What happened
Mixed outcomes. Fagor failed, while the network helped absorb some consequences through relocation and support. Those protections depended on receiving cooperatives and workers’ circumstances; they did not erase the losses or reach everyone equally.
- Fagor went bankrupt in November 2013 after international expansion and restructuring across its parent plants and European subsidiaries. What Do Mondragon Coopitalist Multinationals Look Like? The Rise and Fall of Fagor
- Relocation and retraining offered displaced workers routes into other cooperatives, but some workers objected to temporary placements and receiving cooperatives resisted making them permanent. Intercooperation, flexicurity and their impact on workers: The case of Fagor Electrodomésticos
- Mondragon and Lagun Aro could not simply impose relocations on other cooperatives. Intercooperation, flexicurity and their impact on workers: The case of Fagor Electrodomésticos
What might explain it
Plausible
Federated institutions may protect members against enterprise-specific failure more effectively than an isolated cooperative could. Intercooperation, flexicurity and their impact on workers: The case of Fagor Electrodomésticos
Alternative explanation: A conventional group with strong employment insurance and regional support might provide similar protection; ownership is not the only mechanism.
Supported in case
Solidarity becomes harder when helping displaced insiders competes with local hiring and another cooperative’s flexibility. Intercooperation, flexicurity and their impact on workers: The case of Fagor Electrodomésticos
Alternative explanation: Skills mismatch, market weakness, and existing workforce commitments can explain reluctance without assuming selfishness or ideological collapse.
Understanding the outcome
Flexicurity in cooperative intercooperation
Employment security depended partly on workers moving between cooperatives, linking protection from unemployment to flexibility about where and how they worked. Intercooperation, flexicurity and their impact on workers: The case of Fagor Electrodomésticos
Interview evidence does not establish how a comparable conventional network would have performed.
Questions to take into practice
- Define whether a mutual-support promise protects jobs, income, membership, or a particular workplace.
- Ask who is excluded from protection when enterprises employ nonmembers or operate foreign subsidiaries.
What remains uncertain
- Workers’ accounts reveal conflicting experiences of relocation without establishing how widespread satisfaction or dissatisfaction was. Protection for cooperative members also needs to be distinguished from the experience of nonmembers and employees in foreign subsidiaries.