Employee-Owned S Corporations of America (ESCA) has put out a short booklet with several first-person stories from employee owners in S ESOP corporations. Copies are available from ESCA by calling 202-466-8700.
New data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) indicate that 1.7% of the U.S.'s 105.8 million nonfarm, private sector employees got a stock option grant in 1999. However, the same report finds that 5.3% of employees in companies listed on stock exchanges received options that year.
The rhetoric about employee participation appears to have far outraced the reality. In a survey of plant and site managers at companies with more than 20 employees, only 18% report even having experimented with employee work teams.
A new study of 200 large companies by Koski Research for Charles Schwab shows that companies retain a strong commitment to equity compensation at all levels. Stock options remain the most popular form of reward, with 71% of the companies offering this benefit.
China's new leader, Jiang Zhemin, has said that employee ownership is an approach that should be considered for smaller enterprises. In China, that can include companies with thousands of employees. There are already a number of local governments selling off enterprises to employees.
Colorado has become the first state to pass a law that helps cover some of the costs to convert to employee ownership. On June 23, Governor Polis signed into law H.B. 21-1311, a bill that makes sweeping changes to Colorado tax law, notably a provision to provide $10 million annually in tax credits over the next six years to fund the professional service costs of conversions to employee ownership.
President Bush is talking a lot about the "ownership society," although employee ownership is clearly not part of that vision. But employee ownership will be on the agenda for Congress in a number of probable new and revived bills.
Some of the news most in the public eye about employee ownership is coming from ESOP-owned breweries, but now a craft brewer, Evans Brewing Company of Irvine, Calif., has
