1 Analysis of the characteristics of the wage-earners in cooperative societies: a compared perspective Díaz Foncea, Millan Marcuello Servós, Carmen Clemente López, Jesús Sanso Navarro, Marcos Introduction The cooperative societies and capitalist enterprises represent differentiated organizational models. The democratic and participative character of the former, as well as their relation with the promotion of employment, gives a special idiosyncrasy to these organizations. Both democracy and participation are intrinsic in the definition of cooperatives: allocation of the ownership rights in these organizations is based, not in the contributions to capital, but in other contractual conditions as employees, suppliers or consumers have. Also, decision-making is made of collective and equitable form between the members of the firm, who have voice and vote in these decisions. On the other hand, different organisms have observed the relation with the employment. European Union recognizes these organizations are a relevant piece in the economic life of Europe, contributing to the improvement of the efficient competition in markets, and being a niche of emergence of employment and new entrepreneurial forms, as well as of new labor relations. Likewise, competitive advantages like their commitment with the local community and the existence of objectives different from the maximization of the profits allow them to cover other purposes. This supposes a greater specialization in determined industries, as well as different characteristics of their workers, among other aspects. According to this, cooperatives show a different behavior before the evolution of the business cycle. Particularly, cooperatives have been better prepared than their capitalist twins to support the downward periods with a greater relief. These moments of economic recession have been, in many cases, platform of development for this organizational model. In this way it is expressed by Ben-Ner (1988) for France and other countries during the decade of 1970 and 1980. Then, the number of workers and cooperative societies and the rate of unemployment were increasing at the same time, while the number and the employment of the capitalist companies showed an opposite dynamics. In the current economic situation, it is possible to hope that cooperatives keep this behavior, being necessary to know them with greater detail to use efficiently this potential. As well, during the growth periods, the cooperative sector is outstanding as an example of good practices in the enterprise