Transition to More Participatory Forms of Enterprise

Collective Action for Distributing Surplus: Democratizing ownership and negotiations around survival payments and surplus distributions

People are taking collective action to make businesses more democratic spaces in which workers are involved in negotiating what’s necessary for survival (i.e. their wages) and even how surplus is distributed.

Employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) offer company stocks to workers as a way of democratizing ownership and act as a form of retirement planning. Associations which assist in the transition from a privately-owned company to as ESOP include:

The ESOP Association (in the US)

ESOP Association Canada

Australian Employee Ownership Association (also for New Zealand)

European Federation of Employee Share Ownership (a multilingual site).