Associated work, joint, for social insertion cooperatives in association with commercial enterprises - MIK

This paper tries to reflect a practical vision of the working processes with people from vulnerable collectives, social entities, public entities and enterprises which makes possible a new working initiative, innovative from the juridical and organizational point of view.

Until recently, the role of the social economy, of linking meeting the needs of the most disadvantaged people of our society with the world of enterprise, has been largely unexplored. Gradually, however, social organisations have begun to assimilate practices of the managerial world with the objective of optimizing time, resources and capabilities, while the enterprise movement is starting to be aware of its responsibility to the environmental and the social world. 

Conscious of the fundamental role played by the social economy in social and economic development, the Management Research Centre of Mondragon Cooperative Corporation (MIK S. Co-op) have developed a research project that aims to open up cooperative enterprise to those people who have difficulty accessing the labour market according to parameters of the European Social Funding:

- Unemployed women.

- Long term unemployed.

- Unemployed people over 45.

- Unemployed immigrants.

- Unemployed young people.

This programme “EQUAL ARIADNA: Innovation in cooperative entrepreneurship with disadvantaged groups" tries to identify and work with new ways of creating cooperative enterprise, with innovation in learning processes to enable those people having difficulties accessing the labour market, to set up of new cooperative companies in the regions of Gipuzkoa and Bizkaia.

To accomplish this objective, the project has the support of the European Social Funding, Basque Government, Gipuzkoa and Bizkaia Regional Governments, as well as different entities such as MCC - Mondragon Cooperative Corporation; Caja Laboral – Financial bank of MCC; and GARAPEN the entity that teams up different Regional Development Agencies from the Basque Country. This project provides a practical vision of the kind working processes generated between people from vulnerable collectives, social entities, public entities and enterprises, which make a new working initiative possible. Taking place in the judicial and organizational arena, this work is innovative, evolving and unfinished in content, and very much of its time.