martine bagnet took on the difficult challenge of downsizing the consumer cooperatives was a painful process in 190200 of them were grouped into one organization today there are only about 30 laughed. off the east german cooperatives had 230. 1000 employees but your in 199-318-0000 of them lost their jobs and lost the main problem was that the cooperatives had been left out of the unification treaties they were considered a gray area that could stand in the way of reunification the cooperatives own their own buildings but the land the buildings were on now belong to the federal government if the cooperatives wanted to stay they would have to pay a huge sum to the government becomes a man was also affected but there was a loophole perignon fought long and hard lobbying politicians to reduce the girl. also comes in view we finally caught their attention with a public campaign that we put together packages of goods from our member companies and sent a package to each member of the bundestag involved. we also gave interviews with public broadcasters. over time the pressure grew in the po