The Global Worker Cooperative Day, the main international event for worker and social cooperatives, will be held today (November 16, 2012) in Marseille, in the framework of the International Year of Cooperatives and of the Congress of the French Worker Cooperatives (Scop). The event, organized jointly by CICOPA and CG Scop, was preceded by a day focused on the French cooperative movement in which participants visited the mooring men cooperative of Marseille. This cooperative, located in Golfe de Fos, France (Coopérative de lamanage des ports de Marseille et du golfe de Fos, in French) was founded in 1946. It is one of the oldest worker cooperatives in the region of Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur. It provides mooring operations, towing and docking ships in the ports of Marseille.
Arnoux Mayoly, the cooperative's manager, reports that the cooperative faces the same day to day challenges of all enterprises: it needs to adapt itself and be aware in every field. "We have done it in 2008 to face to the crisis. We have developed ourselves and we have adapted our instruments to the new necessities in terms of technical innovation", underlines Mayoly. But the worker cooperative's decision making process needs to put the workers together. "This demands a lot of work to ensure that the information flows in the enterprise and that it is understood for every single member of the cooperative. This is our strength, because decisions are a collective choice". The cooperative brings together 95 employees, 85% of them being members. It has a turnover of more than 9 million euros per year.
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