Worker-Based Investment Funds

Description

Nyegosh Dube:

'Worker ownership can also take a multi-company form like the Quebec Solidarity Fund, a labor-sponsored pension fund that holds equity in small and medium-sized companies across the province, or the Meidner Plan proposed in Sweden in the 1970s where worker ownership in whole sectors is built up over time through annual allocation of shares to wage-earner funds. These two, along with the Coopfond in Italy (which funds development of the coop sector), are at the same time examples of meso-level worker-based investment funds.

A particularly intriguing idea would be expansion of the Scott Bader trust model to ownership of multiple firms by a national-level public trust or union-sponsored workers’ trust, or a network of single-firm trusts linked under a common umbrella. In fact, the national investment fund (with governance representing a range of stakeholders) could serve as the public trust – getting funds from taxation of corporate assets, wealth taxes on the top 1%, and earnings from share ownership, and then disbursing funds in accordance with democratically set social priorities.

While there are no existing models for this kind of fund, we have a few partial models such as the State Pension Fund of Norway. (The Norwegian fund invests globally and is not focused on assisting sectors of the economy or particular communities or funding public projects.)" (http://www.solidarityeconomy.net/2012/03/31/empowering-workers-through-economic-democracy/)