Worker-owned Mondragon Corporation was included in Fortune Magazine’s list of enterprises that are changing the world. The cooperative group came eleventh in the ranking, ahead of companies like Mastercard, Microsoft or Google.
Based in the Basque Country, Spain, Mondragon is the world’s largest group of worker-owned cooperatives. It operates across five continents and employs over 80,000 people. It was founded in 1956 by a young priest named Jose Maria Arizmendiarrieta.
Fortune Magazine praised Mondragon for being a financially sound business while putting people before profit, which includes ensuring no top executive makes more than six times the salary of the lowest-paid worker in the cooperative.
Commenting on the news, the International organisations of cooperatives for industry and services, CICOPA president Iñigo Albizuri Landazabal said: “As we face unprecedented collective challenges, cooperation has become a business superpower! This is not just about Mondragon. This is about another way of doing business. This is about cooperation, so it is about all of us. It is about the cooperative identity so congratulations to all of us!”
