José María Arizmendiarrieta

Cooperative university

At the beginning of 1961, Arizmendiarrieta began to structure the idea of a new Professional School with a higher academic level in the Alto Deba Valley, with opening centers in the three main towns, Mondragon, Bergara and Oñati, which together had a population of 50,000 inhabitants. As an indispensable condition for the development of industrial cooperatives, he wanted students well trained by the best teachers in workshops and laboratories who were close to the levels of research and development of the leading European countries. And this would facilitate the interrelation with companies. In 1963, work began on the new Professional School in Iturripe, designed to house 1,500 students, who would gradually reach the degree of Official, High Level Vocational Cycle Studies, and Technical Engineering, officially inaugurated in 1967. An important peculiarity was that the school's partners belonged to the cooperative and non-cooperative companies of the valley, the teachers, and also the students, having representation in the Assembly and the Governing Council.

At that time, he developed the MEDUO University Project, involving the School Association of the University of Oñati, made public in 1965, and taking as its historical inspiration the old Sancti Spiritus University, created in 1545 and in operation until 1902. Its decentralizing approach involved locating engineering related to mechanics, electronics and machine tools in Mondragon, commerce and business administration degrees in Oñati, and chemicals linked to the textile industry in Bergara. In addition, he proposed a 'popular and social' university, which should pay attention to the practical application of the principle of equal educational opportunities, so that it would be a driving force for development through the institutionalization of lifelong learning. The project turned out to be too ambitious for the time, and it was not until 1997 that the current Mondragon University was established.

Training and work

Arizmendiarrieta led his collaborators by example. His training curriculum vitae, written by himself, shows his dedication to his studies: "Philosophy and Theology" at the seminary of Vitoria, "Ethical-Social" at the University of Comillas, enrolled in special intensive courses. And "Economics" in intensive courses at the Social School of Vitoria, from 1948 to 1952.

He maintained close contact with the Vitoria seminary, where year after year he attended the courses organized at the Social School. His interests ranged from economics and sociology to philosophy and pedagogy. He understood his own role as chaplain of Catholic Action as someone who spurred others to do good, and above all, as an educator. He made an effort to convince others, especially young people, of the importance of training, and often repeated quotes such as "Teaching and education are the first requirements of a community, if you do not want all kinds of companies to become stagnant or half developed", "Man is made through training", "It is better to light a match than to curse the darkness", or "Sowing in time is professionally training our young people. This is the expense that is transformed into seed that produces a hundredfold."

The argument of the profitability of investments made in education appears many times in Arizmendiarrieta's writings. And his insistence on community responsibility for education has two roots. One is his personal experience of the insufficiency of the State, and the other is his general idea that society should tend to self-management in all its forms, solving its own problems on its own. But he advocated dual training, so as not to leave the entire burden of the cost of studies to the community, but rather the student himself had to assume a part. In addition, Arizmendiarrieta was opposed to the division of life into two periods, one of study (at the expense of those who work), and another of work. He thought that study and work, rather than consecutive stages, should constitute combined activities that would last. The young person should combine study and work, and the mature person should have the right and duty to combine work and study.

Work and union

Arizmendiarrieta created in September 1960 the cooperative magazine that he always edited, "TU-Work and Union", initially called "Cooperation". He said that "Work is the firm basis for development and promotion, the Union is the lever that multiplies the forces of all, and Cooperation is for us a system of solidarity, to make work the appropriate instrument for advancement, personal and collective." Therefore, he insisted on collecting these concepts in the statutes of the cooperatives.

He conceived the magazine as "a constant invitation to dialogue, relationship and cooperation for the practical application of the postulates of social justice in the business environment in a climate of freedom and love, indispensable in a work community". He considered work as a means of personal self-realization and solidarity, of individual improvement and collective improvement, the basis for a more unquestionable humanistic and social conscience.

He repeatedly explained that work dignifies people, and that different levels of development in regions and countries depend on work. He noted that a study by experts showed that in the United States, the contribution of nature, land, forests, rivers, seas, and mines to the level of development was estimated at one-eighth, and that the labour factor was seven-eighths. The Deba Valley itself, where Mondragon is located, is not notable for its natural wealth, but its development is driven and created by the work of its inhabitants.

As for the union, it was seen as a sign of solidarity in a democracy, so cooperatives should be democratic, with each member having only one vote. At the same time, unity demanded the responsibility of all, because unity is the strength of the weak, and solidarity is a powerful lever that multiplies strength.

Student's Industrial Cooperative

Arizmendiarrieta developed the project to create an industrial cooperative for the students of the Professional School with a double purpose. On the one hand, it would provide students with limited economic resources the possibility of paying for their High Level Vocational Cycle studies. And on the other, it would promote dual training through theoretical and practical classes at the School, and the experience of working in a real company.

In November 1965, he began the procedures for the administrative recognition of the company Alecoop (Cooperative School Labor Activity), which became official in April 1966. The industrial purpose of the company was the manufacture and sale of auxiliary tools for mechanical workshops and electrical installations for industrial assemblies, according to commissions or own study projects. The students would work in a cooperative regime for half a day, which had to be compatible with the school demands of the partners.

Women's Industrial Cooperative

In all cooperatives, women's participation was subject to rights equal to those of men. But in the mid-1960s, Arizmendiarrieta's concern for the labor emancipation of women became more apparent, since the limit of women's participation in work was marriage. In the cooperatives, the institutional associative link was the "partnership contract" and not the usual work contract, so the single members saw it terminated once they got married. For Arizmendiarrieta, marriage was almost a sentence of exile for women, which separated them from social life, and often tended to increase 'couple problems'.

To improve the situation, Arizmendiarrieta promoted the construction of a female pavilion for classrooms and laboratories at the School, which would allow young female students to study chemistry and electronics, and, in parallel with this, the creation of a women's industrial cooperative, founding the Auzo Lagun company in November 1967. Its activity is the direct catering service, in which meals are prepared on site for schools, companies, residences and hospitals.

Controversies

Arizmendiarrieta developed his concept of human enterprise through action and practice, which generated controversies that can be grouped into five areas:

In 1941 Arizmendiarrieta arrived in Mondragon with his ideology of the social doctrine of the church, where the worker finds satisfaction in his job as an intelligent and responsible human being. He began his career in the Locksmith Union Apprentice School and in Catholic Action, and at that time he wrote that the workers saw the church at the service of the state: "The Army, the clergy and the Falange (the fascist party in the Francoist Spain) are the three claws of the capitalist". Likewise, they saw the church on the side of the winners of the civil war. For this reason, he established a catalogue of three virtues for the priest who wanted to act in the working environment: freedom, austerity and diligence.

In 1956 he was about to be deported by the Civil Governor of Gipuzkoa, as he was considered the main person responsible for the workers' strikes of that year. Also, in 1965 and 1969, when students of the Professional School participated in the "Day of the Basque Homeland" (Aberri Eguna), the Governor accused the School of being a focus of politicization and subversion. And also in 1969, the Governor intended to "put the arrogant cooperativists of Mondragon under pressure and get them to surrender at his feet, engaged as they are in unspeakable and dangerous desires for emancipation, whose rebellious attitude could infect the rest of the Basque Country."

In 1960 the first criticisms from local and regional capitalist businessmen began, directly and also through the Official Chamber of Industry of Gipuzkoa, which was suspicious of the growth of the cooperatives. Arizmendiarrieta had an excellent relationship with many businessmen, whom he encouraged to become members of the Professional School, such as Juan Celaya from the Cegasa company in Oñati and José María Altuna from the JMA company in Mondragon. But the critics argued, on the one hand, that there was a transfer of workers from their companies to the new cooperatives, and, on the other, that the main reason for their growth were the fiscal benefits. The deduction of 10% of corporate tax was dedicated to the Promotion and Employment Fund for the community; this second argument was recurrent for many years.

In the cooperatives there were no trade unions, their functions being assumed by the Social Council, and in 1966 the first criticisms from leftist and union sectors began, maintaining that cooperativism was an insufficient solution for society, being socialism "from the inside". These critics accepted as positive certain aspects of cooperativism such as the democratic government of the company through the principle of one partner/one vote rather than control by capital, the imputation of the surplus value of work to the community, and solidarity through limited salary ranges that prevented the formation of privileged classes. But their principal objection was that cooperativism seemed to be a form of submission to the principles of the free market.

In 1970 other criticisms arose from the new Basque Left, linked to the various ETA groups, and their successive splits. They considered that a leading technocratic class had emerged in the cooperatives, directly including Arizmendiarrieta, who called himself a cooperativist but prevented the liberation of the Basque working class. And that, in fact, was one of the reasons why the Ministry of Labor in Madrid had distributed Medals of Merit for Labor to cooperative members. In 1972 there were controversies of this nature in Alecop and in the "Basque School" (Ikastola) of Mondragon. And in June 1974, a cooperative strike took place for the first time at the ULGOR and Fagor Electronic plants, as a result of new job evaluation regulations. After unpleasant incidents, the strike ended with the expulsion of 24 partners, approved in the General Assembly. Several years later they were given the option of readmission, which some of them accepted.

Cooperativism was also criticised for its lack of sensitivity to the Basque question.