In this video about North State Grocery, the 100% employee owned chain of grocery stores operating as Holiday Market and Sav-Mor-Foods in Northern California and Oregon, employees describe what employee ownership means to them.
Series of videos about employee ownership produced by the Pennsylvania Center for Employee Ownership. The Millionaire Grocery Clerk At the grocery chain WinCo Foods, grocery clerks become millionaires. How? WinCo is employee owned through an ESOP. ESOPs are a win win win win – businesses get significant tax breaks, owners get paid full fair market … Read More
In this short video, Dr. Daphne Berry describes why she teaches her students about worker cooperatives and participatory ESOPs.
For nearly a decade, I have had the pleasure of knowing and working with Maureen Beal, the third-generation owner and chairman and CEO of National Van Lines, the national company whose brand is synonymous with “moving.” Maureen, who began as a teen switchboard operator at the company and then in 1993 took the helm after … Read More
At the center of the ongoing debate about the causes and cures of inequality in America today is the vast difference in wealth between owners and workers. As many have noted, that gap was not nearly as large in the middle of the twentieth century as it has become in the first two decades of the 21st century, where owners and other executives make many multiples of what workers make – largely through grants of stock in lieu of salary.
This study investigates how the effect of employee stock ownership on financial performance may hinge on the diverse cultural and societal contexts of European countries. Based on agency and national culture theories, we hypothesize that the positive relationship between employee stock ownership and return on assets (ROA) is stronger in those nations with lower uncertainty … Read More
The first comprehensive analysis of Department of Labor ESOP investigations ever conducted, plus practical advice from experts.
As the wealth gap continues to grow, especially along racial lines, stakeholders – movement leaders, workers, and aligned investors – are considering a broader array of options for creating asset-building opportunities for marginalized communities and giving them meaningful voice. Employee ownership is a way for workers to participate in the value they create, exercise their … Read More
Estimated Number of Plans and Employees; Value of Plan Assets.
The Journal of Participation and Employee Ownership (JPEO) seeks to publish original empirical and theoretical research in the broad area of employee participation and shared capitalism. In particular, the journal calls for rigorous analysis of: employee participation in decision making at the top and grassroots levels; high-performance, high-involvement work systems; cooperatives; employee ownership; profit sharing; team incentives; broad-based stock … Read More
The employee stock-ownership plan, or ESOP, is one of the most powerful legal innovations in recent US history. Since its introduction in the mid-1970s, millions of employees have benefited from being co-owners of the companies where they work. But ESOP formation has slowed in recent years, and it has come with shortcomings. A new generation … Read More
While all kinds of businesses become employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) companies, there is a large percentage of engineering firms that have chosen the ESOP structure. Why so?
J. Doug Pruitt talks about the Sundt ESOP program.
The Presidential Task Force on Project Economic Justice–In 1985, Center for Economic and Social Justice (CESJ) members initiated and mobilized bipartisan support for Congressional legislation which established the Presidential Task Force on Project Economic Justice under President Ronald Reagan. Project Economic Justice, which was first conceived in a strategy paper authored by CESJ, offered a revolutionary economic alternative to military solutions to regional conflicts in Central America and the Caribbean. Enacted as part of the International Security and Development Cooperation Act of 1985, this legislation created the first presidential task force to be totally funded with private donations and supported by both the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the AFL-CIO. Former Ambassador to the Organization of American States and the European Community, The Hon. J. William Middendorf II, served as Chairman. CESJ’s president, Norman G. Kurland, served as deputy chairman.
This presentation discusses five myths surrounding employee ownership…
Developed in 1989, these slides are placed on CLEO for researchers to use to ascertain some of the perceived motivations behind the types of transactions that were being discussed and closed during this period of ESOP history when many of the big, union-oriented ESOPs were being formed.
This 2019 presentation shows the great degree of support among Democrats, Republicans, and Independents for employee ownership. Nearly three-fourths of respondents in a national survey said they would rather work for an employee-owned company than for shareholders or the government. That view transcended ideological and partisan divides, with 74 percent of Democrats, 72 percent of … Read More
A major theoretical objection against employee ownership is that workers become inadequately diversified and exposed to excessive financial risk. Recent theory concludes that 10-15% of a worker’s wealth portfolio can be prudently invested in employer stock provided the rest of the portfolio is properly diversified. This paper analyzes employee share ownership in U.S. family financial … Read More
In 2015, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation engaged the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing, at the Rutgers University School of Management and Labor Relations, to conduct a qualitative study examining the asset building impacts of employee ownership for low- and moderate-income employees and their families.
This 2019 MIT Sloan case by Zeynep Ton and Katie Bach describes how the executive team at Mud Bay, a privately held pet store chain based in Olympia, Washington, implemented a good jobs strategy by offering better wages and benefits and seeking to recoup the costs by increasing sales growth and lowering other expenses.
Employee-owned businesses tend to outperform their competitors, a growing body of research shows. According to the National Center of Employee Ownership, businesses with employee ownership models grow sales and employment at a faster rate than businesses without such programs. Employee-owned firms also perform better than their counterparts during recessions, per research from Georgetown University. For … Read More
The two key ways organizations can increase equity participation and employee share ownership are to help employees accumulate wealth while managing their financial risks, and implement policies and practices that create an engaging ownership culture. Based on a large body of research mostly conducted by Rutgers Institute for Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing, the top … Read More
Mission-led employee-owned firms embody a powerful model of enterprise design for a new era of environmental sustainability and social equity. These companies have much to teach the business world about ownership design for the 21st century and beyond. This report shares the story of this emerging model, embodied in 50-plus firms that are employee owned … Read More
Co-opLaw.org is an online legal resource library supporting democratic, worker-owned businesses from the Sustainable Economies Law Center.
American workers at nearly every level of the income spectrum fail to save properly to be secure in retirement. Addressing this challenge will require a comprehensive policy discussion by both federal and state policymakers. Employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) are the primary form of employee ownership, and for reasons explored in this report, companies organized … Read More