The US Department of Labour has launched an Employee Ownership Initiative within its Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA).
The programme aims to empower workers through ownership arrangements and educate them on possible pathways to greater rewards in return for their labour.
“Worker ownership arrangements help create pathways for employees to earn a fair share of the profits that their labor makes possible and will play a critical role in the Biden-Harris administration’s fight to give workers a voice on the job and a seat at the table,” said acting secretary of labor Julie A Su. “This initiative is an important step in implementing President Biden’s economic plan to empower workers and grow the economy from the middle out and the bottom up – not the top down.”
The plan includes the creation of a Division of Employee Ownership in EBSA’s Office of Outreach, Education and Assistance, which will support the creation and expansion of worker-owned businesses.
The division will be tasked with supporting existing programmes to promote employee ownership and facilitating the formation of new programmes as well as developing a clearing house of techniques applied by new and existing state programmes and sharing information about these techniques with states.
It will also provide education, outreach, and training to inform employees and employers about the possibilities and benefits of worker ownership and business ownership succession planning as well as technical assistance for employee’s efforts to become business owners and help employers and employees explore the feasibility of transferring full or partial ownership to employees.
“By launching this initiative, the Employee Benefits Security Administration is working to help balance the distribution of power in America’s workplaces and empower the workers who fuel their employers’ ability to be successful day in, day out, while educating employers about how worker ownership can be good for business,” said assistant secretary for Employee Benefits Security Lisa M Gomez.
The department also appointed Hilary Abell as a division chief to the employee ownership Initiative. Abell has a background in employee ownership, having co-founded Project Equity, and been a worker-owner at Equal Exchange.
“This Initiative is an unprecedented investment by our federal government,” Abell told the US Federation of Worker Cooperatives (USFWC). “It represents an opportunity to build on the momentum that employee ownership has gained in recent years and to enable many more people across the country to experience the benefits of worker voice and ownership. I am honoured to take on this challenge.”
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Abell’s past involvement in co-ops also includes serving as an executive committee member of the USFWC’s Policy and Advocacy Council, being a core member of the Worker Owned Recovery California Coalition, a fellow of the Rutgers Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing, a board member of Carolina Common Enterprise, and a farmer representative.
WSFWC welcomed Abell’s appointment, having worked closely with the Department of Labor to inform the Division of Employee Ownership. In a press statement, the apex pledged to continue to advocate to ensure worker co-operatives are centralised in the work of the office.
“We are pleased to see that the Department of Labor has invested in the Division of Employee Ownership,” said Mo Manklang, policy director at USFWC. ”We are excited to see a leader with a strong familiarity with the worker co-operative movement installed to spearhead this work.
“Hillary Abell’s hiring shows that the DOL and the Employee Benefits Security Administration (EBSA) office which oversees the division sees the importance of both worker co-operative and Employee Stock Ownership Plans (ESOP) sectors, and we look forward to working with Ms Abell to ensure that worker co-operatives grow in prominence throughout federal government programmes.”
The initiative was set up under the Worker Ownership, Readiness and Knowledge Act as part of the FY 2023 Federal Appropriations and Funding Bill. The US President’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 Budget requests over US$205m for EBSA including the Employee Ownership Initiative. But the Senate and the House of Representatives have proposed different figures to the one suggested by the Biden Harris Administration. Congress has until 30 September to pass the FY 2025 Federal Budget.
The National Cooperative Business Association (NCBA Clusa) said it would continue to advocate for policies to support employee ownership through worker co-operatives as part of its engagement with the Congress.
