The first cooperative

On October 24, 1844, twenty-eight weavers of Rochdale, a town on the outskirts of Manchester, founded a small co-operative society with the aim of running their own store of basic products (flour, candles, vegetables, tea, clothes…). Members could buy what they needed while getting some benefits too. It was not the first time workers founded a cooperative. The history of the working-class movement includes many attempts towards cooperatives at the beginning of the 19th century, most of them in the UK. But the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers, which is the full name of this society in Rochdale, was the first cooperative sharing benefits among its members, so it is the pioneer society for future cooperatives.
The beginning of this venture was rather hard: it was difficult to get money to set up a store among poor textile workers. After twenty-two calls to its members, there was not enough money to buy a sack of flour. But people soon realised that investing their savings into such society was a good business because this way they could buy good-quality products at affordable prices and, by the end of the year, they could share benefits (a patronage dividend). Soon, this society reported 5% benefits to its members, which is a good interest rate. However, Rochdale weavers could not easily understand what 5% stands for, so they forgot about percentages and rates and started talking about getting 5 extra pounds out of every 100 pound invested. All clear!
By the end of 1844, they could open a store at Toad Lane, and soon, as this society developed, they took the whole building and set up other stores in Rochdale. In 1849, there were 390 members and a capital of 1,193 pounds. In the following year, its membership got doubled and by 1893 there were 12,570 members. This was the onset of the cooperative movement.
At first, the Equitable Pioneers set up a mill (to control the whole process from grains to selling flour), a slaughterhouse, a butcher’s, stables and even a mutual fund. They opened other branches and they helped other cooperatives to develop. In 1863, following Rochdale’s success, there were more than five hundred cooperative stores around the UK. And in 1943, just one century afterwards, the cooperative movement had nine million members in this island.
The key to success for this cooperative was not only sharing patronage dividends, but also caring for education. From the very beginning, when there was not even enough money to buy flour, 2.5% benefits were invested in education. Soon, they could have a library, a bookstore and a newspaper room. In 1850, soon after its foundation, the bookstore had 200 books every week. On the second floor at Toad Lane, every evening and every weekend there were conferences and courses on science, history, politics and economy. Thanks to the promotion of education and culture, Rochdale workers could make the best of their skills, favouring the cooperative management, people’s involvement and participation and the spreading of their principles.
The “28 people” in Rochdale who set up a dim store in the outskirts of an industrial town more than 150 years ago have now become an icon of the cooperative movement. Most of their principles are still valid. Therefore, it was a very significant milestone in our history, but most people never heard about it.
At school, when we talk about crucial moments in our history, we always refer to battles, treaties and scientific or geographic discoveries, but we rarely talk about such social landmarks. Maybe we should give more importance to people and movements changing our society and working towards justice and social welfare.

Sources:

1. Most information in this post is taken from George Jacob Holyoake’s book The History of the Rochdale Pioneers: http://www26.us.archive.org/details/historyofrochdal00holyuoft
2. Rochdale, on the outskirts of Manchester: http://www.rochdale.gov.uk/
3. The onset of the working-class movements: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utopian_socialism
4. About the Rochdale Society of Equitable Pioneers: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_Society_of_Equitable_Pioneers
5. Rochdale principles: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rochdale_Principles

     
     
     

Buying clothes at the supermarket

There are more and more people who buy clothes at the supermarket. These clothes are cheaper and you can buy them while filling your shopping cart with groceries. Convenience and low prices are key to turn discount retailers into an outlet of clothes and shoes. In 2005, giant retailers sold 54,000 million euros in clothes and shoes, which represents 6% of global sales. And these figures increase every year. 
At present, the largest corporation is a department store: Walmart, from the US, is largest retailer in the world. Every week, 175 million people buy there. The second and third top supermarkets are the English Tesco (with 30 million customers every week) and the French Carrefour (with 25 million customers). The fourth and fifth positions are for German discount retailers Lidl and Aldi. All these retailers offer such low prices that they are becoming more and more popular (thanks to the financial crisis too) and in 2012 they represented 20% of the market share.
Clothes sold in such department stores are of poor quality, like most other products. But it is so cheap that customers find it convenient and when it wears out, people throw it away and buy new clothes. However, such low prices hide a secret. The Clean Clothes Campaign, launched by many NGOs, unions and consumer’s associations worldwide, advocates to improve the work conditions in the garment industry and minimize the environmental impact of clothes manufacturing. This campaign includes a report about clothes sold by giant retailers. The conclusions of this report are clear: working conditions in the garment industry are very precarious because supermarkets and retailers push suppliers into selling at very low prices. Under such pressure, manufacturers (working always in poor countries with inadequate or inexistent work regulations) pay miserable salaries, offer no safety to their employees and dump chemical products into the environment.
Just to set an example: in 2006, the number of garment companies supplying clothes to Walmart with a “medium-risk” or “high-risk” violation of work standards represented 91%. And bear in mind that these working standards are very low: most clothes manufacturers set a minimum wage of just 50% of the living wage. In Bangalore (India), for instance, an average family needs 80 euros to cover their basic needs, but most workers in this area just earn 42 euros. In Sri Lanka, only 43.9% of workers earn a salary equal to or greater than the minimum living wage established by law in this country. Moreover, most of these companies do not allow unions, and work contracts are for the short-term and very precarious.
Not only clothes manufacturers have a hard time: shop assistants and store clerks also have poor work conditions. Walmart employs 2 million people for distribution and sales (not including product manufacturers) with the following work conditions: a maximum of 72 hours/week, no minimum wage and worse conditions every day. Therefore, it is easy to understand how such discount retailers can offer really low prices. But it is worth buying these products?
Two more data to better understand the consequences of buying cheap clothes. As these clothes are imported from very far-away countries, every department store releases three times more CO2 emissions than any local shop. And, as average, having a giant retailer involves loosing 276 job posts and closing local shops within a 12-km radius.

Sources:

1. Clean Clothes Campaign: http://www.cleanclothes.org/
2. The data of this post is taken from the report Cashing In: Giant retailers, purchasing practice and working conditions in the garment industry drawn by the Clean Clothes Campaign (available in several languages): https://www.cleanclothes.org/resources/ccc/working-conditions/cashing-in

     
    
 

Become a fish fighter!

Not long ago, we published a post in this blog about the problems of overfishing and the extinction of ocean resources. At present, oceans are in dire straits. In the last 60 years, 90% of large fish have disappeared and, at this rate, in 2050 there will be no more fish to catch. 75% of the world’s fish stocks are overexploited and, in the Mediterranean Sea, which is small but with densely populated shores, this percentage is even larger: 87%.

In terms of consumption, Spain is one of the countries with the highest fish consumption in the world. But it is not fish caught in the Spanish shores: Spaniards eat fish from all around the world. If in 2012 Spaniards ate fish from its shores, in May 2012 there would be no fish left there. Therefore, fish consumption in Spain exceeds its reasonable amounts. And on top of that, a lot of fish caught from the ocean is not even consumed: it is thrown back overboard dead, because it does not have a good size, or it is not a popular species to eat, or it exceeds the number of tonnes fished of a given species allowed for each boat.

And we are not talking of just some fish: we are talking of 42% of fish trawled by large fishing boats which is thrown back overboard dead. This way, every year in Europe, one million tonnes of fish is discarded. What an insane waste!

In order to avoid this malpractice, the international campaign Fish Fight is collecting signatures to put pressure on the European Commissioner for Maritime Affairs and Fisheries. The EU fishery policies are being discussed and it is important to be heard so that this insane waste is put to an end.

More data: trawling boats discard 42% of the fish caught, whereas small traditional fishing boats only discard 3% of fish. And also, the later employ more people, preserve millenary traditions and the catch is local.

Sources

1. Post at Delivering Data about salmon fishing:
2. Website about overfishing, a global disaster: http://overfishing.org/
3. Every year, one million tons of fish is thrown overboard dead in Europe: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2012/jun/13/fishing-discards-ban-eu
4. Large fishing boats: http://gustavoduch.wordpress.com/2012/11/07/la-extincion-2/
5. Fish Fight campaign: http://www.fishfight.net/
6. A very interesting website about the EU fisheries policies: http://www.fishforthefuture.eu/

    
    
     
    

Lo que hay que Wert!

For the first time in our blog, we are not the authors of this post. Our guest is José Ignacio Wert, the current Spanish Minister of Education, Culture and Sports, because writing about cuts in the Spanish education system only requires a copy-paste of the Spanish Minister’s best quotes about education.  Such shameful pearls of wisdom are published in the website Lo que hay que Wert, which is a campaign launched by the NGO Educación Sin Fronteras (Education Without Borders) to claim that the education budget of 2013 should be at least like the education budget of 2011.
The Spanish Minister of Education, Culture and Sports said:

• "Public education is no longer contributing to our society".
• "Populist temptation is everywhere, but when people say that government should help people instead of helping banks, the claim is formulated wrongly, because helping banks means helping people".
• [About overcrowded schools] "We should bear in mind that, besides learning, kids go to school to mingle with other kids, communicate with each other, have different experiences… And this would be very difficult if there were few kids in each classroom”.
• [About the brain drain] "I don’t think it should be called brain drain. It is not negative at all to have young people with skills and willingness to move around, who can speak foreign languages, who are willing to live far from home, who wish to broaden their professional scope…".
• "The concept of school community is abusive and invasive. The idea of a managing board made up of parents, students, teachers and non-teaching staff is not possible because schools are not a democracy, as education is not a democratic process”.
• "What do you mean that some families do not have enough resources to pay school taxes? Maybe these families prefer spending their money on other things than schooling ".

If you are against cuts in education, sign up here, and talk about it.

Sources:

1. José Ignacio Wert: http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Ignacio_Wert
2. Campaign Lo que hay que Wert: www.loquehayquewert.org
3. Educación Sin Fronteras: http://www.educacionsinfronteras.org
4. Sign here against the cuts in education: http://www.loquehayquewert.org/firma.php