Backlight: Mondragon's Miracle

Backlight is staying in the Basque village of Mondragón, where the majority of the population works in cooperatives.

All employees are also co-owners and together they decide on the company policy. Even in today’s harsh economic climate, this approach is successful. Mondragón manufactures high-grade technological products and is now the seventh largest company in Spain, a multinational with branches all over the world.

Backlight investigates the cooperative model in times of crisis. “1 employee = 1 vote”, and in this way the fridge factory workers democratically decided to hand in 8% of their wages last year in order to cushion the financial blow together. But how firmly is this model anchored in society? Are notions like solidarity, participation and self-support generally accepted? Backlight follows some of the key people from all levels of local society: the police officer, the bank director, the mayor, the priest, the conveyor worker. They all show the sweet and the sour side of the model from their own perspective.