Comment by sgu999
2 years ago
> In some sense, corporate employees that get some form of equity as part of their compensation are more literally worker-owners.
As soon as a worker leaves or sells their shares, these shares aren't worker-owned anymore and the interests of their owner can quickly diverge from the ones of a worker. That's roughly what a coop fixes I think.
I can kinda see how one can argue that this is a feature rather than a bug, but I still think this points to the more distinctive feature in these coops being democratic governance of workers rather than ownership.
I own shares of past companies I've worked at, but I don't have any representation in how the company is run. It doesn't matter if my interests have diverged from current workers, because I have no influence.
If a company compensates its employees partially with RSUs, and those employees own and can eventually transfer those shares freely, and the company was also democratically governed by its workers ... could you not have "real" ownership (by current and past workers) and still protect current workers' democratic governance?
> democratic governance rather than ownership
yes and no, i’d call the distinction collective ownership. you can sell your shares (by quitting), or you can stay and participate democratically. but you can’t do both, and that protects your say in the company, preventing investors from overruling worker-owners.
> i have no influence
neither do the current workers. the issue isn’t retail investors, but the ones with board seats. if boards only had one seat for an investor, that’d be one thing, but usually workers only get a single seat, if any.
> protect current workers’ democratic governance
you could do this with preferred shares, voting shares, etc. investor shares are non voting, voting shares can only be owned by workers, etc. you still have to counter their concentration though.
I think we're roughly in agreement?
Any organization that arranges for its workers to govern it has some organizing document that describes this structure. Any organization that arranges for its workers to become owners must pick mechanism for this to happen. My view is that these can be basically independent choices:
- A firm can pursue a profit-sharing-for-current-workers approach as described for Mondragon, or can issue RSUs or options ("real" and transferable ownership)
- And regardless of what "ownership" vehicle they pick, they can still be organized to be democratically governed by its workers (establishment of which need not be dependent on any stipulated "ownership"). I.e. your organizing docs can describe a board composed of current employees, elected by employees, etc.
I am skeptical of the claim that profit-sharing while you're an employee is "ownership" in part because you are incentivized to prefer that the firm take profits while you work there. By comparison, if as a worker your vested stake persists even after you leave or retire, you might be much more inclined to vote for large reinvestments this year (and for the next several) which may not yield a profit until after you've left. Temporary "ownership" may not encourage the same long-term view as ordinary literal ownership.
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> ...these coops being democratic governance of workers rather than ownership.
So who are the owners if not the workers?