Cooperatives contribute to resilient employment, a sustainable economy and the well-being of people at work Almost 12% of the entire employed population of the G20 countries works in or within the scope of cooperatives Cooperatives have been contributing to employment all over the world for decades. Presented for the first time at the International Summit of Cooperatives, the study “Cooperatives and Employment: a global report” carried out by CICOPA, the International organization of industrial and service cooperatives, discusses the significance of cooperative employment in the global landscape, both quantitatively and qualitatively. The results show how cooperatives contribute to resilient employment, a sustainable economy and the well-being of people at work, making up almost 12% of the entire employed population of the G20 countries. Cooperative enterprises generate partial or full-time 1 employment involving at least 250 million individuals worldwide, either in or within the scope of cooperatives. “As Quebec’s largest private employer, Desjardins Group is proud to have sponsored the CICOPA study,” said Chair of the Board, President and CEO Monique F. Leroux. “The study confirms that the cooperative business model creates jobs—high-quality jobs that contribute to the economic stability and sustainable prosperity of the countries in which cooperatives operate.” The special feature of the study remains the fact that it merges figures and feelings. It analyses both the objective data available on cooperative employment and the subjective perception of the people working in or within the scope of those enterprises, including of the most diverse profiles, for example: worker-members in a worker cooperative in the construction sector, employees of a consumer cooperative, farmers who are members of an agricultural cooperative, employees of a cooperative bank. 2 The three authors spent 10 weeks working in 10 regions in Argentina, Brazil, Canada, the USA, South Africa, Japan, Korea, India, Italy and Spain, meeting people and observing how employees, workermembers and self-employed producers work and how they relate to their cooperative. The in-depth interviews they carried out revealed common perceptions that contribute to making the experience of people working in or within the scope of cooperatives different from the one experienced outside cooperative enterprises, resulting from the combination of different characteristics. Among which: a high participation in the work place, a family-like work environment, a culture oriented towards values practiced at work, and a sense of self-identity through one’s identification with the cooperative. The study also examines to what extent these characteristics interact positively with the economic sustainability of cooperatives. Some of the regions visited are characterized by a very high ratio of cooperative employment. It is close to 23% of the total employed population in Gangwon (South Korea) and to 15% in Emilia-Romagna (Italy). Gangwon is considered to be the cradle of the cooperative movement in South Korea. EmiliaRomagna is one of the oldest cooperative clusters in the world and one of the most important industrial districts in Europe, which has managed to maintain its overall competitiveness in spite of the ongoing 1
“Cooperatives and Employment: a global report” introduces the innovative concept of cooperative employment, which refers to employment performed both in and within the scope of cooperatives, comprising both employees and worker-members working in cooperatives, and self-employed producer-members producing within the scope of cooperatives, as well as the employees of these self-employed producer-members: indeed, the cooperative usually provides a fundamental contribution to the producermember’s production process, while the producer-members together democratically control their cooperative. 2 Bruno Roelants, Eum Hyungsik and Elisa Terrasi (respectively CICOPA Secretary General, Data Analyst and Development and Studies Officer).
economic crisis. According to the study, the particularly high level of cooperative employment in these regions bodes well for the employment potential of the cooperative model elsewhere in the world. Other regions studied during the fieldwork also show a particularly high presence of cooperative employment, such as Santa Fe Province in Argentina with almost 9%, and the Basque Country in Spain with almost 7%. A lower wage gap compared to other types of enterprises, high security of tenure, a well-balanced distribution of employment between urban and rural areas and a people-centered vision are some of the characteristics that explain the contribution of cooperative employment to employment in general. “The phenomenon of cooperative employment is sufficiently significant, both quantitatively and qualitatively, for public policies to take stock of this long-lasting experience in terms of creating and strengthening employment”, states Bruno Roelants, Secretary General of CICOPA and co-author of the study.
About CICOPA CICOPA directly represents 65,000 industrial and service cooperatives providing at least 3 million jobs across the world. Many of those cooperatives are worker cooperatives, namely cooperatives where the members are the staff of the enterprise, i.e., worker-members. Because of this, those enterprises are characterized by a distinctive type of labour relations, called “worker ownership”, different from the one experienced by conventional employees or by self-employed producers. A new and growing typology of cooperatives represented by CICOPA are social cooperatives, namely cooperatives whose mission is the delivery of goods or services of general interest. CICOPA also represents cooperatives of self-employed producers in industry and services, another category experiencing substantial growth. Numbers have increased in both industrialized and developing countries over recent years. About the 2014 International Summit of Cooperatives Held at the initiative of Desjardins Group and the International Co-operative Alliance, the second International Summit of Cooperatives brings together managers of cooperative and mutual enterprises from around the world in Quebec City, Canada, from October 6 to 9. This international economic gathering’s bold, ambitious themes also garner the attention and interest of numerous world socioeconomic leaders and politicians.
CONTACTS: Leire Luengo – Communication Officer of CICOPA + 32 2 543 10 36 - leire.luengo@cicopa.coop Richard Lacasse – Media Relation Advisor at Desjardins Group +1 418-835-8444 or 1 866 835-8444, ext. 5563163; from October 6 to 9: +1 418 649-5232 (Quebec Convention Centre) – media@desjardins.com