“…Meanwhile, what about the workers
in those state monopolies that are being put up for sale? I am reminded
of a technique for employee ownership that has worked well for many
U.S.
companies. It goes by various names but the best known is
“Employee Stock Ownership Program” or
“E.S.O.P.”. With such a program, the employees of a company
create a trust which borrows money from a bank to buy shares of stock in the
company. The loan is paid back over several years from the
employees’ share of the company’s profits. How can they be
sure the company will be profitable? The workers, as owners, make sure
by insisting that unprofitable or obsolete products be replaced by new ones;
that operating costs be kept down; and that new efficiencies of operation are
adopted. In the
U.S.
we have seen it happen time and again.
It is another fact of
human nature: When a person owns assets – a house, land, a small
business or shares of stock in a big one – he or she will look after
those assets…”
-From a speech delivered on September 15, 1990 in
Gdansk
,
Poland
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