Santiago111

As to transfers of ownership: Actually, the National Center for Employee Ownership (NCEO) has been involved for years in promoting the formation of ESOP's (employee stock option plans), which provide considerable tax incentives for business owners to transfer ownership to employees. Unfortunately ESOP's are not necessarily very democratic- you get ESOP companies where the ESOP trustee elects the board of directors and the board of directors selects the ESOP trustee. NCEO is currently supporting a campaign to encourage local governments and economic development agencies to promote ESOP's as an economic development tool- employee-owned (and run) companies are more productive, and less likely to pick up and move to another community.

Mattgab-

You stated that you recently launched a worker-cooperative to have more control and dignity over your work. You also ask how we can grow the cooperative sector.

I think that words like "more control and dignity" are key selling points for cooperative ownership. We can most effectively advance the movement by promoting the subjective experience so that others will say, "I want some of that." We need not only to organize demonstrations of business viability, like your cooperative, but also to promote the subjective reality of those demonstrations. For example, I think it would be good if, on your web site, you had profiles of the members of the cooperative with stories along the lines of, "I used to xxxx, but now I xxxx. The other day, I realized that xxx. I really like being part of a cooperative because xxxx." You could have endorsements from your customers, as well, for example: "In the past, I had a lot of trouble with IT consultants because xxx. I really like the fact that xxx does not quit until my problem is solved, and that he can bring in his partners to help solve my problems. For example, the other day, xxx."

Our movement needs to apply the skills of advertising and public relations people. We have the advantage that we have a good product- good news can travel fast, if we do not hide our light under a bushel.

From what I have seen, the New Economy Coalition is quite picky about whom they will admit to membership. I think our movement will grow faster if there is more cooperation among like-minded organizations and if it is easier to become part of an organization which promotes mutual assistance, the sharing of experiences, visibility in the media, practical seminars, book reviews, annotated bibliographies, etc.

In your current Nation article, you write:

"The move to a national single-payer system will be long and difficult, but it is possible—and with it will come the democratization of a sector that currently represents almost a fifth of the US economy."

Actually, the institutions that provide health care (including those that provide health care under the single-payer Medicare program) are, as far as I know universally, structured along traditional lines- either as for-profits or non-profits. The hierarchical organization of health care- with physicians at the top- makes it tough to promote cooperative ownership of health care organizations. All that a single-payer system does, at best, is get the insurance companies out of the middle and enhance the bargaining power of the government. Not bad, but not a dramatic democratization of the economy.

It would be helpful if there were a central repository of updated information about cooperatives and related entities (for example, state-owned and municipally-owned enterprises). Our church group is interested in promoting employee ownership. However, there is no single convenient place to learn about employee-owned firms, indexed by line of work, geography, etc. and including contact information. One particular model that I think has potential is the worker cooperative closely tied to a non-profit corporation. I believe that there was at one time a child care cooperative organized in this way, but I have lost track of it.