The MONDRAGON co-operatives tackled a tough, complicated year of international economic crisis, maintaining and focusing more on the characteristics of their co-operative nature, based on the solidarity and commitment of everyone in their capacity as members and workers; banking on innovation and internationalisation.
2008 will be recorded in Eroski’s history as the year in which the process to convert the whole Group into co-operatives was approved at an Extraordinary General Meeting. The public limited companies and those in which Eroski has a holding will be turned into co-operatives and the workers will become worker-members. Caja Laboral’s financial activity was also complicated by the worsening of the global crisis, but it still had a satisfactory year. MONDRAGON continued to focus on its worldwide presence, setting up factories of its own. This was also a basic tool for maintaining local employment: 8 new production plants were set up abroad, taking the total number to 73. The Industrial Area posted sales figures of €6.3m, of which 58.2% (€3.66bn) were from international sales, with not such a big drop (2.2% down on 2007).