Uruguayan president praises tannery co-operative
03/04/2013
Situated in Florida, 90 kilometres from Montevideo, the tannery, El Águila, started production again this time last year under ownership of a workers’ co-operative.
“None of you is going to get rich from this,” he told the workers during the anniversary visit. “To get rich you have to have a lot of people working for the benefit of only a few. But this is an example of what can be done in Uruguay, a country in which we have something of a crisis of entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurial projects like this one cannot and must not fail because this is an example for the the whole of our society, showing that workers can be their own bosses.”
He encouraged the workers at El Águila to fight hard to sell the leather they produce at the best possible price, to “muscle their way onto the market” to compete against private-sector rivals. “Your principles are for inside the tannery,” he said. “Outside, it’s business.”
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