2025 EXHIBIT
The Mondragon Experience
A More Human Way to Work
In a standard US corporation, the CEO is paid about 400 times what the typical employee makes. In the worker cooperatives that comprise the Mondragon Corporation, that ratio never exceeds 9 to 1. The Mondragon cooperatives, which began in Basque Spain in 1956, were born out of a desire to apply Catholic Social Teaching to the world of work. Together, they now employ over 70,000 people, most of whom are worker-owners. What does it look like to put the principles of solidarity, subsidiarity, participation, and the common good into practice in a business? Can it succeed in a world dominated by greed? And why has the Mondragon experience never been successfully replicated? This exhibit will explore the world of worker-cooperatives, their relationship to the social teaching of the Catholic Church, and the challenges they face in the modern economy.
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Orbea, which manufactures and sells bicycles, is one of nearly 100 worker-owned cooperatives in the Mondragon Corporation network. Photographer: Markel Redondo for Bloomberg.
