B Coop Net accompanies the fragile to work

A business network between seven social cooperatives dealing with the labour insertion of disadvantaged people.

It was born in Veneto in May last year and aggregates four realities in the province of Treviso - Erga, I Cerchi, Noi Group and Via Vai - as well as Gruppo R, in the province of Padua, Prestatori, in the province of Verona, and Studio Progetto, in the province of Vicenza, all members of Confcooperative Federsolidarietà Veneto.

This is B Coop Net, which, when it was established, specified its sphere of action: i.e. to multiply collaborations with the for-profit world and, consequently, job opportunities for the disadvantaged. This objective is easier to achieve if one is open to change, focuses on innovation, and overcomes one's size limits, while maintaining individual identity and territorial roots.

The network was born from a stable collaboration between the various co-ops and pooled the organisational, productive and commercial potential of each one, also to spread the culture of corporate social responsibility in the for-profit world and to try out new tools. Such as, for example, a more systematic recourse to Article 14 of Legislative Decree 276/2003, which allows companies, obliged to hire a quota of disadvantaged personnel (Law 68/99) to give work orders to co-ops that employ disabled people in their place.

'B Coop Net is a journey that comes to fruition after two years of work,' the network recalls. 'In this way we have grouped together seven realities, with a total turnover of more than 25 million euro and around 1,200 employees including 280 work placements of disadvantaged people.