0:05

About six months into the pandemic,

0:07

an Ohio based cooperative network

0:09

received an influx of requests from small

0:12

businesses that wanted to turn themselves

0:14

into worker owned co ops.

0:17

For a lot of folks, they have been unhappy

0:19

with how their current jobs, the current economy

0:21

has been working for them, and the idea

0:24

of being part of something truly holding workers

0:26

as a most important piece is

0:28

really really attractive. That's Ellen

0:31

Vira. She's the director of coop

0:33

Organizing at co op Sincy, a

0:35

network of around dozen cooperative businesses

0:38

in Cincinnati, Ohio, where workers

0:40

manage, own, and ultimately

0:42

share in the profits of their labor co

0:45

ops. Since has been around for about a

0:47

decade, but in that fall of alone

0:50

it got applications to help another dozen

0:52

businesses go coop. One

0:55

of the businesses that reached out was the Shine

0:57

Nurture Center, a Monostori style

0:59

day air next to the lush mount Airy

1:01

Forest in Cincinnati. As the

1:03

pandemic dragged on, its founder and owner

1:06

wanted to move on. Like many people,

1:08

she was reevaluating her life and

1:11

decided to go back to school, but

1:13

she didn't want to shut down the center she'd built

1:15

and run for the last six years, so

1:18

she decided to sell it to the

1:20

teachers who worked there. My

1:22

name is Beth Heya. I work here at Shin Nurture

1:25

Center Cooperative and I'm currently the office

1:27

manager and we are a nature based center,

1:29

so we're mostly outside in Mount Airy.

1:32

We're very lucky we have a path

1:34

right out of our parking lots and we get to go back

1:36

there a lot with the kiddos. Beth is one

1:38

of four teachers who went from working in the

1:40

center to owning it. Before,

1:43

she says she was at the whims of administrators

1:45

and parents and at times found herself

1:48

in less than ideal working conditions. Now

1:50

she's a business owner. She and

1:53

the other teacher owners have a say in how

1:55

things get run. That includes increasing

1:57

pay and benefits and making sure

1:59

class rooms aren't understaffed, and

2:02

at the end of the year, she and the other owners

2:04

will share in its profits too. There's

2:06

not a lot of like groping about, like why

2:09

we're doing something, because we all understand

2:11

why we got to those steps. You

2:13

can see why co ops would be attractive

2:16

during a pandemic that created enormous

2:18

economic uncertainty. It

2:20

gives people some power over their work lives,

2:23

if they can work from home or take sick days,

2:25

or when they clock in, and what they get paid.

2:28

Looking at the childcare crisis, being

2:30

an educator, there's just a

2:32

lot of pressure put on childcare

2:35

and there's not a lot of voice

2:37

given to the folks who are in charge of it. So

2:41

I think for post pandemic

2:43

I think this might be a really

2:46

good solution for teachers

2:48

at centers who feel like they want to have a voice.

2:50

Yet, cops are still relatively rare

2:52

in the US. Just around a hundred

2:54

people work at the companies and coops and see

2:57

for example. But there

2:59

is somewhere worker co ops abound

3:02

and it's a place of notable equality. Mandragone

3:05

is a group of around a hundred cooperatives

3:07

in the Basque region of Spain that's

3:09

been around for half a century. It

3:12

covers nearly eighty thousand workers

3:14

across all sorts of industries. Nobody

3:18

there is wildly rich, but there

3:20

isn't much poverty either. It's

3:23

the kind of place that often gets dismissed

3:25

as a special place doing a special

3:28

thing that can't be replicated

3:30

elsewhere. But now more

3:32

and more people are thinking maybe

3:35

they can be the next mandragone

3:40

jobless claims coming in, I mean really jumping

3:42

from the week before, pretty

3:44

brutal, three point to a million

3:47

record six point six million Americans filed

3:49

for unemployment last week and then

3:51

working for the worst infected

3:54

by the pandemic. Prices of public

3:56

housing resail flats have hit an old time

3:59

high in the first well.

4:01

Now to the billionaire boom. According

4:03

to Bloomberg, super riocht charters

4:05

are up over three

4:08

and a billionaire was created every

4:10

twenty six I was during this pandemic.

4:13

Is time for a wealth tax

4:15

in America?

4:23

Welcome back to the paycheck. I'm

4:25

Rebecca Greenfield. For

4:27

the last seven weeks, we've gone around

4:29

the world to see how the pandemic made

4:31

things more or less equal.

4:34

The answer depended on all sorts

4:36

of variables, a country's pre

4:39

existing economic conditions, how

4:41

it managed the virus itself, and

4:44

what financial decisions were made facing

4:46

a global economic crisis. In

4:49

some places, there were some pleasant surprises,

4:53

like in the US, where the poorest

4:55

got some stability and economic security

4:58

for the first time in decades. In

5:00

others, like India, economic desperation

5:03

lad people to make life altering choices

5:06

that derailed their futures. The

5:08

question as we head into the next phase

5:10

of the pandemic is how lasting

5:13

will any of these trends be. That's

5:15

what led us to work our own co ops. Interest

5:19

in worker own co ops tends to spike

5:21

during times of crisis. At a

5:23

very basic level, worker co ops

5:25

they tend to emerge where there's a market failure.

5:28

That's Mike Paul Mary, an associate

5:30

researcher at the Ohio Employee Ownership

5:33

Center at Kent State University.

5:35

He says that people who feel left out of

5:37

the economy seek out alternatives

5:40

to traditional business models. After

5:42

the two thousand eight recession, for example, he

5:45

says, the number of co ops in the US has more

5:47

than doubled. To him, they

5:49

are key to closing wealth gaps. A

5:51

lot of our beIN a quality today is driven

5:53

by inequality and wealth and assets.

5:56

What employee ownership allows you to do and

5:58

not just provide a higher wage via

6:00

income, but it gives individuals

6:03

who otherwise wouldn't have wealth and assets

6:06

wealth and assets, providing them that

6:08

cushion and closing that gap as well.

6:10

And some employe ownership kind of attacks I would

6:13

say economic inequality at its fruit.

6:15

While the pandemic isn't over yet. Mike

6:18

says there's been a notable uptick and interest

6:20

in the co op model. People see

6:22

it as a gateway to greater equality

6:24

and security when the next pandemic

6:27

or whatever crisis comes around.

6:30

But how realistic is that and

6:33

how did it work? My colleague

6:35

Jeanette Newman went to the Basque region in Spain

6:37

to visit them Undergone co ops, the

6:40

mecca of worker cooperatives, to

6:42

see how they fared during the pandemic

6:44

and what lessons can be learned

6:46

about creating a more equal world.

6:49

Here she is with the story.

7:04

I'm standing on an assembly line watching

7:06

some workers build washing machines. The

7:08

company is called fog Or Industrial. It's

7:11

one of the hundred or so cooperatives that are

7:13

part of the Moundergo network. One

7:15

of the workers on the assembly line is Baltasar

7:17

Garcia Leone. Balta, as

7:19

he's called, is fifty nine years old.

7:22

He has a clean shaven head and an athletic

7:24

build thanks to frequent outings with his cycling

7:26

buddies. He's been building washing

7:28

machines at Mundergone cooperatives for

7:30

more than three decades.

7:38

He's telling me how the assembly line works. Balt

7:40

and his colleagues on the line build twenty two washing

7:43

machines every day. They're sold

7:45

to hotels and restaurants. When

7:47

the pandemic hit, Balta's assembly line,

7:49

like many around the world, down shifted.

7:54

Every Friday, they sent us home, so we

7:56

missed out on a lot of ours. Bolt

7:58

and his colleagues also worked fewer hours

8:00

on the days they went into the factory. Those

8:03

were scary, uncertain times. Balta

8:06

was worried about the virus like everyone else,

8:08

but he was less worried than many people about

8:11

his paycheck and his savings. Thousands

8:13

of workers at Mondragon felt the same

8:16

in those chaotic first months. As COVID nineteen

8:18

up ended everything around the world, Mundergone

8:21

was, by comparison, an oasis

8:23

of calm for workers. The reason

8:25

moundergone has a playbook to protect jobs

8:28

that it's been honing for more than half a century. Mundragon's

8:31

first cooperative was founded in the nineteen fifties

8:34

by a priest and some of his acolytes. Since

8:36

then, crisis after crisis, the

8:39

cooperatives have found a way to keep unemployment

8:41

and inequality in check. The

8:43

pandemic was no exception your

8:45

Bilk. When

8:51

I go to other areas, I noticed much greater

8:53

social differences. Here the

8:56

manager can be my neighbor. Elsewhere,

8:58

I guess they live in gay good communities. Joblessness

9:02

here is much lower than in the rest of Spain, and

9:04

the level of income inequality is on par

9:06

with countries such as Finland and Norway.

9:09

The differences that the Nordic countries have relatively

9:11

high taxes they redistribute

9:13

wealth. In the undergone region,

9:16

taxes are lower than in the Nordics.

9:18

The cooperatives create wealth for a

9:20

lot of people. One way they do that

9:22

is by digging up their annual profits among workers.

9:25

Assembly Line workers like Balta, for example,

9:28

have retirement savings that are in line with top

9:30

managers. The objective

9:32

of the cooperative is not to produce rich

9:35

people, is to produce rich societies.

9:37

At the end of the day, even if you are

9:39

not rich, if you belong to a rich

9:41

society, you will be happy

9:44

that he works at Moundergon

9:46

Assembly. It makes solar panels as

9:48

well as machinery to help firms automate their

9:50

production. Most of the cooperatives

9:52

in the network are industrial. One of them

9:55

is even making rocket parts for Blue Origin.

9:57

That's the aerospace company owned by Jeff Bezos.

10:00

As a rule, managers across the Moundergone

10:02

network can only earn six times more than

10:05

the lowest paid worker. At some places,

10:07

like yours cooperative, the gap is even

10:09

smaller three to onegre

10:12

and many of his colleagues or engineers, they do

10:14

similar work, he says, so they are in similar

10:16

pay or associeties. Here very

10:19

realitarian. We don't have a lot of rich

10:21

people are not very rich. But in

10:23

the other hand, we also don't have poor people.

10:26

The CEO or the engineer

10:28

or the man who makes the photocopies.

10:30

We all belong to the same social

10:33

group. But

10:35

how do those egalitarian ideals hold

10:37

up when times get tough? How

10:39

did the cooperatives and their worker owners

10:42

survive the worst economic crisis in a century?

10:45

I speak to under Chevita. He's an

10:47

executive at headquarters called Moundergone

10:49

Corporation. The corporation overseas

10:52

the one hundred or so cooperatives that form

10:54

part of the Moundergone network. When

10:57

a crisis hits, all the co ops

10:59

rely on a safety managed by headquarters.

11:02

Understays. The goal is to preserve jobs and

11:04

That means the safety net has to be flexible.

11:07

For that we have different mechanisms. If

11:09

there is no work for me in my corporative,

11:11

I have the right to work in another corporative of

11:13

the corporation. If there is no work

11:16

for me in the corporation, I have the right

11:18

to be trained to be more employable.

11:21

And if still there is no work for me the corporation,

11:23

I have the right to get an unemployment benefit

11:26

for maximum two years. This is

11:28

great. That does sound great, and

11:30

under makes it seem so easy,

11:32

But the cooperative model doesn't always work

11:35

perfectly. About a decade ago,

11:37

the co op where Balta was working went bankrupt.

11:40

It was in the aftermath of the global recession.

11:43

That was a wake up call for Balta and many

11:45

others. Failure is possible.

11:48

So even when things appear to be running smoothly

11:50

at Montrigone during the pandemic, in

11:52

the backup workers minds, the threat

11:54

of failure loomed. I

12:07

visit Bolts at his apartment to learn more

12:09

about how he survived that bankruptcy and

12:11

the pandemic. He lives just outside

12:13

the town of Mondragon. The area is

12:16

surrounded by forested mountain tops which

12:18

gave way to pastures and farmland. Further

12:21

down in the narrow mountain valleys sit

12:23

box the industrial warehouses where the

12:25

cooperatives manufacture their products. I

12:28

ring Bolt's doorbell. All right, we

12:35

sit down at his kitchen table. He proudly

12:38

points to a white washing machine from his cooperative

12:40

tucked underneath the countertop. Balta

12:43

joined his first co op in n He

12:46

worked there for more than two decades. In

12:48

two thousand thirteen, it went bankrupt

12:50

after struggling through Spain's double dip recession

12:53

bolting. Around nine workers lost

12:56

their jobs. It was the biggest crisis

12:58

the cooperatives had ever faced. Enjoy

13:03

of course, I was scared. I had done an

13:05

interview or two at that time, But I mean

13:08

I was forty eight years old. I was

13:10

already pretty old. I thought

13:12

it was going to be difficult. But Mondragon

13:15

eventually found new jobs at other cooperatives

13:17

for most of the workers, including Balta.

13:20

He got a position at Fogor Industrial, where

13:22

he is now. Other workers went into early

13:24

retirement. Still, the

13:26

bankruptcy meant that Balta and other members

13:28

lost the money they had been stashing away for years

13:31

in their retirement savings. Accounts. That

13:34

was a lesson for everyone at Mondragone. When

13:36

a crisis hits, workers after react

13:38

quickly to show up the finances of their cooperatives

13:41

and prevent things from getting worse. During

13:44

the pandemic, Bolton his colleagues tried

13:46

to put that lesson into practice. In

13:48

the U S and other countries. Unemployment spiked

13:51

in the early days of the pandemic, Business

13:53

slowed down or came to a halt, and

13:55

executives had to cut costs, so they laid

13:57

off workers. Balton

13:59

other operative members or workers and owners.

14:02

So it wasn't an option for them to fire themselves,

14:05

but they still had to find a way to cut costs, otherwise

14:08

they could end up saving themselves. But tanking

14:10

the cooperative

14:14

seen our interest in every respect that

14:16

the cooperative does well, our

14:18

livelihood depends on so

14:21

making money that has to be the baseline,

14:24

because a company can have a really nice

14:27

financial targets, but if it doesn't earn

14:29

any money in the end, it's gone.

14:31

It would be destroyed. This is where

14:34

Mundergones Crisis playbook kicks in. The

14:36

leadership team, which is made up of assembly

14:39

line workers like Balta and members who have

14:41

more executive experience meant

14:43

to make a plan. First,

14:45

they decided to lay off a few dozen workers

14:47

who aren't members of the cooperative. Only

14:50

around one third of workers at Undergone

14:52

are also members. Some

14:55

people don't qualify. New members have to

14:57

be voted in by existing members. If

15:00

someone as a reputation as being a bit irresponsible

15:03

or isn't considered a team player, they might

15:05

not be accepted. Others don't want to pay the

15:07

roughly sixteen thousand dollars it costs

15:09

to become a member. That's a kind of down

15:11

payment to join the cooperative. It goes

15:13

into a savings fund for the worker. Next.

15:16

Balta's co op trim salaries on days

15:18

they didn't work, which ended up being more than

15:20

anticipated they would get of

15:23

their salaries. We

15:25

missed a lot of ours. We couldn't

15:27

recover a lot of those hours. How

15:29

did the co op afford to pay Balta and his colleagues

15:32

for all those days they didn't work after

15:34

all revenue had fallen. Wondergoing

15:37

Headquarters stepped in and tapped a kind of insurance

15:40

program. It has co ops that were

15:42

doing well, such as those producing medical

15:44

gear and bicycles, transferred funds

15:46

to co ops like Balta's, where workers had missed

15:48

a lot of days under the

15:50

monder going executive we spoke too earlier explains

15:54

that mechanism we are bright for

15:57

nine thousand workers in

15:59

the enemic year and

16:02

it had a cost of thirteen

16:04

point to million euros. So

16:07

when we are talking about solidarity,

16:09

it is also about money.

16:12

Honors comments should dispel any images

16:14

you might have in your mind of the cooperatives

16:17

as a kind of utopian commune in

16:19

the Spanish countryside. On

16:21

another's at mundergo and talk about money

16:23

and profits with the same ease as

16:25

any capitalist. The co ops are

16:27

first and foremost a business. They

16:30

need to be profitable. At a publicly

16:32

traded company, the goal is to return

16:34

profits to shareholders. The

16:36

goal of the cooperatives, by contrast, is to

16:38

be profitable in order to create and maintain

16:41

good jobs. Another big difference

16:43

is how the cooperatives share their profits. Bolton,

16:46

the other worker owners decide that we

16:53

gather at an annual general assembly,

16:56

and that's where a lot of the important issues

16:58

are presented and are voted on by all

17:00

of the members. Ahead of the annual meeting,

17:02

the leadership team comes up with a proposal to

17:05

raise, lower, or maintain salaries.

17:07

They also come up with a plan for profit sharing.

17:10

Then the leadership team briefs workers,

17:13

hashing out any disagreements at meetings and around

17:15

the water cooler. Finally,

17:17

they all vote. Advocates of

17:19

worker cooperatives often emphasize the

17:22

importance of one worker, one vote.

17:24

That means each member's vote has the same weight.

17:27

Balta says the phrase gives people an idealized

17:29

impression of what actually happens at

17:31

the annual meetings.

17:35

It's ultimately the manager who's in charge.

17:38

I mean, it's very nice to say from the outside

17:40

that we are represented. I feel

17:43

qualified to make decisions at my own job,

17:45

but not at the company level. While

17:48

Balta doesn't want to be responsible for setting

17:50

company strategy, he does value

17:52

having a say and how the company has run, and

17:54

if workers aren't happy with the leadership team,

17:57

they can vote them out.

18:00

I am part of that company. I make

18:02

decisions. I vote yes or I vote

18:04

know. The annual meetings aren't

18:06

without conflict. Some tensions

18:09

always emerge when hundreds of people are

18:11

deciding what to pay themselves. As

18:13

people are on under going like to say, this

18:15

is not paradise and we're not angels.

18:18

Last year, Balta and some colleagues voted against

18:20

a proposal to increase executive pay.

18:23

While salary differences in Undergoing are minimal

18:25

by global standards, Balta worries

18:28

the increases are a slippery slope to

18:30

greater inequality. Okay,

18:36

okay, I

18:38

think the differences are getting bigger, and

18:40

that's what bothers me. I understand

18:42

that a qualified person has to be paid,

18:45

but maybe a different system has to be

18:47

found. In the end, the

18:49

salary increase went through. Balta

18:51

is still frustrated about that. But

18:53

that's democracy, he says. Your

18:56

candidate doesn't always win. I

19:09

think for a minute about an average

19:11

US company, Then

19:14

think about a majority of employees at that company

19:16

voting to cut their salaries during a crisis.

19:19

It seems like a long shot, right. Some

19:22

employees would probably say, well, I

19:24

performed well where my division is thriving,

19:26

so why should I take a hit. That's

19:29

different from how workers at Undergone and

19:31

other worker cooperatives think about

19:33

salary cuts. They're also the

19:35

owners, so a salary cut helps

19:37

to ensure the survival of their company.

19:40

It's about shared ownership. Mike

19:42

Paul Mary, the Kent State co op expert

19:45

we spoke too earlier, explains there's

19:47

this democratic component that

19:49

makes worker cooperatives so much different than

19:51

just owning a share in a company.

19:54

Every person gets one vote regardless

19:56

of how long they've been there, so it's detached

19:59

from capital and at the same level,

20:01

the way that the profits are distributed at

20:03

the end of the year are based on hours

20:06

worked, and so it's very equitable.

20:08

It might seem a little surprising, but if

20:10

people have a steak in the business

20:13

doing well, they're going to care more. If

20:15

you work at a company where the company does great

20:17

and it does absolutely nothing for your life,

20:19

who cares? Whereas where you

20:22

have a real steak where you will really benefit,

20:24

people tend to call out sick a lot less that employee

20:27

on companies. People tend to

20:29

have a much different relationship with management

20:31

and employee on companies. They're more likely

20:34

to say something, and they're more likely to look

20:36

at their coworker and say, hey, you're kind of slack

20:38

and you know can let's let's do something

20:41

here. And the

20:44

co ops that are part of the Monergo network are

20:46

just a fraction of the thousands of co ops

20:49

located all across the Basque region. Explain

20:52

worker co ops have flourished in this part of the

20:54

world in part because shared ownership

20:56

is an important part of the culture that's

20:59

different than in the US co ops

21:01

since he told us they have to hold classes on

21:03

how to build a culture of solidarity. But

21:06

in the Basque region, the benefits

21:08

and responsibilities of owning something with

21:10

a group of people are almost second nature.

21:12

Too. Many people around here uphold

21:14

these values even when they're having fun.

21:24

One evening, I joined under the co op executive

21:26

for dinner. We walked through the town of Mondragone.

21:29

It's narrow streets are lined with old stone buildings.

21:32

We're going to go to a club Basque

21:35

traditional calinary club chocomica.

21:41

They are a place to be with

21:43

your friends, colleagues, family, and

21:46

today. For example, in the town

21:48

of Manga One, we are twenty two south Habitans.

21:51

We have twenty two clubs. Culinary

21:53

clubs are essentially a private restaurant that's collectively

21:56

owned and run by a group of acquaintances. The

21:58

club votes to elect new members and everyone pays

22:01

a membership fee. We walk down

22:03

some stairs and come into a big room that

22:05

looks like a restaurant with long wooden tables.

22:07

Some of Ander's friends await us, including

22:09

cape O Leton, a journalist, and a fantastic

22:12

chef. He's prepared a dish

22:14

traditional and nearby son Sebastian Hake,

22:17

white asparagus, hard boiled eggs,

22:19

and clams in a white wine sauce. He

22:23

also sizzles up some rearby stakes and we

22:25

have some red wine.

22:32

At

22:40

culinary clubs, you can find a CEO

22:42

of a company and an assembly line worker at

22:44

the same table. All members pay

22:46

the same fee and have equal access to a professional

22:49

kitchen and spacious dining room.

22:51

That's a major perk in this food obsessed region.

22:55

Around here, people tend to live in apartments

22:57

where kitchens aren't particularly big. Also,

23:00

there aren't a lot of restaurants in many of the small towns.

23:03

Many of the culinary club members and the workers

23:05

at Mondragon were born and raised nearby.

23:08

This culture have shared ownership is in their blood.

23:12

That culture, though, can sometimes feel exclusionary

23:14

to outsiders.

23:18

But what

23:21

would I like most of all, I'd

23:23

like to see more people who are representative

23:26

of the whole society and the cooperatives.

23:29

That's Diego Montoya he's originally

23:31

from Columbia. Diego says he would

23:33

like to see more Colombians, Ecuadorians,

23:35

Senegalese and others who weren't born

23:37

in the area but who were part of Basque society

23:40

joined the cooperatives. About

23:43

twenty years ago, Diego left his native

23:45

Columbia guerrilla groups such

23:47

as the FARC. We're fighting the government. When

23:49

Diego and his sister arrived in the Basque region,

23:52

they had to sleep on the streets. Eventually,

23:55

Diego found work as a waiter than in construction,

23:58

but he wanted a job at of the cooperatives,

24:01

so he decided to get his engineering degree.

24:03

After a decade in Mondragone, when he was nearly

24:06

forty, he finally became a member.

24:13

I've reached a place of fability, which

24:15

gives me peace of mind. And also

24:18

I'm not worried that at my age they're

24:21

gonna fire me. They're not gonna fire me.

24:24

Diego wants more people like himself to be

24:26

able to experience the benefits of Mondragon's

24:28

cooperatives. He says that one

24:30

hurdle is that some of the co ops strongly

24:33

encouraged members to speak the Basque language

24:36

well. He appreciates that the language is an important

24:38

part of Basque identity. He doesn't want

24:41

it to be a barrier to entry. Diego's

24:43

wife, Maria Protegi, has co ops in her

24:45

blood. She grew up in the town of

24:47

Mondragon and her father was an important figure

24:50

in the early cooperative movement. I'm

24:52

speaking to both of them at a small weekend home

24:54

that Maria's family owns. It's

24:57

a short drive from Mondragon. We're

24:59

sitting outside and have a great view of

25:01

the Basque mountains in the distance, miles

25:03

and miles of green. They

25:06

would get together, all of them to help one

25:08

of the farms, you know. Like also, land means

25:11

neighborhood work. Maria's

25:13

head of customer service at Orbea, am

25:15

undergone co op that makes bicycles. It's

25:18

a well known brand in Spain and among cyclists

25:21

globally. When the pandemic struck

25:23

many of Orbea's clients, bicycle

25:25

shops around the world shut down. Maria

25:28

says Orbea decided to act to avoid

25:30

pushing its clients into bankruptcy. When

25:33

restrictions started to lift, demand for bicycles

25:36

surged, Orbea has had a great

25:38

couple of years. I asked Maria if

25:40

she and her colleagues voted to boost their salaries

25:42

as a result. No, we are quite

25:44

conservative and we

25:46

are very aware of the cycles. ORBEA

25:48

was founded in eighteen forty,

25:51

so I guess they passed a lot of bad things

25:53

out of good things. And so whenever it's

25:55

going very well, we always get

25:57

like, okay, just in case, we get these my

26:00

any justin cage, you know, well

26:02

the justin caage boxes full because

26:05

we know that, you know, but things come, Maria

26:07

says. The stability of the cooperative is the

26:09

stability of hundreds of people's livelihoods

26:11

who are playing with many people's

26:14

money. That's something that it

26:16

makes you think twice. In

26:18

general, Europe was a relatively stable

26:21

place for many workers. During the pandemic,

26:23

Spain and other countries rolled out national furlow

26:26

programs. They subsidized the salaries

26:28

of tens of millions of employees who couldn't

26:30

work. The difference is that the

26:32

scale of these programs was new. There

26:35

were major growing pains. Some

26:37

workers didn't get their furlow payments for months.

26:39

For example, at Mondragon,

26:42

there were no growing pains during the pandemic.

26:44

Their crisis playbook is tried

26:47

and tested back

26:54

in Balta's kitchen, he tells me I was co

26:56

op has been doing. In May of this

26:58

year, Balton, the members of his cooperative

27:01

gathered for their annual meeting. Demand

27:03

for washing machines has been picking up. FuG

27:06

Or reported a profit workers

27:08

increase their salaries by about five and

27:11

they voted to distribute some of those profits

27:13

to members. Each member got

27:15

the equivalent of thousands of dollars deposited

27:17

in a savings fund. Yes, here,

27:23

my experience has been very positive.

27:25

The worst that could happen to me happened.

27:28

I lost my job when I was forty eight, fifty

27:31

years old. Now I'm fifty nine

27:33

years old and I'm still working, and I've held

27:35

on to everything I've fought for. I've

27:37

held onto it. Not

27:48

everywhere can be like Mandergone,

27:51

but it's become a kind of north star

27:54

for places like co ops Sency. That's

27:56

what Kristen Barker, one of the other founders

27:59

of the co Op Network, told me. On

28:01

issues like inequality, I

28:03

think there's just a tendency to throw up our

28:05

hands and feel like we can't really

28:07

do anything on here. But you look

28:10

at Mandragon, a living, breathing,

28:13

proven model of extraordinary

28:17

progress. This is possible, and

28:19

this is what we want to be about. Creating

28:23

the pandemic has led to unimaginable

28:26

devastation and trauma,

28:28

but it has also shown that there are proven

28:31

models that create greater equality.

28:34

Whether it's the co ops of Mondragone, or

28:37

giving people cash like in the US, or

28:40

the power of community based programs

28:42

like in Kenya. There are

28:44

things that work. It's

28:46

now up to us to decide

28:49

if we'll learn any of those lessons. This

28:53

is our last episode of this season

28:55

of The Paycheck. Last week's episode

28:58

said that Singapore has no manufacturing

29:00

sector. We have corrected the error,

29:02

as the category now accounts for of

29:05

its GDP. Thank you so much

29:07

for listening. If you like our show,

29:09

please head on over to Apple Podcasts or

29:12

wherever you listen to podcasts to rate and

29:14

review. This episode

29:16

was hosted by Me Rebecca Greenfield

29:18

and reported by Jeanette Newman and Me. It

29:21

was edited by Daniel Balby and Me

29:23

with help from Francesca Levy, Janet

29:26

Paskin, and rock Sheeta Soluja. We

29:28

also had editing help from Shelly Banjo,

29:30

Kristin b Brown, Gilda to Carly, Nicole

29:33

Flato, Elissa McDonald, and Kay Schultz.

29:36

This episode was produced by Gilda to Carly

29:38

and sound engineered by Matt Kin. Original

29:41

music is by Leo Sidrin. The voice

29:44

actors you heard were Alex Mario

29:46

and Juan Carlos Ernandez. Special

29:49

thanks to Magnus Henrickson, Mckinninda Kuiper,

29:51

Margaret Sutherland, and Stacy Wong. Francesca

29:54

Levy is Bloomberg's head of podcasts. What

30:00

do