United's bankruptcy won't have quite the impact on the company's ESOP and 401(k) plans that might be expected. That's because trustees of both plans have been selling off shares held by employees in both plans.
Trustees of United Airline's ESOP will start selling shares in the plan in order to provide some diversification in the face of a possible bankruptcy filing. Reports indicate up to 20% of the shares could be sold now, and perhaps more later.
On July 4, politicians, academics, government agencies, and employee-owned businesses participated in more than 100 events throughout the United Kingdom to celebrate the country's first employee ownership day.
United Airlines has started an extensive series of print and electronic media ads stressing its employee owned character. The ads were kicked off by three page ads in major papers.
Since 1945, United Parcel Service (UPS) has been broadly owned by its 28,000 management and supervisory personnel. Now the 315,000-employee company will make ownership available to all full-time employees.
United Arilines's pilots and non-union employees will be getting stock options in return for wage concessions to help keep the company afloat. United is still trying to negotiate with mechanics and flight attendants, but both unions have been much more resistant on the issue.
At its 2014 convention, the United Steelworkers union passed a resolution supporting union worker cooperatives and employee ownership more broadly, including explicit support for the U.S. Federation of Worker Cooperatives.
The United Steelworkers and the Mondragon Corporation (the holding company for the Mondragon cooperatives) have agreed to a joint collaborative agreement for the development manufacturing companies in the U.S. that will be organized as worker cooperatives with steelworker representation.
The announcement by Untied Airlines that is might file for bankruptcy has prompted a number of media stories on whether the employee ownership plan at the company was part of the problem (see, for instance, the excellent article on this topic in the New York Times August 15).
