Loren Rodgers
During the February 19, 2020, debate of the candidates for the Democratic presidential nomination, moderator MSNBC anchor Hallie Jackson asked Pete Buttigieg about employee ownership: "Senator Sanders has a proposal that will require all large companies to turn over up to 20 percent of their ownership to employees over time. Is that a good idea?"
Loren Rodgers
The NCEO is proud to announce the new members of its board of directors, following the election in January.
Loren Rodgers
On January 29, the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives and the Democracy at Work Institute released their annual report on the state of worker cooperatives (registration required) in the U.S. The report notes that there are 465 known worker cooperatives, which is a slight increase from the 450 known cooperatives in the 2017 report. Worker cooperatives employ 6,454 people and generate annual revenue of approximately $505 million. They're situated throughout the country, with concentrations in the San Francisco Bay Area, the corridor from Washington, D.C., to Boston, and Puerto Rico.
Loren Rodgers
On February 12, the House Committee on Small Business will hold a hearing titled "Challenges and Benefits of Employee-Owned Small Businesses." The hearing, which will begin at 11:30 am, will be live-streamed. [Update on February 12: that link now goes to a committee page that includes a link to a video recording of the hearing.]
Loren Rodgers
The Center for American Progress, a progressive think tank, issued a report on January 20 titled Building Workers’ Wealth in Cities and States. The Center worked with the Hillary Clinton campaign on its economic policy.
NCEO
The NCEO exists to make employee ownership thrive, and our work—as measured by revenue—has more than doubled in the last decade. That growth means it is time for us to hire a controller. We've posted a job description that we're hoping to fill by early March.
Loren Rodgers
Deval Patrick, the former governor of Massachusetts and the latest entrant into the race for the Democratic presidential nomination, released his Opportunity Agenda on January 16. In it, he proposed several steps to promote employee ownership:
Corey Rosen
In Jander v. Retirement Plans Committee of IBM (2nd Cir. Dec. 10, 2018), the Second Circuit ruled that the Dudenhoeffer rule that "[t]o state a claim for breach of the duty of prudence on the basis of inside information, a plaintiff must plausibly allege an alternative action that the defendant could have taken that would have been consistent with the securities laws and that a prudent fiduciary in the same circumstances would not have viewed as more likely to harm the fund than to help it" raised conflicting standards. The court ruled that the plaintiffs in a case involving stock in IBM’s 401(k) plan had convincingly argued that early disclosure and correction of financial issues raised about accounting and other irregularities at its microelectronics division (which was ultimately sold) could have done more good than harm. The defendants appealed to the Supreme Court.
Loren Rodgers
Over 300 people have voted in the election for the NCEO's board of directors, and balloting will close this Friday, January 17, at 5 pm Pacific time.
