The myth of Mondragon: Cooperatives, politics, and working class life in a Basque town.
Item
-
Title
-
The myth of Mondragon: Cooperatives, politics, and working class life in a Basque town.
-
Identifier
-
AAI9405537
-
identifier
-
9405537
-
Creator
-
Kasmir, Sharryn M.
-
Contributor
-
Adviser: Jane Schneider
-
Date
-
1993
-
Language
-
English
-
Publisher
-
City University of New York.
-
Subject
-
Anthropology, Cultural | Sociology, Industrial and Labor Relations
-
Abstract
-
The Mondragon cooperatives in the Basque region of Spain are internationally renowned as a leading alternative model to traditional industrial organization. Since the onset of the world-wide economic crisis, the cooperative system has attracted considerable attention from scholars, business consultants, and activists who are interested in reorganizing the work place. Unfortunately, the vast scholarly and popular literature on the cooperatives incorrectly portrays them as apolitical and non-ideological institutions. In this dissertation, it is argued that this packaging of the cooperatives as apolitical businesses is part of a new industrial ideology that promotes cooperative and participatory labor-management relations in order to discredit labor unions and working class organization--this is the "myth" of Mondragon.;An ethnographic account of the town of Mondragon, focussing on political history (particularly the evolution of the armed organization ETA and the radical Basque nationalist movement) and on working class social life, shows that the cooperatives represent a project undertaken by traditional Basque nationalists to create a stable working class and to foster middle class values in an "unruly" proletarian town. The cooperatives have divided the local working class between cooperateurs and those who work in regular firms, and cooperateurs have become isolated from the labor movement. Furthermore, data from participant observation, interviews, and surveys shows that the cooperatives do not provide better working conditions than do local privately-owned firms. For this reason, the non-unionized cooperatives are now facing unionization.;As working people throughout the world find their work places and political environments reshaped by new strategies and ideologies of cooperation, they face the kinds of social, cultural and political developments that occurred in Mondragon. Since the Mondragon cooperatives are used as a model for industrial transformation, the impact of the cooperatives on the local working class and the recent move towards unionization provide a case study of the way in which working classes elsewhere will be impacted by labor-management cooperation and worker participation schemes.
-
Type
-
dissertation
-
Source
-
PQT Legacy CUNY.xlsx
-
degree
-
Ph.D.
