M-spring

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The M-Spring was a 1979-1997 existing Swiss association that the retail company Migros (often simply called "M" appears whose trademark) for social and environmental reasons criticized. Its members came mainly from the left and green political camps. The most important representative of M-Spring was Hans A. Pestalozzi .

prehistory

In view of the limits to growth postulated by the Club of Rome and the oil price crisis , the Assembly of Delegates of the Federation of Migros Cooperatives (MGB) unanimously adopted new principles for a long-term growth and environmental policy in 1974. They committed Migros to voluntary restrictions and to support environmental protection . The author of the basic paper was Albin Heimann , the president of the MGB administration delegation. On September 4, 1978, the MGB was the first Swiss company to ever publish a social balance sheet . The work, scientifically accompanied by the sociologist Meinolf Dierkes , was regarded as an exemplary new approach to a transparent and responsible corporate policy. However, various events led to the fact that green-alternative circles increasingly came under fire at the MGB, which was led by General Director Pierre Arnold .

The newspaper Die Tat , launched in 1935 by Migros founder Gottlieb Duttweiler , was converted from a conventional daily newspaper into a tabloid in April 1977 . She increasingly published articles critical of the economy and consumer protection , which were also directed against Migros. There were more and more violent arguments between publisher Arnold and editor-in-chief Roger Schawinski . Three days later, the editorial team protested against his dismissal on September 19, 1978 with a strike and the publication of a combat newspaper in which they denounced the presumptuous power attitude of the Migros Group management. Arnold responded by ceasing to show the act on September 25 .

Shortly afterwards, Claude M. Beck published a widely received reply on the social balance sheet. Under the title "M (igros) - Who Else?" he disheveled it as an attempt to legitimize a giant heading towards an "undisguised monopoly". There was another scandal the following year: Hans A. Pestalozzi , who had headed the Gottlieb Duttweiler Institute (GDI) affiliated with Migros since 1964 , had increasingly kept a critical distance from the group. In his search for alternatives to the prevailing growth and consumer society , he postulated his critical views on the environment and society in an increasingly radical way. The Gottlieb and Adele Duttweiler Foundation (holder of the GDI) feared that the institute would be identified in public with Pestalozzi's private opinion and dismissed him without notice on September 30, 1979.

M-spring activities

In October 1979 Pestalozzi and like-minded people founded the “M-Frühling” association. The aim of this was to democratize and decentralize Migros and to implement an environmentally friendly company policy that is responsible for development. In December 1979, the association turned to the public at a press conference with critical demands against the MGB. He demanded more responsibility from Migros for consumers, the environment and employees, as well as a really free and democratic election of the Migros management by the more than one million members of the cooperative. For this purpose, the association wanted to put up its own opponents to the official candidates in the normally more routine elections.

Even if it was foreseeable from the outset that the association would hardly enforce its demands, the management put obstacles in his way. For example, several thousand signatures were required for an independent candidacy, which in turn were only valid with the indication of the member number. This made it much more difficult to collect the required signatures, as very few Migros cooperative members carried their cooperative share certificate with number on them. The M-Spring association finally managed to legally ensure that it was allowed to copy the missing numbers from the register of members. From February 1980 the association published its own professionally designed newspaper. On the front of the first number he listed under the title "What does M-Spring want?" his concerns. He called for a decentralization of Migros, the renunciation of the pure expansion policy, the consideration of environmental and animal welfare aspects, more social working conditions for the employees as well as fair trade with producers in developing countries.

The association opened the election campaign, which received a lot of media attention, in April with the 250-page manifesto M-Spring - From Migrosaurs to Human Measure . On April 13, Télévision Suisse Romande broadcast a dispute between Pierre Arnold and National Councilor Yvette Jaggi , and the Tages-Anzeiger printed the transcript, which was translated into German. In the regional cooperatives throughout Switzerland there were opposing candidates for M-Spring, including the “ banana woman ” Ursula Brunner . The main candidates for the presidium of the MGB were incumbents Pierre Arnold and Hans A. Pestalozzi.

Overall, the M-Spring candidates received 19.9% ​​of the votes, but could not take office within the cooperative because a majority system was in place. In 1983, the MGB raised the barriers to running for co-operative elections, which weakened M-Spring's position. After legal proceedings against stricter electoral statutes, there were further candidacies to the Basel and St. Gallen cooperatives in 1984 and 1988, but they were unsuccessful. Until 1994, M-Frühling published its quarterly newspaper as a counterpart to the Migros publication organ Wir Brückenbauer , thus contributing to the increased ecological and social orientation of Migros and to sensitizing consumers. On June 21, 1997 the association decided to dissolve it.

successor

In 2004 the Migros-critical association Sorgim was founded, which, like M-Frühling, aims to democratize the group.

literature

  • Beat Mahler: "From migrosaurs to human proportions". Dispute about an “alternative” Migros at the end of the 1970s . In: Katja Girschik, Albrecht Ritschl , Thomas Welskopp (eds.): The Migros Cosmos. On the history of an exceptional Swiss company . here + now , Baden 2003, ISBN 978-3-906419-64-0 , p. 220-237 .
  • Alfred A. Häsler : The Migros Adventure. The 60 year old idea . Ed .: Federation of Migros Cooperatives. Migros Presse, Zurich 1985.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Mahler: From Migrosaurs to Human Measure. P. 221.
  2. ↑ a b c Mahler: From migrosaurs to human proportions. P. 227.
  3. ↑ Cessation of the «deed». In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung , September 26, 1978, p. 31.
  4. ^ Häsler: The Migros Adventure. P. 348.
  5. ^ Häsler: The Migros Adventure. P. 349.
  6. ↑ Mahler: From Migrosaurs to Human Measure. P. 228.
  7. ↑ Mahler: From Migrosaurs to Human Measure. Pp. 229-230.
  8. ↑ Mahler: From Migrosaurs to Human Measure. P. 229.
  9. ↑ Christoph Wehrli: Alternative experiment with Migros. Neue Zürcher Zeitung , December 11, 2017, accessed on November 17, 2019 .
  10. ^ Beat Mahler: Spring coup in Migros country. WOZ Die Wochenzeitung , February 26, 2004, accessed on November 17, 2019 .
  11. ↑ Interview with Pierre Rappazzo , in: Zürichsee-Zeitung, June 11, 2012