How Employee Ownership Has Protected a Founder’s Vision by Marjorie Kelly What is a company? The dominant view today, the Wall Street view, is of an object owned by shareholders, which has a primary purpose of producing a smooth flow of earnings, like so many ball bearings off an assembly line. The alternative the planet […]
Continue Readingtest
Worker Cooperatives: State of the Sector
National survey shows small but steady growth of U.S. worker cooperatives by Karen Kahn A new report from the Democracy at Work Institute (DAWI) and the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives estimates that 357 worker cooperatives operated in the United States in 2016. These businesses employed 6,833 people and generated $428 million in gross revenues in 2016.[i] As the numbers suggest, […]
Continue ReadingPowerful New Approaches to Scaling Employee Ownership
New Economy Coalition Conference Embraces Employee Ownership by Sarah Stranahan The importance of taking employee ownership to scale was front and center at the June CommonBound conference in St. Louis, Missouri. More than 700 people attended this biannual event of the New Economy Coalition, including activists, thinkers and leaders from across the world, working for a more […]
Continue ReadingAspen Institute Touts Employee Ownership as Solution to Economic Insecurity
by Karen Kahn Employee ownership is getting increased attention from the Aspen Institute, a Washington-based nonpartisan think tank seeking to build leadership and find solutions to the many challenges that face our nation. On May 10, as part of the Working in America series, the Employment Opportunities Program and Financial Security Program sponsored “Having a Stake,” […]
Continue ReadingAmicus Solar Purchasing Coop Spreads Employee Ownership
Achieving Scale while Maintaining Local Impact by Sarah Stranahan Amicus Solar is one of more than 250 purchasing cooperatives in the US, including such well-known brands as Ace Hardware and Best Western Motels. By forming a large national cooperative, small producers or retailers increase their purchasing power and access to project financing, while remaining independently […]
Continue ReadingNumber of Employees Set to Triple at Evergreen Cooperative Laundry
New Contract to Operate Cleveland Clinic Laundry Drives Expansion by Jessica Rose On May 10, I stood with city dignitaries, hospital executives, and over 100 shop-floor employees to witness an historic ribbon-cutting ceremony, as Cleveland’s Evergreen Cooperative Laundry (ECL) announced it was taking over operation of the Cleveland Clinic’s massive industrial laundry facility. The mood […]
Continue ReadingColorado — “The Delaware of Cooperative Law”
Benefits to Incorporating a Worker Cooperative in Colorado by Jason Wiener and Linda Phillips Perhaps you are starting a cooperative business or maybe you are transitioning an existing business to a worker-owned cooperative. Though the process is only a little more complicated than a standard incorporation, a separate set of legal statutes apply. Called “cooperative law,” […]
Continue ReadingEmployee Ownership and Ecological Sustainability
Are mission-controlled, employee-owned companies better environmental stewards than conventional corporations? Is transitioning to employee ownership a more likely path to keeping a firms’ ecological mission alive, compared to selling a firm to a large competitor? The answer to these questions is critical to enterprise design for the 21st century and beyond. If we understand the […]
Continue ReadingCathedral Builders at South Mountain Company
A Mission-Led Employee-Owned Firm By Sarah Stranahan The best of the best is what you might say about South Mountain Company, an employee-owned, environmentally oriented design-build firm on Martha’s Vineyard, off the coast of Massachusetts. It’s a B Corp, a new type of company that uses the power of business to solve social and environmental problems. […]
Continue ReadingThe Power and Limits of Enterprise Design
The Environmental Performance Record of UK’s John Lewis Partnership By Sarah Stranahan The new economy movement often speaks of creating an economy that works for people and the planet. But are those two goals always aligned? Given limited resources and competing needs, how do businesses manage trade-offs between what’s best for people — employees, customers and communities — and […]
Continue Reading