Fagor and Mondragon
The largest worker cooperative's flagship went bankrupt, and the federation caught most of the fall.
Fagor bankruptcy filing and debt renegotiation
16 October 2013
Ms. Magazine, reporting on Mondragon and Fagor job losses and relocation
25 April 2019
Mondragon is a federation of worker cooperatives in the Basque Country employing roughly 80,000 people. In October 2013 its largest industrial cooperative, Fagor, filed to renegotiate about 1.1 billion euros of debt and subsequently eliminated around 1,800 jobs.
What happened next is the interesting part. Intercooperation relocated most affected workers into other cooperatives, with a small remainder still unplaced years later. It is the Incentives cell's honest case: shared ownership means shared risk, that risk is real, and a federation absorbs it rather than preventing it.
What are people paid for once output is no longer the scarce thing?
What is the smallest unit that can own a customer outcome end to end?
What is owned, what is rented, and what is summoned only when needed?