Toda la historia

At the end of the year, by order of the Ministry of Labour, members of cooperatives were excluded from the General Social Security System. This decision of the Ministry was decisive in setting in motion the actions aimed at creating what is today Lagun Aro, a Voluntary Mutual Benefit Organisation. Lagun Aro was the co-operative response to a lack of protection.
The first year of female students at the Escuela Profesional also began their studies and at the same time, a chemistry course aimed especially at female students was also started.
Regarding training and education for women Father José María wrote at the time: “It is a big mistake that women do not enter vocational training on a general basis, nor take part in retraining and in-service training processes opening the way for professions which are rejected today as unsuitable”.

The Escuela Profesional, which started its activities in academic year 1943-1944 with twenty-one students, now had more than 300, a figure that began to be significant in the field of ocational training. It was, like many of our other institutions, a creation, above all of Father José María and his slogan “socialising knowledge truly democratises power” is an accurate reflection of the motivation behind Eskola, one of his most cherished projects.
The Cooperación magazine was set up, later to become T.U. (Trabajo y Unión) and finally T.U. Lankide.
Caja Laboral’s first branch office was opened in a modest premises on Calle Ferrerías in Arrasate/Mondragón and shortly afterwards it moved to its current location at number 27 Calle Don José María Resusta (today Iturriotz Kalea) in the same town. Back then, the slogan libreta o maleta (savings book or suitcase) was popularised, in an attempt to convey the importance of savings to the development of the co-operatives and, by extension, the development of our country.

The opening of the branch office in Aretxabaleta was the first step in Caja Laboral’s expansion. It left Arrasate/ Mondragón to spread like wildfire to neighbouring towns. Caja Laboral’s Business Division was also created and the industrial co-operatives Copreci, Ederlan and Lana were set up.
Ulgor continued to expand and on 8th February, with the help of the local and provincial authorities, it opened its new manufacturing facilities for selenium semiconductors.
On the same date, we discovered that Ulgor was spending twice as much as anticipated on training, a fact which according to a reporter at the time was highly alarming. Existing documents also show a high level of awareness in the co-operatives as a group about matters like absenteeism due to illness or accidents at work.

A mutual support movement was established between the co-operatives in which it was possible to begin to see some of the Experience’s future structures timidly taking shape. This was an embryonic movement of what would later be called the Mondragón Co-operative Group, then Mondragóon Co-operative Corporation and now just MONDRAGON.
Back then in 1964 thought was being given to updating the organisation and it was emphasised that: “We need to think about developing a set of institutions to provide support for our co-operative aims and plans: institutions consistent with our social and economic vision. The co-operative movement will be a passing phenomenon if it does not come to the fore and openly develop in society as a whole thereby taking root in education and in social and economic relations”.
There were now one thousand students studying at the Escuela Profesional Politécnica and the co-operatives Irizar and Miba formally joined the movement.

In May Caja Laboral opened branch offices in Gernika, Eibar and Legazpia. This took the total to 24 branches open to the public and the number of associated co-operatives came to 36.
Total sales for the co-operatives were just in excess of €18m (3bn pesetas), with exports for the first time accounting for €312,500 (52m pesetas). The MONDRAGON cooperatives began to open up to international markets and, from that time, exports have always risen significantly faster than total sales.
Danok Bat, today Danobat, a firm of recognised prestige in the machine tool sector, was formally set up as a co-operative enterprise and Fagor Electrónica and Tajo came on board.

An Extraordinary General Meeting of Caja Laboral approved the new bylaws for Lagun Aro. This highlighted the level of maturity shown by cooperators in finding a solution to social and economic problems which could affect the co-operatives and their members in the short and long-term.
The Official State Gazette of 15th July Published the Decree by virtue of which the Escuela Profesional Politécnica, today Mondragon Eskola Politeknikoa, was recognised as a State Centre of Middle Grade Technical Education, that is to say, Technical Engineering.
The MONDRAGON co-operatives now had more than 6,000 worker-members, with total turnover in excess of €24m (4bn pesetas). Amat (today part of Fagor Ederlan), Coinma, Danona, Tolsan, Orona and Goiti all joined the Group.

The presentation of the Fagor-Mercier cycling team to the media and the sports authorities took place in Mondragon Eskola Politeknikoa’s auditorium. Some of the most wellknown international cyclists like Luis Ocaña, Stephen Roche, Txomin Perurena and Luis Otaño rode for the Fagor team, which did not finally disappear from the scene until the mid-eighties
The MONDRAGON co-operatives now had more than 9,000 workers and the Zubiola co-operative, located in Azpeitia in the province of Gipuzkoa, formally joined.
In 1970, a contributor to TU Lankide alerted us to computers breaking in to the work environment, presuming that it would mean the increasing preponderance of technical mastery over the human aspect, which we could well call technical colonisation.

In Tripoli (Libya) Arrasate was awarded a contract, after an international invitation to tender, for a turnkey installation for a production plant to manufacture welded tubes. The plant, with a surface area of 17,000m2, was worth a total of €4,800,000 (800m pesetas).
The Eroski co-operative, with 32 stores in operation, now had more than 17,00 consumer members, with a significant increase in turnover, the composition of which by sections continued to develop in favour of non-food sectors.
It is interesting to note that in 1972 turnover per head for the co-operatives as a whole was around €6,000 (1m pesetas in the currency of the time); a far from negligible amount if we take into account the fact t that working hours had been reduced to 45 hours a week. A lot of hours if we compare it with today, but in the early seventies a 45-hour working week was a considerable advance in social terms.

“We are living the end of an era that has lasted a total of fifty years: the era of neo-capitalism and we are entering a time of radical reappraisal that will inevitably mean new suffering and misfortune. The world that emerges from this crisis will be so different from that of the sixties in the same way that the period we have just left behind was different from the inter-war years… there is no solution within the framework of the existing system”..
The historian Geoffrey Barraclough was not pulling any punches in what he had to say and the developed nations were getting ready to enter one of their worst crises, the MONDRAGON co-operatives as well.
Caja Laboral, for its part, opened its brand new head offices on the hillside of Olandixo (now Paseo Don José María Arizmendiarrieta) in Arrasate/ Mondragón. Since then, the hill where legend has it was located the mythical dragon’s lair, has housed one of the co-operative Experience’s most emblematic buildings.Two co-operatives from the province of Bizkaia joined the Group: Eika based in Markina and Lealde in Lekeitio.

In 1978 specific work requested by the co-operatives from the Ikerlan Technological Research Centre accounted for 25% of the centre’s total activity, with the projects carried out involving 12 co-operatives from the Group.
The co-operatives Irizar and Alecop took a significant step in the foreign market. The order was for 40 fitted-out trucks for Venezuela, to be used as travelling classrooms and workshops. The bodywork was built by Irizar, and Alecop, a co-operative largely made up of students, was in charge of the educational equipment.
Three industrial co-operatives came into the Group: Herriola from Aulestia/ Murelaga, Kide located in Ondarroa and Ona-Pres from Trapagaran. It is also worth highlighting the setting up of the Goilan and Orbide groups. Goilan included the following co-operatives: Ederfil, Eredu, Irizar, Kendu and Orkli and the Orbide Group, in turn, included Berriola, Latz, Orona and Vicon

The Basque Parliament was elected and the new Basque Government created, which took over the bodies of the pre-autonomous Basque General Council, and started to develop its own structures and departments for selfgovernment. This was another step towards the normalisation of democracy.
Productivity, which is essential to achieve competitiveness in increasingly globalised markets, had increased in our co-operatives by about 6% in real terms, which reduced the effect of labour on the results. This had not prevented the praiseworthy creation of 400 new jobs in the MONDRAGON co-operatives as a whole.
Eroski began the eighties with 100,000 consumer members, which was approximately 15% of all families in Euskadi. A significant figure without doubt.

In these early years in which the Country was starting its political life it was said that the co-operative movement could not classify itself under any specific symbol, as that would go against its own constitution, although it would make sense to place it in the socialist environment in the widest and most noble sense of the word: socialisation of resources, and democratisation of management, ownership and knowledge.
Restraint, on the part of the workermembers as a whole, made it possible to reduce the effect of personnel costs on sales by one percentage point in 1982. This stand made it possible to consolidate jobs in the co-operatives, and even create 327 new jobs.
The following co-operatives joined the Group: Lenniz, now part of Fagor Electrodomésticos, Leunkor, also now part of Fagor Arrasate, Orkli and Ondoan. The technological capabilities of the co-operatives were also reinforced with intense collaboration with the applied research centre Ikerlan.

At the end of the year Caja Laboral celebrated its 25th anniversary. If in the early years it was Caja Laboral which received support from the co-operatives, it was now the co-operatives who were being supported by a credit co-operative, set up at the right time, committed to the consolidation of the Group.
The industrial co-operatives posted a total turnover in excess of €727.22m (121bn pesetas) and the highest level of export activity was recorded by companies operating in the capital goods and intermediate goods sectors. Job creation has been a constant objective for Eroski and, with 168 new jobs the co-operative had a total of 1,246 worker-members by the end of the year. The co-operative was also awarded the research prize for consumer affairs which was given annually by the National Consumer Institute. The following worker co-operatives joined the Group: Artxa, Etorki, Fagor Clima (today part of Fagor Electrodomésticos), Leroa (now in turn part of Danona), and Matriplast.