“When the laundry closed, most of us didn’t like to disperse what we had learned. Many had grown up in this world. In September 2020, the idea of opening a small industrial business on our own was born. We were the last permanent employees, but we no longer wanted to depend on anyone». Valeria is 38 years old and is originally from the province of Viterbo. She had been working for seven years for a laundry in the municipality of Nepi, in Lazio, when the historic business set up 40 years earlier by a local family went bankrupt due to the lockdown. «During the jubilee years, the business had grown to even 40 employees during the high season. But it was linked to large structures that closed during the pandemic never to reopen again», says Valeria a TPI. Months of discouragement follow: for Maria, Giacomo, Marco, Patrizia, Cinzia, workers aged between 50 and 55 who have been employed in the company since its inception, thinking of reentering the world of work and dispersing the skills acquired over decades of experience was a devastating. But a few months later the idea of getting together to start a small business matured. While looking for funding, the seven partners come across Legacoop Lazio, an association that brings together, protects and represents about 500 cooperatives with a total of 23,245 employees in the region. They discover the phenomenon of workers buyout (WBO): former employees of companies in crisis who save the company by founding a cooperative. Thanks to funding from Cfi Cooperation – which uses the resources of the Ministry of Economic Development to finance lines of intervention in share capital and debt capital – Finanza Impresa, Cooperfidi and Coopfond (Legacoop’s mutual fund), found 7Wash, a laundry which one year it came to quintuple customers. Today there are about 50 between Air B&Bs in Rome and restaurants in Tuscia.
Starting again from the ash
«The first loans arrived in May of last year. Now we are starting to see the first fruits», comments Valeria. For two years, together with the other partners, he invested everything he had in starting the business, allocating to the share capital of the cooperative to be set up what would have been owed to it by the State under the Naspi, as required by the Marcora Law of 1985, which has set up a fund intended to safeguard employment through the formation of cooperative enterprises between employees of companies in crisis, currently supported by the CFI. The partners have reduced their salaries in order to purchase the new machinery and keep the space used for the new laundry standing: a 200m2 shed with two professional washing machines and two dryers. But the satisfaction of managing a business independently has paid off for the efforts, and today they manage to make ends meet until the end of the month. «Among partners we are all on the same level, each of us has a job between someone who works in the office like me, who does deliveries, who is the driver, and when needed we take turns. We are happy to have taken this path, there is a perspective for the future, your work is your world, you do not depend on anyone but yourself and the other partners. Everything you do, you do for yourself», adds Valeria. A still uphill path: in two years it will be necessary to start repaying the funds obtained, and in the meantime to deal with the increase in users and the need to replace the machinery. But small business owners see a rosy outlook for the future. «The story of 7Wash – comments Daniela Angher, coordinator of the Services sector of Legacoop Lazio – is an example of a workers buyout which unites, despite the fear of an uncertain future, the courage of a complex choice and the spirit of collaboration: this it has allowed these workers to transform an adventure into an opportunity in which to invest their greatest wealth: human capital. With determination and will, they have found the best expression of doing business in the cooperative form, even in times of such a profound crisis».
Valuing human capital
7wash joins three other cooperatives born from the idea of former employees of companies in crisis in Lazio. Among these is Fenix Pharma, the first and only cooperative active in u sector entirely managed by multinationals such as the pharmaceutical sector, born from a workers buyout led by 40 former employees of the Rome headquarters of the multinational Warner Chilcott. After two years from the purchase of the pharmaceutical branch of Procter and Gamble for 3.1 billion dollars and from entering the European market, when the patent of the purchased drug expired, the US company decided in 2011 to close all activities, dismantling the offices and leaving 130 Italian and 500 European workers at home. Among the former employees there was also Salvatore Manfredi, now CEO of Fenix Pharma. «The objective of the operation was certainly not an industrial project – he says – I was not one of the laid-off people, I had left earlier and started my own business. I was called back to work by my colleagues, many of whom had been hired by me, and we bet on a WBO». Within a few years, with only the forces of human capital rejected by the multinational in Italy, the company took off: if in 2013 the recorded turnover was equal to 4,600,000 euros, in 2021 – after changing the business model – reached eight million. Growth has not been halted by the global crisis: Fenix Pharma has managed to transform co.co.co. of all the working members in category contracts, and in the last two years it has redistributed 500 thousand euros of rebates to the workers (that is, of integration of the remuneration deriving from the profit, subject to limits set by the law and by the market). «We have come to have 42 percent of turnover in equity. It means that the cooperative is consolidating a lot and this will ensure a future for the 42 working members, the 5 non-member employees and the 40 commercial agents, among whom we always hope that one day there will also be members», adds Manfredi.
Favor small businesses
It was the Marcora Law of 1985 that established the revolving fund for the financing of WBO operations, which allows the establishment of cooperatives formed by former employees of companies in crisis or already bankrupt. A law that the president of Legacoop Lazio, Mauro Iengo, has defined as “one of the most evident expressions of the recognition of the social function of cooperation carried out by article 45 of the Constitution”. And that is a function “of a mutual nature and without the purpose of private speculation”, reads the text of the Charter. As Valeria points out, the positive experiences born from the foundation of cooperatives of members who set up a company show that, while large multinationals relocate or close their doors, to create and protect work “it is important to let small companies grow” . «Large companies move or close – underlines the entrepreneur – opportunities should be given to those who want to grow in the area. Don’t think of opening a holding company or spa, but favor small realities, which bear fruit».
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