[Johnny555]

It all comes back to governance and taking care of shareholders.

Which explains why companies are like they are -- if the board had a fiduciary responsibility to employees first and shareholders second, maybe workers would be better off.

[JumpCrisscross]

> if the board had a fiduciary responsibility to employees first and shareholders second, maybe workers would be better off

Oh look, it’s New York City’s MTA [1] and NYPD.

Our society puts consumers first, shareholders second and workers like fiftieth. Moving workers up seems reasonable. Skipping them ahead of shareholders or consumers has, historically, been a predictable failure.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metropolitan_Transportation_...

[Johnny555]

Keeping the company alive would be a key benefit for workers, so it couldn't go the way of a public agency where their funding comes from "unlimited free money" (aka, taxpayers)

[dragonwriter]

> - if the board had a fiduciary responsibility to employees first and shareholders second, maybe workers would be better off.

If the workers were by definition the shareholders, you wouldn't have to worry about which came first.

[candiodari]

And which laws, exactly, are preventing this ?

There are plenty of employee-owned companies. Lots. I mean, they're not all that successful, mostly, but that's hardly relevant.

[dragonwriter]

> And which laws, exactly, are preventing this ?

Which said laws were preventing this?

OTOH, if it's a desirable social norm, then it's perhaps insufficient for law to fail to prevent it; it may be desirable for law to encourage or even require it as a precondition for the protections associated with the corporate form.

[candiodari]

The left's history with such a social norm, voluntary co-ownership is ... sordid. Just read up on how leftist parties treated Israeli Kibbutzim, for example.

People abandoned them, first in small numbers, and then of course the left no longer wanted anything to do with them, and they started getting sabotaged by (leftist) governments ...

And of course, now half of them are referred to as those settlers. It's not the same thing of course, but because of land prices they pretty much have to be, unless they're "historical".

TLDR: most of the existing ones failed and because of that everybody hates the new ones.

Let's not go there. Let's just skip it this time around, ok ?

[cylinder]

50 investors get together and invest $1 million to open a store and stock it with inventory. They hire one store clerk and one manager. They elect a board of directors.

The board in this case should have a fiduciary responsibility to the two employees over the investors? Really?

[hinkley]

That’s a spectacular man of straw you’ve made there.

50 people aren’t going to get together to dream up a two person shop.

[forapurpose]

> if the board had a fiduciary responsibility to employees first and shareholders second

I'm under the impression that in Germany, which has a highly productive economy, workers have seats on the board.

[BrandoElFollito]

They do (one seat), same in France

[Bromskloss]

Aren't board members hired by the owners to do things the owners need done with their business? It seems secondary that they would answer to anyone else.