied. Indeed, the socio-environment education sector is not very stable. The contracts I had in the past were limited in time and low paid. The working environment was good as well as the relationships with other workers even if contacts with the managing team were distant.

The reason why we decided to create a cooperative was the working precariousness in the sector. Then we met the right people for the entrepreneurial project and we could implement a trial period of company activities within an association. During the creation process, we benefitted from advice from the “Estrategias” business school.

The main challenges of being a cooperative member are:
- The employment stability
- The increase in the number and of the size of the projects
- Learning about the management of enterprises in the social economy
- Self-management

Cooperatives are competitive and I must say that worker cooperatives are just as competitive as other forms of enterprises. They could be even more competitive if more structures dedicated to sales and management were created. Launching such a structure is difficult because workers in cooperatives look after management and production then do not really have time for the rest. It would be necessary for them to have a person who would look after the creation and the implementation of a better structure.

Worker cooperatives can clearly be an alternative to the employment crisis. Most of the cooperatives use their profits to create new jobs. Nevertheless, I see my employment stability as uncertain as we depend on administrations and private enterprises and the economic activity in Spain has generally slowed down.

http://www.ecotonored.es

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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.