It’s time to require employee ownership
I had the opportunity to walk around one of the biggest malls in the United States today. I’m not sure it was the best idea, given Covid, but I did it. A lot of of the time was similar to any other time in any mall across the country, especially during the holidays: bright lights, new clothes, sugary treats, yelling and screaming.
The major difference was the number of closed stores, with signs lamenting the shortage of employees. There was no common thread among the closures either, both big franchises and local, mom and pop. Even otherwise open restaurants canceling reservations and closing for a few days due to Covid outbreaks among staff. And of course, across the street from the mall, flights canceled due to missing pilots, flight attendants and ground crews.
This feels different than the Great Recession. The small town I lived in at the time was built around a well-designed Main Street. I remember walking the length of it on an almost daily basis and seeing multiple empty storefronts on each block. But then, people wanted to work. There was just no credit to do so.
Today, people don’t want to work? Is it laziness? I don’t think so. Or, if it is, no amount of government mandates or free market genius can solve the problem of widespread laziness. No, there is a global health pandemic. Almost one million Americans have died. Millions more have gotten sick or are doing everything they can to avoid getting sick because of their compromised immune systems or those of their families.
It becomes easy to stop going to work when, even if you don’t make minimum wage, your paycheck hasn’t increased in years, or not enough to match inflation and certainly not enough to match your increased work load or your increased productivity.
But you have watched your boss do better. And the executives got rich. And not just rich but unimaginably wealthy. Even when the company didn’t do that well. Sometimes when the company went out of business.
Worse, the executives set standard to protect themselves that they wouldn’t set for you. Like vaccine mandates in the office but not on the front line. Why show up to be overworked for menial pay when it is not only dangerous but your boss refuses to implement even basic, obvious protections?
Clearly there is no leadership. It’s just those at the top taking as much as possible for themselves. The calculus is something like “even if I get in trouble, it is unlikely the penalty, if there is any at all, will be significant and if I can’t work again, well, I have enough to retire already and to live like most can’t imagine.”
There is no silver bullet to this problem. This is a generational that could take generations to resolve. One way to kickstart that process is through employee ownership. If companies do not offer equity to all employees, the company is no longer eligible for tax incentives. Or the company cannot take certain business deductions. Such as the cost of labor?
Which companies compensate their lowest paid employees the best? What is the compensation plan? Does it include ownership? What is the employee retention at these companies relative to peers?
Elon Musk makes headlines opposing a bonus electric vehicle tax credit for manufacturers with unionized employees. He can make this argument by claiming his non-unionized employees receive stock and many have gotten rich. Is Tesla a replicable model? Would Ford or General Motors employees prefer to work for Tesla? How many have done so?
