Mireia Gil

Cooperative: Azimut360
City: Barcelona
Country: Spain
Sector: Renewable energy
Founded: 2009

In a period of crisis, the fact that we are all responsible allows us to avoid conflicting interests and help the cooperative to survive facing financial problems

Before launching the cooperative with my 2 colleagues, I was working in an enterprise which was also installing photovoltaic systems. The company was small and consequently, the working environment was friendly and I had good contacts with my colleagues.

I took part in the creation of the cooperative. I was involved from the start in the decision process at every level and I am still. As a member of a cooperative, the main challenge is to find an efficient way of functioning and also an equal one. I feel more involved in my work now, especially because I take part in the selection of projects and partners and I have a say in the working methodology etc. Moreover, I also have to determine the strategies to make work more efficient and to find solutions to make working conditions more pleasant for everyone.

In this time of crisis, people do not have money and the creation of an enterprise under the worker cooperative business model can be very interesting because as a cooperative, we have the know-how and the capacity to offer people..

I think that in a cooperative, the involvement is much stronger because those who work are also the owners of the company; in a period of crisis, the fact that we are all responsible allows us to avoid conflicting interests and help the cooperative to survive facing financial problems.

For the moment, there are only 3 of us working in the cooperative and it has been a year since we started work together. This first year has been quite tough and we worked a lot but I think we found the way to organise ourselves and a working rhythm which will allow us to become stable during the next year and maybe to grow as well. I think that my job is safe and it will especially depend on our capacity to do a good job.

www.azimut360.coop

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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.