Legislative Package Introduced to Encourage Employee-Owned Companies

Summary

The Official U.S. Senate website of Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont.

WASHINGTON, May 11 – Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), along with Sens. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) and Maggie Hassan (D-N.H.), introduced two pieces of legislation Thursday to help workers around the country form employee-owned businesses.

Broad-based employee ownership has been proven to increase employment, productivity, sales and wages in the United States. Employee ownership boosts company productivity by 4 percent, shareholder returns by 2 percent and profits by 14 percent, according to a Rutgers University study.

Nationally, there are already nearly 10,000 employee-owned businesses which employ roughly 10 million people.