Chernomorka, a Burgas production cooperative for people with disabilities, makes high-end clothes for Western Europe but lives mainly on rent from its space in the North Industrial Zone, chairwoman Antonela Ilieva said. She said state tenders are out of reach for the cooperative because of corrupt pressure.
"We get by because we have rooms to rent out. In fact, that brings in most of our income, not making clothes," Ilieva said. The old industrial building houses makers of bed linen, hygiene products and circuit boards, a fish-processing firm, two fashion houses and two pharmacy warehouses. The rent pays for the industrial electricity and for heating the sewing workshop, which uses air conditioners in winter.
About 20 women on the third floor sew from patterns and templates supplied by Western clients, because Chernomorka has no designer of its own. They make everyday women's wear for Denmark and luxury children's clothes for France, Italy and Spain. For boutiques in France, they make custom clothes and black trousers for rap artists. Ilieva said the children's clothes are of very high quality and usually end up in shops that most Bulgarians cannot afford.
In the cutting and sewing workshops, old machines stand beside new ones bought with EU funding. One machine for seamless sportswear, which costs thousands of euros, sits under a cover. It was bought at the request of a French client whose order never arrived. The cooperative is about to buy a welt-pocket machine for precise pockets on jackets and coats, and Ilieva said she regrets not buying it last year.
There are almost no direct contracts with clients. The cooperative works through personal contacts and trade agents, who take 5% of the price on the French market and up to 8% in Scandinavian countries.
Ilieva also described two cases from recent years. In a tender for uniforms, an intermediary brought ready-made documents with the prices already divided up and asked for a share for himself. A company representative wanted a 13% commission to "hint" at the winning bid. "What's left for us after that?" she said. She turned both down.
Ilieva said private firms can write such unofficial costs into their accounts, but a social cooperative with open books and low profit cannot. So Chernomorka now relies on small local orders, such as kindergarten uniforms, and on clients abroad. In 2007 it filled a large state order for 42,000 T-shirts in a month and a half, putting two other enterprises to work at full capacity on it.
The state refunds part of the social security costs for employees through targeted subsidies, and EU law encourages so-called reserved public contracts.
The cooperative was founded in 1950. Over the years it has made furniture, knitwear, baskets and household dolls, cracked almonds, packed spices by hand and made boza. At one point Chernomorka was one of two official importers of raw coffee in Bulgaria. It roasted and packed coffee from Vietnam, Costa Rica and Venezuela until mass industrial automation ended that work.
About 30 people from Burgas and nearby villages now work at the cooperative, Monday to Friday. Some have 58 years of service there. Besides the sewing workshop, Chernomorka has a bookbinding workshop in central Burgas. Ilieva said the workers, the bookbindery and the tenants keep up a model in which market pragmatism is the only guarantee that the social cause survives. She said the cooperative is one of the few social enterprises in southeast Bulgaria, and that about 70 such cooperatives are left in Bulgaria, with the number falling.
Until a few years ago, Chernomorka children's clothes were sold in its own shop in central Burgas. Now they are sold only at trade fairs in Bulgaria. Management has considered a shop on the ground floor of the building, but it stays closed because there is no foot traffic or parking.
The cooperative turns 76 on 24 December.