Help Requested for a Project on Purchasing Preferences and Employee Ownership

ESOPs can cause companies to lose their certifications as for small businesses or as women-, minority-, or veteran-owned businesses. The Small Business Administration, for example, interprets federal rules such that a 100% ESOP-owned company where all participants, the ESOP trustee, and the board of directors are women would not qualify as a women-owned business. Many other organizations, from quasi-governmental organizations to nonprofits to large corporations, provide different types of certification. Their rules vary widely, creating confusion.

The NCEO is starting a project to catalog the various standards and to document their relevance to employee-owned companies. Help us determine how this affects our membership by taking this two-minute, five-question survey.

European Commission Official Advocates Employee Ownership
Michael Barnier, the European commissioner for internal market and services, wrote in an October 28 opinion article in London's City A.M. that "Employee shareholding schemes can contribute to tackling the rising imbalances in income distribution. They can also help us rediscover the foundations of the competitive social market economy which characterises the European model, and can help put our economy on the road to more sustainable growth, starting with local initiatives." Barnier noted that the Commission recently published a report, Taking Action: Promotion of Employee Share Ownership - Debating Concrete Policy Options on ideas to spur more employee ownership in European companies.