Employee Ownership 🤝 Housing Affordability
The Ownership Economy Newsletter, Vol. 155
👋 Welcome Back
Almost there: In a recent episode of The Daily podcast this week, labor reporter Ronda Kaysen offers two potential responses to housing unaffordability:
Stop deporting construction workers, and
Launch training programs to replace construction workers lost in the 1980s thanks to the intentional weakening of construction unions
What’s missing: There are at least two other things policymakers could do—one embedded in the reporting and another we wish labor reporters would cover more (I bet you can guess what it is!):
Rebuild worker power lost in the 1970s from efforts by to weaken unions by, well, strengthening unions (and, we might add, by including immigrants this time), and
Make construction work more appealing by sharing financial upside through employee ownership. Dallas-based Austin Commercial, for example, is one of at least thirteen construction companies among the country’s 100 largest ESOP-owned firms
Thanks Taylor Knickel for sharing the episode!
🥃 Top Shelf News
Andy Burnham became Prime Minister of the UK, and will govern with a coalition of both Labour Party and Co-operative Party MPs
Aunnie Patton Power and Erinch Sahan opened pre-orders for their much-anticipated book, Brave New Capital
On July 29, Oxford’s Said Business School hosts the authors
The ESOP Association launched a new Facilitator Certification Program
The 21st Century Road to Housing Act, “the largest piece of housing legislation in decades,” is a victory for housing cooperatives, says NCBA CLUSA
👉 In This Issue
Events
Upcoming + Recaps + OpportunitiesEmployee Ownership
ESOPs + EOTs + Worker CooperativesThe Ownership Economy
Corporate Governance + Digital Ownership + Community-Owned Real Estate + Member-Owned FinanceAcademic News
New Papers
📅 Events + Recaps + Opportunities
To see a comprehensive list of events, go to our main Events page.
This Week
🆕 July 25: LA Co-op Lab’s Legal Cafe with 30-minute co-op consultations
July 28-29: The Minnesota Cooperative Summit in Duluth, MN
July 29: The Aspen Institute hosts Steve Dawson and Jerry Rubin on their new book, Help Wanted: How To Find and Keep Talent in a Forever-Tight Labor Market
July 31: Better Portland hosts Hannah Sandmeyer to discuss local business succession
Recaps + Opportunities
Project Equity is hiring a Growth & Product Marketing Manager
NCBA CLUSA is looking for short film submissions for its IMPACT Film Fest
The GitLab Foundation opened applications for round 2 of its Powering Economic Opportunity Fund; applications close Aug 12
The Rutgers Institute is accepting nominations for its Economic Democracy Book Prize
NCEO shares insights from their June Community Conversation
Employee Ownership
TIME published a list of the “Best Private Companies of 2026,” many of which are employee owned
The Institute for Economic Democracy joined the Diesis Network to help grow employee ownership in Europe
Project Equity welcomed Kayla Hellal as their new Marketing Senior Manager. Congrats!
Northern Trust granted up to 10 shares of company stock to all eligible employees globally under its new “Invested as One” initiative
EO-pinions (get it?):
Mark Cuban points out that stock options at SpaceX minted 4,000 millionaires last month; he thinks more companies should do the same. Potential ally Tim Urban agrees!
Unlock Ownership cofounder Katie Boland makes the case for selling to employees over private equity
ICYMI: Emily Thomas of Morgan Stanley discusses the rise of employee ownership as an exit strategy
📈 Employee Stock Ownership Plans
DBI, an office furniture store in Lansing, MI, has become the second business to take advantage of the state’s new employee ownership pilot program
NCEO launched a task force to examine how repurchase obligations should affect ESOP valuation, and announced its September Communications Committee Crash Course
Jason Muhme recently stepped into the role of Head of ESOP Finance at Northwest Bank. Congrats!
ICYMI: In what we suspect is a smart use of Claude Code, Aaron Dean built an almanac of US companies with an employee stock ownership plan (h/t TXCEO)
Employee Ownership Trusts
Douglas Singer and Katie Lyon share lessons any company can learn from employee ownership trusts, including how to share information and trust employees to act on it
🇨🇦 ICYMI: In British Columbia, Canada, Terra Remote Sensing transitioned to EOT
🤝 Worker Cooperatives
NCRC’s Kaitlyn Ridel profiles how the Cooperative Fund of the Northeast is fighting the silver tsunami
Baltimore’s Baby’s on Fire cafe closed after workers unionized — now staff are fighting to reopen it as a worker cooperative
Sarah Kaplan of Pathlight Law launched a tool to help co-ops raise capital
🎙️ Everything Co-op talks with Katrina Kazda about the changes in home care
The Ownership Economy
Lina Khan is the new head of the New York’s Economic Development Corporation; Jason Wiener is excited about what that means for cooperatives of all kinds
In Europe, Politico covered the efforts to include employee and steward ownership in proposed EU corporate regulation
The Economy of Francesco Academy compiled a collection of the work done by its fellows in 2026
AI and Digital Ownership
Delilah Rothenberg argues that AI’s benefits will mainly go to existing capital owners unless predistributive ownership is established early on
Illustrating that case, perhaps: Orson Aguilar and Catherine Bracy urge the SEC to demand full governance disclosure before OpenAI’s IPO (paywalled)
Data cooperatives could be one answer to these governance issues, writes Rina Chandran in Rest of World
Elyor Zitalni also thinks employee ownership will differentiate otherwise commoditized AI firms
🕴️Shared Governance
In ImpactAlpha, Danielle Reed argues that including stakeholders in governance can help foundations maintain mission focus (paywalled)
Julie Menter introduces freedom of choice as a framework for thinking about strategic decision-making in mission-driven firms
Transform Finance also published an article outlining the importance of governance in business longevity
But Randall Smith writes for the WSJ on the slump in Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) investing (paywalled)
… and Ben & Jerry’s Foundation is at risk of shutting down amidst a souring relationship with its parent company
🏘️ Community-Owned Real Estate
Africatown Community Land Trust secured first right of refusal for Seattle’s historic Liberty Bank Building
The city of Superior, Wisconsin purchased the first home to be be placed in its community land trust
Rupal Patel argued that private equity didn’t beat community ownership fairly
kevin jones explores explores whether paying neighbors could unlock housing approvals in resistant neighborhoods
🏦 Member-Owned Finance
James Sherwin-Smith pledged to keep fighting for stronger member democracy at Nationwide
A new cooperative bank opened in Cyprus, with an initial offer of 42 million shares
📚 Academic News
Andrea Kim and Kyongji Han find employee ownership boosts performance most among agreeable and extraverted workers at lower hierarchical levels
Timo Jütten claims the demand for workplace is based more on workers’ experiences of powerlessness than its benefits for political democracy
Aaron Chipp-Miller demonstrates that relational egalitarianism supports the case for workplace democracy as convincingly as it does for political democracy
Owenership is hard dealing with the SEC. Creating a PMA is much easier.