Production co-operatives organized by means of the union of workers. In the 1980s, a form of co-operative tinged with strong workers’ democracy arose in Europe and the United States, and has gained popularity in Europe and the United States since 2010. The article May Day: Workers of the World Unite and Take Over – Their Factories, published on the website of The Guardian on May 1, 2015, stated: The economic meltdown unleashed by the 2008 financial crisis hit southern Europe especially hard, sending manufacturing output plunging and unemployment soaring. Countless factories shut their gates. But some workers have refused to accept the bankruptcy of enterprises and spontaneously organized workers’ co-operatives to take over enterprises. In France, an average of 30 mostly small companies a year, from phone repair firms to ice-cream makers, have become workers’ co-operatives since 2010. According to the statistics of CICOPA, the umbrella body of co-operatives in Spain, in 2013 alone, about 75 Spanish enterprises were taken over by their former employees, accounting for about half of the enterprises taken over in Europe. In 2014, representatives of factories taken over by workers held a conference in Marseille, attracting more than 200 representatives from more than 10 countries. The phenomenon of the rapid development of workers’ co-operatives has become an important field of academic research.
Article Length: 2,855 characters
Own the print edition of The Great Dictionary of Marxism for unrestricted study and reference.
