Employee Ownership Blog

Corey Rosen

Major Wins for Employee Ownership in New Spending Bill

The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, an omnibus spending bill with many parts that was signed into law on December 29, contains major wins for employee ownership as part of the SECURE 2.0 Act of 2022. (The original SECURE [Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement] Act of 2019 was signed into law in December 2019 and modified various retirement plan rules, such as changing the age for required minimum distributions from 70½ to 72.) Section references here are to the SECURE 2.0 Act, not the appropriations bill as a whole, which contains many laws (e.g., there are multiple “sec. 114” instances, and one of them is in the SECURE 2.0 Act, amending Section 1042).

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Loren Rodgers

Two Coops Leave the Mondragon Corporation

The Mondragon Corporation of Spain’s Basque region, an integrated network of more than 90 employee-owned companies plus many worker cooperatives, is the best-known example of worker cooperatives in the world. On December 15, the worker-owners of two of its largest member cooperatives voted to separate from the network, as reported in several articles, such as this one in El Pais.

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NCEO

ESOP Education for Insiders and Advisors from the Beyster Institute

ESOP transactions require specific knowledge from both advisors and companies, each with unique responsibilities that compel them to act according to their duty and at the right moment. Many people with responsibility for the proper design and operation of ESOPs have never had a comprehensive overview of what they need to know to be effective in their roles – and many may not even realize that there are gaps in their knowledge. Filling in those gaps can help ESOP companies avoid pitfalls (see the NCEO's Don’t Do That! book for examples) and make good decisions from the board level to day-to-day operations.

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Loren Rodgers

London Launches Employee Ownership Initiative

On December 2, the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, announced the creation of the London Ownership Hub, which will launch in early 2023 with the goal of creating "the networks, resources and conditions to help worker co-operative and employee-owned businesses across London develop and thrive." London contains nearly 500 employee owned businesses, 30% of the total in the UK, and the sector proved resilient through the pandemic.

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