Forty five years ago the Wales TUC organised a trip to Mondragon in the Spanish Basque country to see “in the flesh” how the creation of the world’s largest worker co-operative had regenerated what had been the poorest region of Spain, and is now the most prosperous outside Madrid. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ranked_lists_of_Spanish_autonomous_communities
Mondragon Cooperative Corporation was started in 1956 by the local priest, Father José María Arizmendiarrieta when he realised the fascist government in Madrid was never going to help the region because the Basques had been amongst the fiercest opponents of the Franco led fascist coup.
The delegation was led by George Wright, the WTUC General Secretary, and his deputy chair, Les Paul, they were accompanied by the late Robin Reeves, the then Financial Times Welsh Correspondent, and a Vale of Glamorgan councillor (Plaid Cymru).
His write up in the March 1981 edition of Arcade Magazine is here:-
The big question is, with senior figures having visited Mondragon a number of times why has Welsh Government not been able to turn our economy around in the same way?