Michael Peck – One Worker, One Vote and the Nationwide Union/Co-op Movement

Summary

Michael founded MAPA Group more than 20 years ago in 1994, outlining a recognized triangular business development approach to the “Iberoamerican Marketplace” involving best practice, cross-border commercial opportunities between the Iberian Peninsula (mostly Spain), Latin America, and the United States. Michael was instrumental in bringing the leading multinational Spanish wind turbine manufacturer, Gamesa, to Pennsylvania in 2004 which during the 2006 – 2011 timeframe invested more than $220 million in two factories, created 1,000 in-state green jobs and was described as a “model U.S. green economy company.”

Since 2000, Michael has served as the North American delegate for Mondragon, the world’s largest industrial worker cooperative with USA 2013 sales at the $250 million level.  On March 26th, 2012, the United Steelworkers Union (USW – North America’s largest manufacturing union), Mondragon, and the Ohio Employee Ownership Center (OEOC) announced the union-coop template to create worker-owner hybrid projects and businesses with the goal of revamping U.S. manufacturing through worker empowerment and ownership.

In January 2014, Michael helped to launch the nonprofit 1worker1vote.org, dedicated to solving America’s unhealthy and unequal opportunity, mobility, and wealth divides through broad-based, equal share worker ownership. This movement is now operating in more than 11 U.S. municipalities in varying development stages.