Special Report: A Personal Perspective

The Social Cooperative

Dr. Renata Goegren
Consortio per I’Impresa Sociale Cooperativa
Paolo De Ralli, 3
34127 Trieste, Italy
Telephone: + 39 40 54903
Fax: + 39 40 566819

More than 20 years ago, the Italian government, beginning to address the concerns of persons with psychiatric disabilities, decided to implement a plan for deinstitutionalization. At that time, a young innovative psychiatrist, Dr. Franco Basaglia, was charged with closing the large state hospital in Trieste and establishing necessary placements in the community. Fortunately, Basaglia did not view persons with psychiatric disabilities in a purely medical context, but rather, also in a social context, recognizing their need to play a valuable role in society. In particular, he understood the need for meaningful employment.

When Basaglia started the process of deinstitutionalization, he literally locked the front doors of the city hospital and did not permit anyone to be admitted. Because most of the patients he discharged had not lived in the community for many years, he ordered all of the community mental health centers in the region to provide services 24 hours a day to support patients during their transition. As the hospital wards began to empty and ultimately shut down, Basaglia realized that even though the consumers now in the community were stabilized, they continued to feel lonely and apprehensive about taking further steps toward recovery.

Both Basaglia and the consumers quickly came to believe that the best way to integrate into Triesten society would be by finding jobs. Unfortunately, the citizens of Trieste, and especially the business owners, discriminated persistently against the consumers by not permitting them to apply for jobs or by automatically denying them employment. Basaglia and the consumers found themselves constantly frustrated and disappointed. Some of the former inpatients even began to believe that living in the community was more difficult than living in the hospital, but Basaglia, not easily daunted, decided to look for more innovative means of employment.

During this same time period, the direct care employees at the hospital were earning very poor wages and many of them were forced to take on second jobs to subsidize their incomes. These second jobs ranged from carpentry to small agricultural enterprises to more skilled work, like bookbinding. Basaglia began to encourage these direct care workers, who were more open to interacting with people with psychiatric disabilities, to employ consumers to assist them in their second jobs. In short time, a few of the small enterprises began growing into larger businesses. As these businesses became successful, more and more consumers were employed. And as the need for space for these growing businesses became pressing, Basaglia arranged for an empty hospital wards to be renovated into office and manufacturing space. The old state hospital’s central location, accessible by public transportation, proved ideal for these purposes.

The environment, today called the “business park,” no longer bears any resemblance to a hospital. The park’s small businesses are run as six “social cooperatives” and consumers are full partners in the enterprises. Employees are organized into small unions, better known as guilds, and a majority of the partners must be consumers. Indeed, out of the 400 partners in these cooperatives, half have psychiatric disabilities. Furthermore, there are more than 60 trainees who earn wages equal to their fully employed colleagues. The cooperatives all belong to the Consorzio per I’Impresa Sociale, a special association established in 1991 to support their administrative and corporate functions, and all of the cooperatives operate under free-market principles. Over the years, these social cooperatives have expanded from carpentry and agricultural ventures to include hi-tech businesses and enterprises requiring highly skilled labor. The following describes the six cooperatives.

1. The Lavoratori Uniti Cooperative, founded in 1972, is the oldest cooperative and now employs more than 120 workers with an annual revenue of about three billion lire. This cooperative provides various services including transportation, cleaning, and bookbinding.
2. The La Collina Cooperative Sociale is considered the artistic cooperative because it works in the fields of photography, graphics, theater, video and carpentry. In the carpentry division, furniture is manufactured for schools and hospitals. There are only eight persons in this cooperative, all of whom are consumers, and their revenues exceed two billion lire a year.
3. The Il Posto Delle Fragole Cooperative provides tourist services throughout Trieste, operates several restaurants, runs a hotel on the seaside, manages several pubs, and runs a hairstyling center. There are 21 members of whom eleven are disabled.
4. The Crea Cooperative Sociale, the most recently established cooperative, operates a building renovation business.
5. The Agricola M.S. Pantaleone Cooperative works in the gardening sector. In addition to contracting with various businesses and private home owners, this cooperative also contracts to care for the campus of the business park.
6. The Agenzia Socialle assists persons experiencing psychiatric and/or drug addiction problems. In addition to selected case management tasks, this cooperative also provides in-home health services.

By law, none of the cooperatives may share its profits with the various partners. Rather, all profits are reinvested into the cooperative and are therefore not subject to taxes. At the same time, the partners are the legal owners. When a new partner joins a cooperative, she pays an associative fee, which is returned if she departs from the cooperative. The sum of all of the partners’ shares makes up the company’s capital. In other words, all of the partners are entrepreneurs and run the risk of losing their investment. Also, each partner has one vote, regardless of the shares he owns. At an annual Board of Directors meeting, the officers are elected, and it is mandatory that the majority of the officers be active working partners with psychiatric disabilities.

Italian Law 381 governs the cooperatives, defining them as “corporate entities” aimed at “pursuing the general interests of the community in human promotion and social integration, by managing different activities, with the aim of providing jobs for disadvantaged people.” Today, the six social cooperatives thrive economically and also serve as a symbol of the consumer’s ability to pursue entrepreneurial efforts and participate in a competitive marketplace.