Corey Rosen
A new report by the Aspen Institute, Race and Gender Wealth Equity and the Role of Employee Share Ownership, urges the adoption of a series of initiatives to use employee ownership to address race and gender inequality.
Corey Rosen
In its report "A Job Quality Agenda for the Next Administration," the Aspen Institute, a leading nonpartisan think tank, joined the Center for American Progress, Council of Economic Advisors member Jared Bernstein, and others to “Promote employee ownership and worker cooperative models, which have been shown to have a positive association with quality jobs, by offering technical assistance and access to appropriate financing to support transitions to employee ownership, as well as new business development that includes some form of employee ownership. Funds could be made available to state employee ownership centers, experienced nonprofit organizations, and interested Small Business Development Centers to raise awareness about different employee ownership models among small- to medium-sized businesses and to extend technical assistance and facilitate financing.”
Corey Rosen
Forty-six of the 78 companies that have stock on the recently released Fortune 100 Best Companies to Work For list for 2020 have some form of broad-based employee ownership plan, the highest percentage yet. Twenty-two of the companies on the list are law or accounting firms, nonprofits, or a consumer cooperative and have no stock for employees to own. This is the highest percentage yet on the list of such firms with no stock, but normally about half the companies on the list do have employee ownership plans.
Corey Rosen
Based on data from Forbes calculated 11 months after the onset of the pandemic, the country’s 679 billionaires saw their wealth increase by $1.3 trillion since the official start of the pandemic in March 2020. That number is almost as much as the total asset value of the 14 million participant accounts in ESOPs, and one-fourth as much as the total assets in 401(k) plans. Looked at another way, if the increase on value had been evenly divided among the 164 million people in the workforce, it would come to almost $8,000 per worker. The combined wealth of the billionaires is now $4.3 trillion.
Corey Rosen
Pete Stavros, a partner and co-head of private equity for the Americas at KKR, the third-largest private equity fund in the world, told the Wall Street Journal that he and his wife plan to contribute $10 million to launch the Center for Shared Ownership. The organization will focus on employee ownership through funding research, providing resources for companies to help set up plans, and possibly pushing for legislation and government support. Stavros told the Journal that “Giving ownership to lower-level employees better aligns their interests with those of shareholders and managers, makes them more engaged, and creates a stronger culture. And at a time when rising inequality has led to populist uprisings and geopolitical instability, awarding shares to blue-collar workers can lead to great social cohesion by helping lower income workers—many of whom are racial minorities—build wealth.”
Corey Rosen
An NCEO analysis of Glassdoor ratings of companies on the Employee Ownership 100 list shows that they tend to be more highly rated by employees than their competitors. The study looked at the three main Glassdoor ratings:
Corey Rosen
Ken Baker, the CEO of Southampton, PA-based NewAge Industries, has donated $3 million to Montgomery County Community College to start the Baker Center of Excellence for Employee Ownership and Business Transformation. The Center will promote and provide resources on ESOPs and other employee-employer partnerships. It is the largest gift in the college’s 56-year history.
Corey Rosen
When I first read about ESOPs 43 years ago as a Capitol Hill staffer, I loved the concept but was discouraged by the complexity. Employee ownership was a cause I wanted to make my own, but I was intimidated by the concept and strange (to me) language. Eventually, I started to get it, but ever since have had a lot of empathy for business owners who, like me then, love the idea of employee ownership but find the process confusing.
Corey Rosen
We are excited about our upcoming virtual conference April 20-21, with preconference sessions on the 19th. This is our third (!) large virtual event in a year, and we have learned a lot about how to make it an interactive, cost-effective, and fun conference.
