UPDATE: Volume 2 is now AVAILABLE! Get your copy here!
Worx is proud to let you know that “Humanity@Work&Life” – volume two, “Humanity@Work&Life, New Directions for the Social Economy”, (Oak Tree Press, October 24, 2025), is available to purchase.
Similar to “Humanity@Work&Life” volume one, volume two is “Mondragon in the World” – centric (https://www.mondragoncorporation.com/en/) marking UN-designated 2025, International Year of Cooperatives. The January 2025 mission launch of the Arizmendiarrieta Social Economy Think Tank (ASETT – News & media – ASETT) accompanies and accelerates MONDRAGON’s emphasis on demonstrating relevant, uplifting systemic change within the framework of a rising, fully inclusive, global social economy. Both volumes collectively represent 100 contributors and co-developers from seven countries (Spain, Mexico, USA, South Korea, UK, Republic of Ireland, Malaysia), on three continents (Europe, North America, Asia). Generations participating: Boomers, X, Millennials, Z. By design, all co-editor royalties are reinvested into the ongoing Humanity@Work&Life series, produced and co-edited by two people we consider to be leading the frontlines of the workers’ rights movement: Dr. Christina Clamp and Michael A. Peck.
The first volume, “Humanity@Work&Life: Global Diffusion of the Mondragon Cooperative Ecosystem Experience” (Oak Tree Press, March 27, 2023), includes a chapter featuring Worx as a case study example of a worker owned union co-op. That chapter, “Toward Workplace Control: Collaboration Between Labor Unions & Worker Co-ops,” was written by Mary Hoyer from the University of Massachusetts and Rebecca Lurie of the CUNY School of Labor & Urban Studies.
About Mondragon: Mutualist and Regenerative Development
Mondragon is:
- The world’s benchmark industrial and socio-economic cooperative model;
- A living laboratory guided by solidarity, capable of regeneration and prototyping;
- 70 years of history: from the ruins of war to shared prosperity.
No other industrial cooperative or social economy ecosystem has achieved such results. And above all: this model can be exported in diverse and global ways, as demonstrated in Volume 1.
In the face of global polycrises, Mondragon’s values demonstrate that inclusive and regenerative development is not only possible but necessary. This model, grounded in concrete mutualist achievements, now inspires the design of regional and municipal reconstruction plans whose relevance and urgency have never been greater. Mondragon is a real source of inspiration for building the future.
During the May 26-30/2026 timeframe, ASETT and the Humanity@Work& Life Team led a Social Economy Roadshow to NYC, Boston, West Bridgeport/MA & Manchester/NH (four cities/five days). Key institutional Roadshow contributors included: Boston’s Local Enterprise Assistance Fund- LEAF, the American Sustainable Business Network – ASBN, CUNY Law School’s Community Economic Development Clinic – CEDC, the Greater Boston Labor Council – GBLC), Catholic Charities USA, Manufacturing Renaissance, Urban Homesteading Assistance Board – UHAB, and 1worker1vote.
- Inigo Albizuri, ASETT General Director: “One of the most important goals of the Roadshow has been not to suggest that one system is simply “better” than another, but rather to demonstrate that different economic realities are possible — and that some of them, like MONDRAGON, have proven capable of functioning successfully within a highly competitive global market economy while still preserving democratic governance, solidarity, long-term commitment, and community roots. That, in many ways, is the core mission of ASETT: not to “export” a closed model, but to help extend and adapt these kinds of experiences to other places, always through local leadership, local ecosystems, and local ownership. After many decades of accumulated learning, we now have tools, methodologies, networks, and shared knowledge that can hopefully help others accelerate their own journeys. And perhaps this is precisely where our current interconnected world becomes an enormous advantage. Today, ideas, practices, and collaborations can travel faster and deeper than ever before. If approached with humility and mutual learning, this interconnected reality can help us collectively build more democratic, resilient, and human-centered economic ecosystems across very different contexts.”
- David Levine, President & Cofounder, American Sustainable Business Network: “The recent visit of leaders of ASETT to the USA is an important step forward in building the broad collaboration needed to drive the solutions that a social economy can provide. Now we will get to work to further coalesce the social economy leaders in the US and solidify the partnership with ASETT-H@W&L to take the necessary actions to build a social economy.”
- Professor Carmen Huertas Noble, Founding Director of CUNY Law School’s Community Economic Development Clinic (CEDC): “This convening drew together a room that reflected the democratic economy our communities deserve and have long been organizing toward: worker-owners, cooperative leaders, public officials, scholars, students, organizers, and advocates learning from one another, building with each other, and advancing models of collective ownership, community stewardship, public accountability, and cooperation among cooperatives. The Mondragon ecosystem demonstrates that scalable cooperative development begins with education, formation, shared purpose, and institutions willing to build for the long term.” “This is a moment of real possibility for New York. We have the talent, the organizing, the legal tools, and the public leadership. The question now is how we grow these models with the right infrastructure, in ways rooted in dignity, democratic governance, community stewardship, and racial and economic justice. As a community and economic development lawyer, I know that values become real when they move from aspiration into structures, agreements, budgets, governance, implementation, and practice, and when communities have the power to shape, govern, and enforce the agreements made in their name.”
- Dr. Christina Clamp, Professor Emerita – Southern New Hampshire University, Board Chair – Local Enterprise Assistance Fund, H@W&L co-editor, and NYC/Boston Social Economy Roadshow co-organizer: “The ASETT-H@W&L New York and Boston Roadshow brought together social and solidarity educators and activists to learn about ASETT and MONDRAGON as well as sharing and learning about the work of others. In these troubled times, this has generated new hope and energy to continue the work of creating transformation while drawing inspiration from MONDRAGON and ASETT. It was great to see the learning exchanges that transpired through the public interactive events as well as through visits to UHAB, a developer of housing cooperatives; Park Slope Food Cooperative; Equal Exchange, a fair-trade coffee worker co-op; and CCA Global, a shared services cooperative. As cooperators this was a great illustration of why there is much value in cooperation amongst cooperatives. “
The annual ASETT Policy Forum organizes a shared Social Economy best practices “living lab” for aligned cities and their leadership from around the world. The second annual ASSET Social Economy Policy Forum, by invitation, takes place on November 12–13, 2026, in San Sebastián/Basque Country, Spain – https://www.asett.org/en/forum-ii/. The ASETT Forum convenes cities at most relevant transformational leadership & innovation levels committed to inclusive growth and democratic economic renewal and organizes project side visits to Mondragon, Bilbao and San Sebatian (NOV 09-10-11). ASETT’s inaugural Policy Forum in May 2025 gathered more than 400 leading European and international Social Economy practitioners and showcased 38 success stories organized into key social challenge areas including NYC’s and Barcelona’s Affordable Housing Innovations (example: ASETT MAY 2025 Policy Forum re NYC & Global Affordable-Cooperative-Mutualist Housing – case study.pdf).
Father Jose Maria Arizmendiaretta, Founder of MONDRAGON:
“Cooperatives must not be closed worlds, but instead centres of social radiation. We do not live in a world we have conquered but in a battlefield for social justice and for a more human and just order.”
Please consider sharing information about this new publication series with allies, networks, ecosystems, colleagues, competitors and even adversaries. Anyone interested in workplace equity and democracy needs to read and join the “Humanity@Work& Life” social economy community!
Sharing Valuable Lessons Learned
From Inigo Albizuri, ASETT General Director, in “Humanity@Work&Life”, volume two, “New Directions For The Social Economy” (Oak Tree Press, October 24/2025, coeditors: Dr. Christina Clamp & Michael A. Peck), Chapter One – “Mondragon in the World: Cooperatives & Ecosystems”:
- Cooperatives are a good way to transform society, to improve it not only economically but also socially. Data from those areas with high cooperative density support this statement.
- Legislative frameworks are very important and can promote and drive change, but social transformations are usually ahead of legislative changes. Thus, the legislative framework, although important, is not essential if cooperatives are to be able to develop their work. As Arizmendiarrieta said: “Circumstances are neither good nor bad. They are what each one wants them to be.” If Mondragon’s experience shows anything, it is that it has never waited for circumstances to change, but has dedicated itself to changing them through its work.
- The current legislative frameworks, although there is much dispersion among countries, are not adapted to the cooperative form of enterprise. Legislation always centers the capital company and sees the cooperative company as an exception. It would be desirable to encourage the creation of cooperative enterprises through legislation, but first it is necessary to ensure equal opportunities for cooperative enterprises before the law.
- Most legislation is based on the social dialogue between the government, capital enterprises, and trade unions. This leaves out cooperatives, and therefore new laws do not include the cooperative perspective. Society is changing and so must the legal frameworks.
- Economic democracy can induce political democracy and can also prevent totalitarian drifts in political systems. We could say that cooperatives are good schools of democracy. Communitiesthat are used to making their own decisions are less manipulable. Thus, the promotion of cooperatives by encouraging the participation of collectives mobilizes societies. And this mobilization reaches the entrepreneurial, cultural, and social spheres.
- The Basque Country is a small country, but small has its advantages. Mondragon’s development cannot be understood without understanding the social and economic transformation that the Basque Country has undergone. And public management itself is very cooperative, starting with self-management (the Basque Country collects its own taxes and has a high degree of autonomy). This is also reflected in the government’s own motto of Auzolana—collective work, common good— facilitating public-private collaboration. There are countless Mondragon projects in collaboration with public institutions because we share the objective of working for the community.
- In situations of social crisis, SOLIDARITY comes to the surface. And solidarity is the fundamental ingredient of cooperation. Many of the projects, agencies, and services mentioned here would not exist without a deep, shared feeling of solidarity.
- The different forms of cooperativism (credit, consumer, etc.) are positive for society, but worker cooperatives transform society in a more radical way. Mondragon’s worker cooperativism demonstrates that any business (industry, education, research, banking, etc.) can be undertaken as a cooperative enterprise. This is demonstrated in worker cooperatives all over the world, something I have seen as president of CICOPA, the International Organization of Industrial & Service Co-ops. The worker-owner bond is what moves the community.
- Cooperativism is a good way to develop rural areas. But we should not always associate rural areas with agricultural cooperativism. The appropriate use of new technologies should allow us to repopulate rural areas and have a more adequate distribution of the population, thus avoiding the huge poverty belts around big cities.
- The cooperative model, with its equitable distribution of wealth and its egalitarian management systems, facilitates the processes of assimilating immigrant populations.
- Cooperatives are based on businesses that must be profitable. The closer these businesses are to the skills of the collective, the more likely the businesses, and therefore the cooperatives, will be successful. The industrial tradition will help develop industrial cooperatives in the same way that the agricultural tradition will help develop agricultural cooperatives, but they must always adapt to the times by changing their business models while still maintaining their values.
- The FUNDAMENTAL KEY to an inter-cooperative system is EDUCATION. Yet education does not bear fruit immediately. It requires constant work that is maintained over time and takes different forms.
- Education is not only about obtaining qualifications to get a job, it is a way of life and a way of adapting to circumstances. For this reason, people need educational agencies and services in the workplace.
- For new cooperatives to emerge, the cooperative business model must be included in academic curricula. In the 21st century, our engineering, economics, and business students are still being trained in the capitalist business model as if it were the only possible form of enterprise. If new generations know only one model, it will be the only one they will follow.
- Education must be extended to the enterprise. The cooperative enterprise is an educational center of technology and cooperative management, but also of values.
- If we want collective entrepreneurship, we have to develop specific degrees to teach entrepreneurship, such as in the Mondragon Team Academy. And it is not only the company that must adapt to change. Education must also innovate.
- The commitment to innovation in its broadest sense (product and process technology, business model, etc.) must be a medium-term commitment born of collective private initiative and then complemented by public initiatives.
- Financing is absolutely necessary for the creation of new cooperative enterprises, but capital is not the end but the necessary means for the creation of new cooperative enterprises—and therefore jobs. This explains the subordination of capital to labor.
- The network of funds and instruments has many positive effects on the creation of an entrepreneurial ecosystem. Among them, it fosters business diversification. In addition, the governance model forces us to have not only financial or industrial visions but also academic, research, technology strategies always sharing a common base of cooperative values.
- It is the creation of networks, and intercooperation, that really generates positive results.
- It is important to create specific agencies to deal with specific issues. Thus, Gaztenpresa’s specialization in the promotion of entrepreneurship gives better results than agencies that are not so well adapted to the specific needs of a small start-up company.
- Solidarity is of enormous importance to understand the Mondragon model. But it is not only intercooperative solidarity, which includes profit sharing and loss compensation, but also, and much more importantly, the salary solidarity that translates into a salary scale that goes from 1 to 6 as a maximum and that in many cases is still 1 to 4.5.
- Cooperatives distribute wealth better so that if the initial distribution of wealth is adequate, there is no need to redistribute it.
- It is not necessary to be afraid of changes but to face them and/or provoke them.
- The cooperative model can and should be internationalized, depending on the sector in which it operates.
- Even if the operation is local, the global vision is always instructive.
- What is really important are not the acronyms or the companies but the people who compose them since the cooperative is theirs and must serve them.
- Solidarity and intercooperation mechanisms are necessary but not always sufficient. It is therefore essential to establish mechanisms that anticipate potential problems.
- The cooperative model alone does not ensure good management. It is necessary to have means of control and, above all, to train those who exercise responsibilities. Arizmendiarrieta said that good ideas are those that are converted into action. Values without training will not lead to the right action, and neither will training without values.
- Cooperative governance is a challenge in itself and must be cared for and updated. And since the cooperative belongs to everyone, it is up to all of us to take care of it by exercising our rights but also by assuming responsibilities.