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As the article said Duralex was the brand use by a large number of school cantinas in France. Inside of each glass there’s a small number used by the brand to i

As the article said Duralex was the brand use by a large number of school cantinas in France. Inside of each glass there’s a small number used by the brand to identify the mold used for the creation of the glass. For kids that was a way to decide who is going to fetch the water for the table (smaller number or higher number of the table). That’s why the CE is holding his glass like that in the guardian article. Beside the nostalgia i think a lot of people support them because it’s a SCOP (the majority of the capital of the company is owned by the employees) [1] and it’s nice to see that another kind of company is possible. [1] https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soci%C3%A9t%C3%A9_coop%C3%A9rative_et_participative https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soci%C3%A9t%C3%A9_coop%C3%A9ra...

deleted 10mo ago
[deleted]
Loic 10mo ago
Durable is really the French household name "par excellence".
- bluebarbet 10mo ago
  You mean Duralex. And maybe not just in France. My British school canteen was monopolised by Duralex too.
NoImmatureAdHom 10mo ago
I too would like to believe that "another kind of company is possible", but this isn't a ringing endorsement...
- anigbrowl 10mo ago
  Eighteen months ago, Marciano oversaw a staff buyout of the company, which had been placed in receivership for the fourth time in 20 years. Today, 180 of the 243 employees are “associates” in the company. It has only been employee-owned for a short time. Some overhang from the management style of the previous 20 years is only to be expected.
mytailorisrich 10mo ago
> it’s a SCOP (the majority of the capital of the company is owned by the employees) On the other hand, I suspect that this also makes it more difficult for them to change and adapt.
- dimal 10mo ago
  Why? Most large corporations I’ve dealt with are highly bureaucratic and resistant to change. Good ideas get lost in silos or bogged down in bureaucracy. Whether it works or not seems entirely dependent on whether the company has a moat around their revenue stream, which allows them to be inefficient everywhere else. For an employee owned co-op, a more anarchistic organization structure that allows for more employee control of everyday decisions could actually allow the company to adapt and change more easily. The ones making decisions have skin in the game, both as workers and owners.
  - mytailorisrich 10mo ago
    If the employees have the power then decisions that are good for company but bad for the employees won't be made. Let's say that the company can't compete so the CEO proposes to automate production and lay off 50%+ of the employees, do you think employees will vote in favour? In general coops are not good at tough decisions and innovation. Duralex already went bankrupt several times and they are heading for it again. What's in the article is nice but it's charity not business so unfortunately I am not optimistic.
    - dimal 10mo ago
      Were they a coop when they went bankrupt? According to the article, they only became a coop recently, so having a CEO capable of firing everyone didn’t work out for them. They took investors, who agreed to the rate of return on their investment. That doesn’t sound like charity. Now, your example of a CEO that wants to fire everyone assumes that that’s the right decision. How well has that kind of thinking worked for other firms like Boeing? That type of authority structure introduces its own set of distortions, which usually skew towards shareholders, and often not towards long term sustainability. As a worker, I would be against that decision for selfish reasons as well as for rational reasons. It sounds like a bad idea. If they want to sell commodity glassware, then that’s a race to the bottom. But they’re selling quality, which requires humans with skill. > In general coops are not good at tough decisions and innovation. This needs to be backed up. Mondragon in Spain has thrived for decades. In America, mutual aid societies used to provide health care, unemployment insurance and other benefits before being squeezed out by other groups who were better at things like regulatory capture. There is a long history of cooperative ownership that goes beyond the stereotypical hippie grocery store. I think it’s too quick to dismiss Duralex.
Zababa 10mo ago
>For kids that was a way to decide who is going to fetch the water for the table (smaller number or higher number of the table). I only knew the version where your age is the number on the glass. For fetching water, it was the slowest person to say "pot d'eau" (water jug) and sometimes put a hand to your head (it depended on the group).
- Broussebar 10mo ago
  I might have generalized then. It’s maybe something that we had only in the south (aka the broc à eau area). We also used it to check our age of course.
  - WawaFin 10mo ago
    no I was in IDF and the glass gets your age and the oldest or youngest had to fetch the water, so it not only in the south
WawaFin 10mo ago
To complete, the number was also deciding what age we were for that day

deleted 10mo ago

[deleted]

Loic 10mo ago

Durable is really the French household name "par excellence".

bluebarbet 10mo ago
You mean Duralex. And maybe not just in France. My British school canteen was monopolised by Duralex too.

NoImmatureAdHom 10mo ago

I too would like to believe that "another kind of company is possible", but this isn't a ringing endorsement...

anigbrowl 10mo ago
Eighteen months ago, Marciano oversaw a staff buyout of the company, which had been placed in receivership for the fourth time in 20 years. Today, 180 of the 243 employees are “associates” in the company. It has only been employee-owned for a short time. Some overhang from the management style of the previous 20 years is only to be expected.

mytailorisrich 10mo ago

> it’s a SCOP (the majority of the capital of the company is owned by the employees) On the other hand, I suspect that this also makes it more difficult for them to change and adapt.

dimal 10mo ago
Why? Most large corporations I’ve dealt with are highly bureaucratic and resistant to change. Good ideas get lost in silos or bogged down in bureaucracy. Whether it works or not seems entirely dependent on whether the company has a moat around their revenue stream, which allows them to be inefficient everywhere else. For an employee owned co-op, a more anarchistic organization structure that allows for more employee control of everyday decisions could actually allow the company to adapt and change more easily. The ones making decisions have skin in the game, both as workers and owners.
- mytailorisrich 10mo ago
  If the employees have the power then decisions that are good for company but bad for the employees won't be made. Let's say that the company can't compete so the CEO proposes to automate production and lay off 50%+ of the employees, do you think employees will vote in favour? In general coops are not good at tough decisions and innovation. Duralex already went bankrupt several times and they are heading for it again. What's in the article is nice but it's charity not business so unfortunately I am not optimistic.
  - dimal 10mo ago
    Were they a coop when they went bankrupt? According to the article, they only became a coop recently, so having a CEO capable of firing everyone didn’t work out for them. They took investors, who agreed to the rate of return on their investment. That doesn’t sound like charity. Now, your example of a CEO that wants to fire everyone assumes that that’s the right decision. How well has that kind of thinking worked for other firms like Boeing? That type of authority structure introduces its own set of distortions, which usually skew towards shareholders, and often not towards long term sustainability. As a worker, I would be against that decision for selfish reasons as well as for rational reasons. It sounds like a bad idea. If they want to sell commodity glassware, then that’s a race to the bottom. But they’re selling quality, which requires humans with skill. > In general coops are not good at tough decisions and innovation. This needs to be backed up. Mondragon in Spain has thrived for decades. In America, mutual aid societies used to provide health care, unemployment insurance and other benefits before being squeezed out by other groups who were better at things like regulatory capture. There is a long history of cooperative ownership that goes beyond the stereotypical hippie grocery store. I think it’s too quick to dismiss Duralex.

Zababa 10mo ago

>For kids that was a way to decide who is going to fetch the water for the table (smaller number or higher number of the table). I only knew the version where your age is the number on the glass. For fetching water, it was the slowest person to say "pot d'eau" (water jug) and sometimes put a hand to your head (it depended on the group).

Broussebar 10mo ago
I might have generalized then. It’s maybe something that we had only in the south (aka the broc à eau area). We also used it to check our age of course.
- WawaFin 10mo ago
  no I was in IDF and the glass gets your age and the oldest or youngest had to fetch the water, so it not only in the south

WawaFin 10mo ago

To complete, the number was also deciding what age we were for that day