Vermont Employee Ownership Center funded

[Dan Bell <dbell@kent.edu>]

This may be of interest to the group...Don Jamison
has posted from time to time on his plans...
Congratulations on this funding....look forward to
hearing more about the project...best wishes,
Cecile Betit
East Wallingford, VT

http://rutlandherald.nybor.com/News/State/Story/38210.html
Sanders lands federal money for employee ownership projects
November 27, 2001

By DAVID MACE Vermont Press Bureau

MONTPELIER — Efforts to set up a program to help employees in
Vermont become owners of their companies got a $100,000 boost from
the federal government on Monday.

Flanked by workers from two such companies, Rep. Bernard Sanders,
I-Vt., announced at a press conference that he had secured a grant
in a recent Department of Housing and Urban Development
appropriations bill for the Vermont Workers’ Ownership Center.

“There is no magical formula for job security or an economy that
is creating the kind of decent-paying jobs that we want,” Sanders
said, noting that workers in Vermont and around the country are
facing uncertainty about their positions as the nation slips into
recession.

“But everything being equal, workers will have a lot more job
security when they own the company in which they work, rather than
being just an employee, someone who can be laid off at any time
for any reason,” he said.

The money will be used to help set up a nonprofit group that will
promote worker ownership throughout the state. Sanders pointed out
that employee-owned companies wouldn’t move their plants overseas
to seek cheap labor; pay their chief executive officers exorbitant
salaries or compromise on safety or environmental issues.

He said he believed there were many business owners in Vermont who
would consider selling their companies to workers when they
retired or left the business, if they only knew the potential
benefits and the legal implications.

According to Don Jamison, director of the Chittenden County
Employee Ownership Center and a member of the Vermont Employee
Ownership Center’s steering committee, there are some 11,000
companies that feature some level of employee ownership in the
United States.

Of those about 2,000 feature majority ownership by workers, and
there are believed to be between 20 and 30 employee-owned firms in
Vermont, he said.

Jamison said an owner who sold their firm to its employees could
delay paying capital gains taxes on the proceeds if they were
invested in stocks or bonds. The taxes need only be paid when
those investments are sold.

Cindy Turcot, chief financial officer at Gardener’s Supply in
Burlington, said the company set up an employee stock ownership
plan in 1987, and that the firm’s 250 employees were now empowered
to help chart the mail-order company’s future, including putting
together the annual budget.

“We involved every single employee in understanding what we needed
to do,” Turcot said. “We don’t want to lay off employees, we want
people to be involved in making sure we all keep our own jobs.”

Shannon Zappala of King Arthur Flour in Norwich said the company’s
160-plus employees began buying stock in 1996 after ownership
decided to include them.

“Having it be a positive reason, rather than a last-ditch effort
to save the boat ... really made the employees feel like they were
taken seriously, they’re being respected by the management,”
Zappala said. “... It makes us all feel a lot more excited about
being involved in a company like that.”

One potential employee ownership plan being explored is in Island
Pond, where some of the 125 workers at the former Ethan Allen
Interiors Inc. furniture plant who were laid off in July are
hoping to revive the factory.

“It is my hope that the state of Vermont in the years to come will
lead the country in this direction, where workers have a lot more
control over the jobs that they work in than they presently do,”
Sanders said.

Contact David Mace at david.mace@timesargus.com.




--
Dan Bell
International Program Coordinator
Ohio Employee Ownership Center
Kent State University
Kent, OH 44242
(330) 672-0333 << Direct number!
(330) 672-3028 general office number
(330) 672-4063 fax
dbell@kent.edu
http://www.kent.edu/oeoc/
http://cog.kent.edu