Employee Ownership Blog

Bills in each house of the Texas legislature would provide the most comprehensive state effort yet on employee ownership.

The Beyster Institute at the Rady School of Management at the University of California, San Diego, announced that its new executive director would be Kim Blaugher. Blaugher has more than 30 years of experience as a CPA and consultant in the ESOP field. Rady School Dean Robert S.

On March 7, Reuters reported that employee-owned Parsons is planning an initial public offering.

In February 26, the City Council of Berkeley, California, voted to support the development of worker cooperatives. The ordinance gives cooperatives a preference in securing city contracts, expands the small-business loan fund to cover cooperatives, and provides technical assistance.

In 2018, the NCEO hosted a record-setting conference, expanded its outreach, and hired some new people.

The Nebraska legislature passed a bill, LB 49, that would authorize the ownership of public accounting firms by ESOPs. The ESOP could own up to 49% of the firm.

South Africa's main opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, has stated in its party manifesto that if elected it will promote a "ground-up" policy to promote broad employee share ownership. The ruling ANC has already stated that employee ownership will be a key agenda item for it.

In his state of the city address on March 12, Newark mayor Ras Baraka made employee ownership a centerpiece of his economic policy. Baraka said, "We are encouraging employee ownership, and residential- and worker-owned cooperatives.

Forty-eight percent of the stock corporations on the Fortune 2019 Best 100 Companies to Work For have some kind of broad-based employee ownership plan. The percentage is just slightly less than what is has been in prior years.

Employees at Adams & Associates sued over a 2012 ESOP transaction, saying that the ESOP had overpaid.

In a February 28 Wall Street Journal article, Maureen Farrell reported that both Uber and Lyft plan to allow their most active drivers to participate in their initial public offerings (IPOs).

In Vigeant v. Meeks, participants in the Lifetouch ESOP are suing over the valuation of Lifetouch shares. On February 27, the Department of Labor filed a brief in support of the plaintiffs.