Catholic social solutions to workplace fairness

Bruising industrial confrontations within Qantas and in Victorian hospitals during the latter half of last year pose pertinent questions as to whether alternative forms of ownership and control of workplaces might in some instances have more to offer than conventional wisdom may suppose.

A case in point is the great complex of worker-owned manufacturing, retail, financial, agricultural, civil engineering and support cooperatives and associated entities headquartered at Mondragon in the Basque region of Spain.

With Spanish unemployment levels following the global financial crisis standing at some 22 per cent, the Mondragon cooperatives have demonstrated impressive resilience, absorbing their share of economic hits and emerging largely unscathed.

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