Nassau OTB, a public benefit corporation, employees have more gambling and people common sense than the politicians (et al) who helped kill NYC OTB in bankruptcy, caused Suffolk OTB to file for bankruptcy, and have clouded the minds of Nassau OTB and Nassau County politicians with the crack like haze of slot machines and dreams of Palaces eg The Nassau OTB Race Palace.
The hardworking gambler friendly workers of Nassau OTB may learn alot of what could, should and can be done from their brethren in Italy.
If only politicians worked and did not skim fatal amounts?
Andrew Cuomo might learn from a trip to Italy that private casinos are not the keys to the White House and that OTBs may be well run when the employees have a say in their operation and provide a good dose of common sense and gambling acumen.
PADUA, Italy — High-end printing is an artisans’ job in Italy. For those books, the gluing and the binding of the pages is predominantly done by hand.
But at Editoriale Zanardi, a prestige book printer in northeast Italy, even the management fell into its workers’ hands last year, when they bought out the company that had employed them for years.
Zanardi
is one of the dozens of small and medium-size enterprises in Italy that
were brought to their knees by the economic crisis, but whose employees
trusted in their companies enough to invest their unemployment and
severance payments to create cooperatives and start producing again.
This
kind of bonding together to weather Europe’s tough economic times has
grown more common, not only in Italy but also in Spain and France, all
countries that take pride in maintaining small, often family-run
businesses.
But
Zanardi’s story, equal parts tragedy and resilience, also in many ways
reflects the character of Padua itself. Through its long history, it has
been conquered and ruled by many, among them Huns, Byzantines,
Lombards, Venetians and Austrians. But it has produced masterworks, like
Giotto’s Scrovegni Chapel, and created one of Italy’s oldest
universities, where Galileo once taught.
AUSTRIA
switzERLAND
SLOVENIA
Venice
Milan
Padua
Adriatic
Sea
Ligurian
Sea
FRANCE
Florence
Italy
corsica
Rome
Tyrrhenian
Sea
80 mileS
At the onset of Europe’s debt crisis,
in 2008, Zanardi, which started in the 1960s as an artisanal rebinding
shop in Padua, provided about 180 jobs. By 2012 that had shrunk to 105,
after a series of bad management decisions and the effects of the
downturn left the company accumulating debt.
Deeply distressed by the situation, one of the two owners committed suicide in the factory.
“I
thought, I am not going to give up, and I poured all of my soul here,”
said Solimano Dal Corso, the 42-year-old production manager of what is
now the co-op.
“We
became very flexible, took a pay cut, and became entrepreneurs,” he
said. “We are giving up a little bit now, and investing in the future.
This is how we do things here.”
The
odds of such a turnabout remain long. Italian banks are extremely
reluctant to provide cash to businesses, especially to those in trouble.
International investors are not interested in small or medium-size
enterprises, but rather in big brands of global reputation, experts
said.
But
in Italy, in particular, many workers nonetheless hold out faith that
their specialized artisanal work can give them a unique niche, even in a
globalized marketplace.
Mr.
Dal Corso has worked in the printing business for his entire career,
and when Zanardi went bankrupt, he found himself unemployed and worked
for other, similar businesses in the area.
He wanted to figure out whether the co-op idea was feasible, and whether their possible competitors were way ahead of them.
“It
turned out they were not,” he said, his hands on his hips as the
printing machine rolled out fresh book pages on a recent crisp morning.
Last
May, Mr. Dal Corso, 20 colleagues and the company’s former business
consultant drafted a business plan and took it for evaluation to the
Ministry for Economic Development in Rome. More than five months later,
the new co-op was granted a license from the commercial court completing
the bankruptcy procedure, and a lease on the machines and the
facilities. The company was open for business again.
“Five
months with no salary were bad, obviously, but five months of absence
on the global market are very long,” said Mario Grillo, the business
consultant who decided to invest in the co-op because he fell in love
with the books that Zanardi produced.
“Every
competitor wanted the brand and the clients,” he added. “None wanted
the employees, but I always believed that these people were essential to
produce these books.”
Zanardi
used to have a global market share of about 30 percent of prestige and
arts books. Over the years, the company invented the patented Octavius
binding that allows tailor-made editions, such as the 20,000 copies of
the collected James Bond books and the limited edition of “Goldfinger” —
300 books all covered in leather and real gold powder.
Zanardi
also printed many Gallimard tour guides, children’s books and the
memorial edition of the German newspaper Bild, a thick collection of
front pages.
According
to the Cecop-Cicopa Europe, the European confederation of industrial
and service cooperatives, about 120 businesses became cooperatives in
France in 2011 and 2012, and 75 in Spain in 2012.
“These
enterprises cannot seek international investors,” said Valter Conca,
professor of management and technology at the Milan-based Bocconi
University. “They have to look elsewhere, and those who do make it are a
drop in the sea, a rather limited phenomenon.”
Zanardi
workers sought help from Coopfond, an institution that has funded over
40 such co-ops since 2008, and saved more than 1,200 jobs all over
Italy. Coopfond provided economic resources and expertise to work
through the transition.
“It
is usually an uphill journey, as these companies often come from a
bankruptcy or a very serious economic crisis,” said Aldo Soldi, general
director of the fund.
Now the co-op aims to conquer a third of the previous market share, with a fourth of the social capital and the employees.
They
have made partnership agreements with other local rebinding businesses
to get help. They work in special shifts, with their schedules adjusting
last minute to the company’s needs.
“This
is Italy’s richness, its working culture that should be promoted and
preserved,” Mr. Grillo said, watching his co-op colleagues working the
machines. “When people are fully engaged, China is not a real
competitor. Italian artisans can still make a difference.”
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