Mr. Blueh was one of the Speakers at the Pressenza Workshop of the Deutsche Welle Global Media Forum,. Here we publish his words:
“We thank Pressenza news agency for inviting us to participate in this Global Media Forum “The Future of Growth – economic values and the Media.”
I would like to briefly introduce myself.
I live in Chile. I am an industrial engineer by profession and have been a partner and manager of Alfacom Engineering for 19 years, a company dedicated to the business of technology solutions, which now employs 55 people. My partner and I participate in a current of thought called New Humanism, founded by Silo. Over the years we have found our main source of inspiration to build our company in the “Document of the Humanist Movement,” which is included in the book Letters to my Friends by Silo, 1992.
Today it is very difficult to survive for small and medium companies; they face unfair competition from large corporations which, through their international links, have all the labour, financial and production advantages.
They can produce, find workers or financing and establish themselves anywhere in the world, wherever it suits them circumstantially. Small and medium enterprises, instead, are competing locally with their products and services, based on the daily effort made by employers and workers. Thus, the conditions are given for small and medium businesses to disappear, and for only a few multinational corporations to remain, with a complete vertical integration.
In order to survive and compete, small and medium enterprises need to adapt to these new times. Based on our experience, the best way is to transform the current business in a company with a humanist style, in which Labour and Capital cooperate to face the future together, each contributing their best, giving the company greater strength, intelligence and flexibility.
To achieve this transformation we consider it has to be supported by two pillars: first, building the company together with the workers, and second, avoiding the financial system.
Now , Iam going to highlight here some aspects that enable progress toward a humanist style company.
1. Transformation of the relationship between capital and labour : Today the relationship between capital and labour is an absurd, cruel and dehumanising relationship. If the employer puts the sole interest in maximising profitability, this generates a relationship in which labour is concerned only with itself, and the same goes for capital, damaging both of them and failing to create a relationship of mutual trust necessary for any project.
When labour and capital manage to attune themselves to each other’s needs and interests, they generate a growing and virtuous relationship of mutual support in which management and decision making in the company are shared.
This support manifests itself in the form of long-term projects in which each party puts their best. This is the only way to make the best decisions for the company as a whole and in the long run.
2.- Inclusion of worker’s ownership : Considering the times of crisis in the economy, we believe it is right and necessary to incorporate the delivery of property to the worker, where the company’s employee participates not only through wages but also in the profits and especially in its management. This process supports gradations ranging from minority shareholding up to full majority, even reaching the holding of the totality of the shares as well as complete decision making in managing the company. In times of crisis, participation in profits could go hand in hand with participation in losses, helping in this way the emergence from difficult times also together.
3.-Destination of profits : today capital requires the company to maximise its returns and effect the greatest distribution of profits to its shareholders. Gains not set aside for reinvestment in the business, creation of new jobs, or used for expansion and diversification, drift towards financial speculation. This results in a weakening of the company, a deterioration of the relationship with its workforce and the strengthening of the large corporations supported by financial capital. In our experience, in addition to continuous reinvestment it is necessary to gather some savings. These savings allow reinvestment in the business, financing new projects, spending during hard times and preserving the independence from the financial system. Therefore, building a reserve and reinvestment fund is essential for future development.
4.- Avoid getting into debt : A company, in order to start and grow, does not need to borrow, much less from the banking system. We have seen many examples of companies that today are quite large but which started many years ago without any capital. Surely you know family or friends businesses that began very humbly, sometimes in small, borrowed premises, beginning with hardly any capital, perhaps helped in a small way by a friend or a close relative to start with. Well, that is our experience. Our company started with no debt and we pledged not to acquire it, so in 20 years we have never had any. It seems to me wrong to suggest that a company always needs to get a bank loan to start and then continue borrowing in order to develop its project. This has to do with the propaganda of the banks and the impatience of new entrepreneurs. It might take longer for the growth of the company, but sometimes the long way round is better than the shortcuts. Developing a business without bank loans and without a large capital generates low cost conditions of origin and well proportioned projects. A large credit, instead, can be a death trap, comparable to wanting to “take the heaven by assault.” It may be of interest, however, to find a nonprofit cooperative bank rather than a speculative private bank as a means to respond to a need for credit to start a business, but in any case the amount and the terms of this credit must not mortgage the future of the company, the employer and the workers.
5.- Decentralised Organisation : Today we are at a stage in history in which no one wants to have bosses, nobody believes in or wants centralised organisation or decision making. Moreover, given the complexity of the world, we cannot pretend that one person can make decisions for a whole company. Today, the company has to be decentralised in its decision making, horizontal in its organisation and diverse in its composition. A company cannot be a vertical and authoritarian organisation.
6.- The treatment A company is a human organisation in which the treatment of their participants is crucial. We have found that the best criterion for relationships both inside and outside the company, is trying to apply the golden rule that says: “treat others as you want them to treat you.” We have also been employees and that experience leads us to be convinced that relations within and outside the company need to consider this principle. Failure to do so undermines the construction and the internal relationships. Implementing it strengthens the project.
The management of a company represents an important situation of power in workers’ lives. People in positions of power must, in addition to their professional skills, include a level of development in their personal lives such that their decisions and relationships are the best for the company as a whole. Usually mistreatment and abuse have more to do with personal problems than with work ones. The more power one holds, the more essential it becomes to prioritise personal development, balance and sanity. My partner and I usually carry out personal work that will allow us the best relationships, the least compulsion and the most attention.
When we employ someone, we do so thinking this person will be in the business for a long time, we project with the person and grow with them. By thinking this way, we are assuming that this long-term employment will have good times and also that there will be difficult ones, but our bet is that we will overcome them and learn together.
In our view, as the recession continues to worsen, it will be entrepreneurs themselves that will begin to consider these points, looking to help survive and give a future to their business projects”.
