Linea Quattro: When the workers make the company

In just nine months of activity the cooperative, which now has a workforce of 37, has achieved a turnover of approximately € 3.7 million.

The workers are the heart and soul of all enterprises. They drive production and provide the capacities and skills and, as such, represent a source of wealth to be safeguarded. The growth experienced by Linea Quattro may be attributed, in great part, to this wealth, as well as to the work that it has carried out over the course of the last 25 years in order to affirm, particularly abroad, Italian creativity and innovative design in the modern modular kitchen sector. Indeed, everything went extremely well up until 2008 when, at the height of its activities and with a turnover of 10 million Euro, the company, which comes from the Marche region, found itself faced with major difficulties: an unexpected decline in demand, the rigidity of the cost structure, the lack of income-based cash flow. All of these elements prevented the company from meeting its obligations regarding the debts it had built over the years in order to finance its investments during its growth years.

In March 2009, 31 workers from the company, the majority of whom were technicians and sales people, decided to create a cooperative and to take over a part of the company. They believed the feasibility plan to be realistic and they believed in the product. They felt that the know-how built up over the course of the years continues to constitute a competitive advantage to be exploited on the market and also that it represents the basis for a development strategy. CFI, an Italian organisation investing in cooperatives also believed in the project and, together with other intuitional partners, decided to finance the cooperative, which set itself the target of reaching a turnover figure of 7 million Euro in 2012, to increase the number of worker-members and to buy the property and machinery so as to increase their assets. In just 9 months of activity, the company, which now employs 37 workers, has achieved a turnover of 3.7 million Euro, which is in line with the budget and has also recovered its share of the market, particularly at the international level. In doing so it has benefitted from a flexible and significantly reduced cost structure.

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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.