Brownbag: Josu Ugarte speaks

Join a discussion with Josu Urgarte, president of Mondragon International, about a “multi-localization” approach to globalizing factory-based production that creates domestic employment with higher wages.

May 7 @ 12:00 pm – 1:30 pm (updated date and time)

IPS Conference Room
1112 16th Street NW, Suite 600
Washington, DC

Please RSVP: In person or via webinar 

Washington, DC is consumed by the upcoming Trans-Pacific Trade (TPP) Deal and the pending vote over Congress giving President Obama Fast Track authority. Much of the opposition centers on what happened to U.S. manufacturing workers when President Clinton signed the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) in 1992. It subsequently shut down over 60,000 factories by outsourcing and off-shoring from U.S. working-class communities to destinations beyond our borders. This zero-sum approach represents a false reality once worker-ownership enters the manufacturing equation.

You’re invited to a discussion with Josu Ugarte, President of Mondragon International, who presented a paper to the London School of Economics in July of 2012 providing metrics on how Mondragon’s “multi-localization” approach both facilitates globalizing factory-based production while creating more domestic employment with higher wages as a direct result of internationalizing operations. Multi-localization contradicts the financial rationale for outsourcing and off-shoring based on global labor arbitrage.

In light of the uprising in Baltimore, we have also decided to reframe the discussion to focus on strategies for transitioning Baltimore — and greater Maryland — towards a New Economy. We hope to discuss inner-city equity as a key to sustaining job creation, improving citywide procurement systems, and starting up cooperative housing, which turns renters into owners. We’ll also look at place-based cooperatives in agriculture, grocery stores, solar energy installations, taxi companies, and community health centers. This is a left-right solution, where governments can combine financial incentives and local procurement equality with private-sector bootstrapping — such as “do it yourself” (DIY) entrepreneurial business practices — in a way that fosters racial justice. Click here for more information about the event.

Mondragon is the world’s largest worker-owned industrial cooperative but also the top Basque region industrial group, ranked tenth in Spain with 80,000 personnel, a presence in 70 countries, and winner of the 2013 Financial Times “Boldness in Business” award. Mondragon’s more than 60-year old mission is to generate wealth for society through business development and job creation under the “one worker, one vote” cooperative framework where labor is sovereign and capital, while essential, is subordinate to sustainable job creation.

Co-sponsors: IPS’ New Economy Working Group, Metro Washington Council AFL-CIO, Mondragon North America, 1worker1vote.org, Impact Hub DC, Solidarity Economy DC, The Democracy Collaborative, Moving Images, producer of SHIFT CHANGE. www.shiftchangeorg