Lynn labor leaders look to form worker’s co-op

LYNN – Two local labor leaders want to start a worker-owned cooperative in Lynn, modeled after a successful one in Spain, as a way to create jobs and wealth for the city’s working class.The enterprise would focus on aquaponics – essentially growing vegetables without soil or chemical fertilizers, according to organizer Tony Dunn. A functioning prototype of an aquaponics operation is set up in the window of Serving People in Need (SPIN) at 270 Union St.Dunn, the community services liaison to the United Way of Massachusetts Bay and the Merrimack Valley, traveled in January to the village of Mondragon in Spain’s Basque region. He was accompanied by MIT graduate student Elisha Goodman, an aquaponics expert, and Jeffrey Crosby, president of Local 201 IUE-CWA and former head of the North Shore Labor Council.”We want to re-create what they’ve done at Mondragon here in Lynn,” said Dunn, noting Mondragon is the world’s oldest and most successful worker-owned cooperative. “We have an anonymous wealthy patron interested in making that happen. He thinks this is a way to share the wealth among the people of the city of Lynn. He’s not talking about creating a non-profit. He wants to make a profit and distribute the wealth among the co-op members.”Mondragon has more than 100 businesses and 92,000 employees in its portfolio, with a combined estimated value of $33 billion euros.”It’s a democratic model. Instead of just one guy at the top with all the votes, every worker has a say,” Dunn said. “When a new business comes in, the idea is to eventually reach a point where it is 80 percent worker-owned.”To kick off the plan here, organizers are aiming to embrace the aquaponics model by constructing a community-sized facility inside a 5,000-square-foot greenhouse.Andy Dillenbeck, a SPIN staffer overseeing the prototype, said the model is well-suited to places with little rainfall and arable soil, often the case in urban areas. “The system doesn’t require soil or pesticides or fertilizers,” he said.He explained how excrement from fish living in a holding tank is pumped into a network of pipes that water the vegetables.”We’re growing beans, Swiss chard and watercress right now,” Dillenbeck said. “It doesn’t take much water because we only have to replace what’s lost through evaporation.”Dunn said the business model makes sense.”Initially we could make the food available in winter months to schools, hospitals and even some restaurants if they’re interested. We’d also like to build the project into the curriculum at Lynn Tech,” he said.Lynn Tech and members of the Lynn Coalition for Green Development helped construct the aquaponics prototype.According to Dunn, the town of Mondragon is known to the local Basques as Arrasate, but the community is largely defined by the worker’s cooperative begun by a priest in 1956. Since its inception, its businesses are spread across five sectors: financial, industrial, retail, research and development and education.”Within the industrial sector they have companies specializing in automotive components, construction, industrial equipment, domestic appliances, engineering and capital goods and machine tools,” Dunn said, noting the businesses are overseen by the Mondragon Congress and the General Council.