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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region Forums100 Largest US Employee and Worker-Owned Companies
There are a lot of small companies that are worker or employee owned. Larger companies, not so much. However, here's a list of 100 of the largest employee and worker-owned companies. If you are associated with any of these, or if any operate where you are, please give your impressions of them.
The list is at this link:
http://www.nceo.org/articles/employee-ownership-100
It would be interesting to hear what it's like to work at one of these companies, and what it's like to be a customer, too.
Thanks.
MineralMan
(146,192 posts)Doesn't anyone have any experience with any of these? There's only one in Minnesota, and I don't know anything about them.
CurtEastPoint
(18,552 posts)MineralMan
(146,192 posts)haven't been any anywhere I've lived.
Phentex
(16,330 posts)I love Publix in general. Their customer service cannot be beat. The selection is good and the stores are well-kept.
Many of the stores in GA offer Blue Cross Blue Shield insurance for their employees. However, Publix itself denies coverage to children with certain special needs even though they are usually covered by BCBS. I wish the parents would get together and try to fight this as a group but I know they don't necessarily want to rock the boat with their employer. One of these days, I'm going to see if a news hound will expose this. I think it's pretty shameful for a company that does SO much for its employees and other groups of special needs people.
MineralMan
(146,192 posts)It seems to me that companies like these would be of great interest, since they operate on a basis that is more like what people who want to exit from the corporate business model would prefer.
tjwash
(8,219 posts)...you're not hating on Obama, screaming about the impending doom of SS and Medicare, or telling everyone how generally the USA completely sucks because it isn't ran the way you envisioned in the middle of a wet-dream last night.
Of course it is gonna sink here.
Surprise of surprise - my company isn't on the list either
MineralMan
(146,192 posts)I don't know anything about any of them, but they are employee-owned in one way or another. You'd think they'd be models for change, but nobody seems interested.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)forms of company stock ownership.
no model to me.
MineralMan
(146,192 posts)that are models for you? If there are to be changes, then certainly someone has to start those changes.
Before people will start making changes, there have to be models. If these aren't models, then what companies are models? That's the question, isn't it?
ETA: Not all of the companies in that list are ESOP ownership-based, either.
HiPointDem
(20,729 posts)MineralMan
(146,192 posts)So, are you saying that nobody has trodden that road yet? You have no examples to offer? Yet, you say that is the road that should be built and traveled? While I understand Spanish, not everyone here does. Speak plainly in English and offer some examples or suggestions for how this is to be accomplished.
ETA: The reality is that pathways are made by walking on them. Roadways are more difficult. When you drive vehicles over raw terrain, you end up with ruts, not roads, as we learned in this country. Real roads require engineering and building in order to support the vehicles. How to do that has been known since Roman times, but building a road requires more than just walking in a specific direction. It takes much more.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)rather than go on about Spain's 7th largest company, I'll point you to a short and easy to read primer about John Lewis, which is a retailer in the UK and speaks mostly English. They have several methods and systems that other businesses could learn from.
http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/economic-intelligence/2012/05/31/why-we-need-more-employee-owned-businesses
MineralMan
(146,192 posts)The article just outlines how it is set up and how it generates capital. I'll do some more research.
The article also mentions Publix, which is also on the list at my link. Again, though, there are many questions that aren't answered about capitalization and how ownership is conferred on employees. On going to the company websites, I'm not learning many details, so more research will be needed.
Osiris Neits
(7 posts)http://www.bobsredmill.com/about-bob.html (yeah, it's an ESOP, but Bob GAVE it to his employees on his 81st birthday, so yeah)
http://www.newdealcafe.com/ This company is owned not by employees or stockholders, but by the CONSUMERS. Obviously not making the top 100 list, but awesome, nevertheless.
http://www.nwdairy.coop/ 2b in dairy products a year.
I'm preferential to co-ops myself, but for an example of an outstanding corporate owned business, I would look at Costco.
Publix is pretty good, but they have had a lot of issues with the human rights of their produce suppliers. In December, the Coalition of Immokalee Workers marched from Ft.Myers Fl, to the Publix headquarters in Lakeland, Fl, in an effort to get them to recognize the Fair Food Program and not buy produce from farms who don't follow fair labor practices. Publix has been very resistant to FFP, and has basically said it isn't their problem if there are atrocities happening on other peoples farms, regardless of whether they buy produce from them.
wercal
(1,370 posts)...I have for sixteen years. You are correct that its not much more democratic than other companies...but at least I get to reap some of the rewards as the company grows. The value of my stock is around ten percent of my compensation over the last sixteen years...so it could be viewed just as a raise - except we are motivated to keep doing well and keep tge ESOP going.
Also, it takes a long time, but as long time employees have left, the shares have been spread out more and more evenly.
There are really two types of ESOPs. Ours changed from the lesser version to the better version. The better version is an S corp...the esop owns one hundred percent of the company. In thelesser version the ESOP only owns part of the company, with other individual stock owmers holding the rest.
DreamGypsy
(2,252 posts)Then:
Determined to make world-class beer in our own backyard, one of our first, and perhaps best, decisions was to invest in new, state-of-the-art brewing equipment. Other micros had been brewing with varying degrees of success in open fermentation tanks or old, cast-aside dairy equipment. But we werent taking any chances: the beer had to be great or there was no point in brewing it. So we bit the bullet, laid down our borrowed cash, and spent the better part of 1987 installing the new system.
and Now:
For years, wed been thinking and talking and dreaming about the idea of becoming an employee-owned company. So many people had put so much work and love and dedication into Full Sail, and we wanted them to share the same pride of ownership we did. But thats not the whole story. The reason we started Full Sail in the first place was to build a company that was completely different from the ones where wed previously worked. It wasnt about business as usual. It was about finding our calling in life -- about truly appreciating our human resources, and balancing work, life, family and friends in a way that makes life truly worth living. It was in that spirit that we became an independent, employee-owned company in 1999, divvying up the company between the 47 of us. Of all our accomplishments, this is the one that makes us most proud.
I am not associated with the brewery other than as a happy consumer, since April 16, 1988.
MineralMan
(146,192 posts)such a company can scale up its size.
DreamGypsy
(2,252 posts)...among 10,000 employees could be challenging.
The criteria for employee ownership on the top 100 list is:
The largest company with an * is
WinCo Foods* Boise ID ESOP Supermarkets 14,000
Most of the companies have ESOPs/other plans. Some are probably public companies where 50.xyzzy% of the stock is reserved for employees, so an employee's ownership is decided by the employee by whether she chooses to participate in the plan(s) and how much he want to buy. It would be interesting to know for each of these companies, what percentage of employees actually participate and how many participants own increasing sized chunks. For example, if there are a company has 10,000 employees with 5001 eligible to participate, and 50 own 40% of the shares, that may not represent a particularly equitable ownership of the company.
To me real employee ownership means that, in addition to owning a share in the company, there is a way to participate in management decisions if one wishes to do that. Small company models make that much more likely.
Thanks for the post and comments, MM.
MineralMan
(146,192 posts)It's interesting. As you say, if management employees own the bulk of the stock, then that presents its own set of problems. All of the employee-owned companies I'm familiar with are small, and operate as partnerships more or less. Some of those are not great places to work for employees with no equity in the company, in my experience.
Other companies I know about directly are also partnership based, and have low employee counts. In most of those cases, someone has brought capital into the company as part of gaining equity ownership. Most expand by adding partners/shareholders, based on the equity brought into the company and the value added by that person's skills and expertise.
Other forms of employee ownership are more confusing to me, and there usually isn't a lot of public information available that's easy to access. Someone's sweeping the floors at those companies, so I'm interested in learning how one benefits from employee ownership at that level. I assume that advancement is part of it, but not everyone is suited for advancement to a management type of job.
Bluenorthwest
(45,319 posts)splitting off and replicating. With products that really do excel in smaller production this is the wave o' the future.
Currently 169 brewing operations owned by 135 companies employ 5,560 Oregonians. A 2.4 billion dollar industry.
MineralMan
(146,192 posts)That model seems to work pretty well for other businesses dealing with food and drink. We have several employee-owned bakeries, restaurants, and similar in my area. All are small, though, and even in the aggregate don't make up a huge part of total employment. Since manufacturing and other such businesses seem to be in the vanguard of major employers, that would have to be based on a completely different model, I'd think.
Agriculture, too, has a broad employee ownership basis, via co-ops and other associations. The medical profession, too, has a bunch of physician-owned businesses, but I'm not sure whether equity ownership trickles down in them below that level.
antigone382
(3,682 posts)If you haven't read him yet, check out some of the works by economist and local-biz advocate Michael Shuman (and double check my spelling on that ). I have read "The Small-Mart Revolution" but he has come out with another book since then that probably better reflects current possibilities. In any case, one of the points he makes is that businesses that are rooted in their own community are more accountable to that community and tend to result in a better "multiplier effect."
Granted, the small-town shop doesn't work for everything. However, small, locally- and/or collectively-owned operations can link together in "flexible manufacturing networks"; one oft-cited example is found in the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy, but there are others.
You've brought up a topic I'm very interested in, but it has been a couple of years since I really focused on it in my research and I'm currently in the last week of my undergraduate career, so I can't devote as much time and energy as I would like to responding to you. Thanks for the thread though!
As to your question, the only company on that list which I am particularly familiar with is Piggly Wiggly, although it kind of seems that the ESOP aspect may only be in the Carolinas (though I could be misinterpreting what is presented at your link). I know that "the Pig" seems quite open to selling locally produced food products, including bread, granola, coffee, etc. It's pretty expensive, but that could be because it serves a higher end clientele, and it is on top of a mountain where gas and possibly some goods are more expensive because of the cost to get stuff up the hill.
I think I might have heard that the owners of the company have a connection to the college town where I am from, and they have been described to me as nice people, but I could be getting that confused. The bottom line is that I shop there when I need something most of the time, although if I'm short on cash I might hit the Save-A-Lot instead.
historylovr
(1,557 posts)Both stores have been good places to shop on the customer service side and they have great selections too.
MineralMan
(146,192 posts)Gravitycollapse
(8,155 posts)tabbycat31
(6,336 posts)MineralMan
(146,192 posts)I've not heard of it before now.
ETA: I went to their website, and didn't find any info on employee ownership. How does it work?
tabbycat31
(6,336 posts)Wawa is a Mid-Atlantic gas station/convenience store chain that has a cult like following. I've never worked for them, but my experience with them is that they have very competitive gas prices and THE BEST COFFEE. Everytime I go there (every day for the above mentioned coffee) their employees are very friendly and seem happy to be there.
MineralMan
(146,192 posts)MineralMan
(146,192 posts)an employee-owned company. Several companies, over the years, actually. All of the employee-owned companies I know of are relatively small. It's tough to put that model into play in a larger company. Most of the prospective employee/owners have no capital to contribute, so their ownership comes from working at the company. Typically, that comes through stock in the company being awarded to employees over time.
Above, someone explained to me that ESOP programs aren't really employee-owned companies, so the question is: How do employees gain ownership in a large company otherwise? I understand how it works for small companies, but not for large ones.
I've thought, several times, about expanding companies I've started to a larger scale, but have always backed away from that. All were bootstrapped into existence and grew at a slow pace, with me doing every job. To expand would have required capital I did not have and was unwilling to borrow. So, all of them stayed as sole proprietorships with just me as the owner and employee. They worked, and I made a living, but expansion was something entirely different, and never made any sense to me.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)One that is not on the list that I do buy from often is named Bob's Red Mill.
Very high quality goods at low prices, which can be bought in stores or through Amazon. It's since been turned over to the employees when he retired, but it was in the works longer:
In February 2010, owner Bob Moore announced plans to give the whole company to his employees using an employee stock ownership plan.[2]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bob%27s_Red_Mill
Where I once worked we had an ESOP to buy stock, with the company matching per share. We knew it wasn't going to lead to having control of the company, it was way too big. We had a union and it was in our contract.
MineralMan
(146,192 posts)other similar situations. The ESOP thing is interesting, too, but also is limited in equity ownership for most employees, and their prosperity is often determined by management decisions. There have been a number of failures.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)They never failed to give a dividend, no matter how small. The major windfall for us was when the share price rose to close to twice the value of what we bought them. Then they'd split the shares in two automatically, which could pay off in time.
We bought shares through our payroll deductions, but to cash the money out we had to go to Charles Schwab and pay them a brokerage fee. So for most of us it was just a savings account.
The company was managed with an eye to profits and dividends, which could make working there a bit tough. But be being union and having a defined pension benefit plan in place, we felt 'invested' in making profits, and felt a sense of ownership, if you will.
I don't think that is what you mean here, though.
OneGrassRoot
(22,917 posts)I've posted frequently on DU about the possibilities with this structure. I realize the companies at the list aren't structured as a truly democratic co-op, but it's going in the right direction, at least.
I would LOVE to brainstorm and explore this option with others who are even slightly interested. It seems many people still envision the local organic gardening co-op and don't realize the potential here.
Evergreen Cooperatives is a GREAT model. http://evergreencooperatives.com/
This approach is what can save us, imho.
K&R and bookmarked.
MineralMan
(146,192 posts)a long history. My parents, who grow citrus and avocados, have been members of a co-op. However, it ended up acting like a typical middleman, spending huge amounts on administrative and other functions, while the individual farmers saw very little benefit. My parents withdrew, eventually and contracted for the packing and distribution. They made more money that way.
snappyturtle
(14,656 posts)WinniSkipper
(363 posts)Is pretty good - varies from store to store just a bit. We had one close to work - good lunch specials. Delivery service - not complaints
MineralMan
(146,192 posts)how their franchisees treat their workers.
WinniSkipper
(363 posts)the next time I'm there
Vincardog
(20,234 posts)killbotfactory
(13,566 posts)Don't be fooled! These worker owned companies will never succeed because the profits that they make rightfully belong to obscenely rich venture capitalists, wall street investors, and golden-parachute equipped ceo's. Workers having a stake in the company they work for, beyond their wages (which should be sufficiently meager)?? Hogwash!
RedCappedBandit
(5,514 posts)moondust
(19,917 posts)Do employees share 100% of the profits or something? How is that different from a coop?
I think quite a few corporations used to have profit sharing as an employee benefit but they were still traded on Wall Street and not employee owned.