The workers at a ceramics factory in L'Hospitalet take over and transform it into a cooperative.

EsCultura continues a business with four decades of history with the support of The Cooperative Athenaeum La Col·lectiva.

• Occupation

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Joana Junyent i Rofes

A pottery factory with about forty years of history will continue to be active thanks to its own workers. With the retirement of the former owners, six women who were already part of the team have taken over the business and made it a cooperative thanks to the accompaniment of The Collective, the Cooperative Athenaeum of Hospitalet de Llobregat(Barcelonès). EsCultura, a project that maintains industrial activity in the municipality and opens a new stage under a model of collective ownership and management.

The workshop is located on the Carretera del Mig, one of the spaces that had traditionally concentrated much of the industrial activity of L'Hospitalet de Llobregat and which is now immersed in a process of reconversion of uses. For La Col·lectiva, an entity that has accompanied workers during the process, that a productive activity can continue in this environment has a special relevance. “For us it is very important that there is a cooperative relief of a manufacturing company in the city in a space of resistance that is precisely in the process of conversion”, they explained the members of the Ateneu Cooperatiu de l’Hospitalet, Andrea Carrión and Laia Ramos.

EsCultura takes over from a company that has been active for about four decades. Its beginnings are linked to the production of souvenirs sold in small stops on the Rambla de Barcelona, but over time the workshop was specialized and began to work for the ceramics and museums sector. Currently, the activity combines the production of pieces for cultural institutions with commissions linked to tourism.

The new project consists of the six employees of the company, who already knew the operation of the workshop. All of them are potters formed in Catalonia and have a trajectory linked to crafts, a knowledge that now moves to a company that maintains a productive industrial dimension.

De treballadores a sòcies cooperativistes

The transformation of the business has not only meant to prevent its closure. Workers have gone from being waged to becoming working partners and assuming responsibility for the future of the company. “The main change is more benefits for people who were previously working and are now members, especially in democracy and decision making.”, they point out from The Collective. Now, with the new cooperative model, workers can collectively decide how they organize their activity, how they rule the company and where they want to orient it.

The change of property can also open a new business stage. The generational relief, explained by Ramos and Carrión, can lead to changes in business orientation, the exploration of new customers or the incorporation of new lines of work. At the same time, the cooperative form can facilitate a closer relationship with the environment and the ecosystem of the city's social and solidarity economy..

In this process of internal transformation, The Collective has played a supporting role in different areas. The Athenaeum initially received the request of the workers, who knew little about the cooperative model, but wanted to explore this way to give continuity to the workshop. From there, the accompaniment has also included the study of economic and technical viability, the search for financing routes, legal advice and interlocution with the former owners.

Maintain the industrial activity of the city

For The Collective, the case of EsCultura shows one of the possibilities offered by cooperativism in the face of business disappearance when retirement processes arrive. Instead of closing the activity or transferring it to another operator, the same workers have been able to assume the property and maintain the jobs. “It is the first successful cooperative relief process we have carried", they explain. And they add: “Above all, it is an important project, as it belongs to an axis and sector as strategic as it is the industrialist, which is now key to the solidarity economy and cooperativism.”.

The Athenaeum argues that this type of process can be an alternative to preserve economic activity rooted in the territory. “It is essential to give visibility to the fact that these initiatives can be successful and that cooperative form can also be a way to maintain jobs and localized industrial production.”, they remark.

For this reason, The group will recognize the EsCultura project at the end of September, granting it the Rosita Award to promote cooperativism., an award given annually by the Athenaeum.

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