THE STORY.
A PASSION FOR MORE THAN 70 YEARS
THE BEGINNING.
The Brickmakers’ Cooperative of the City of Correggio was formed on June 25, 1945, when many furnace workers were without employment.
About 30 of them decided to rent the Giovannetti brothers’ furnace, which had been idle for several years, and to search for the first equipment and coal stocks to start production.
Above all, wheelbarrows, spades, shovels and hoes are purchased, since clay is quarried and worked by hand: a bank loan of one million liras is then resorted to, which is endorsed by industrialist Arrigo Cagarella and secured by 700,000 raw bricks produced.
THE FIRST PRODUCTION.
The workers have acquired not only a high level of political consciousness but also a high level of professionalism. Member participation in the economic, social and political life of the cooperative was so high that we can truly speak for this company of “worker self-management.” In the early years to keep the enterprise going, worker-members must make considerable sacrifices in terms of free labor hours and delayed payment of wages.Nei primi anni per mantenere in vita l’impresa i lavoratori-soci devono compiere notevoli sacrifici in termini di ore di lavoro gratuito e di ritardato pagamento dei salari. Then they come to pay union wages on a regular basis, and in recent years have been offering members economic and regulatory treatment above the industry average.
In the 1960s, an internal mutual insurance company also operated to supplement the still scarce welfare, mutual, and social security benefits that the state provided to employees.