In this event, panelist discuss how employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) can improve job quality, reduce wealth inequality, and strengthen our economy. They highlight how the coming “silver tsunami” of retiring business owners represents a once-in-a-generation opportunity to grow the number the ESOPs. And they explore the policies, supports, and assistance that businesses — including publicly traded companies — need for ESOP conversion.
In this event, Rick Wartzman, author of “Still Broke: Walmart’s Remarkable Transformation and the Limits of Socially Conscious Capitalism,” considers the experience and history of Walmart moving toward a more conscious capitalism and the recent efforts the company has made to provide higher wages and better benefits and opportunities for its employees. Wartzman raises important questions about how much an individual company can do on its own to improve the quality of jobs and people’s ability to earn a living through their work; the degree to which business imperatives encourage companies to improve jobs and when those incentives conflict with that goal; and whether public sector action, through either labor market regulation or the provision of social supports, needs to be strengthened to ensure that work in today’s economy is contributing to an inclusive economy in which all can thrive.
In this event, panelists discuss the possible impact of guaranteed income on the labor market and especially on the quality of jobs. This bipartisan idea — which has roots in the nation’s founding, the New Deal, the Nixon Administration, and the Civil Rights Movement — is gaining momentum and is now being piloted in more than 100 demonstration sites across the US. How might the security of a guaranteed income provide workers agency, strengthen competition, and raise the floor for all?
In this event, Saket Soni, author of “The Great Escape: A True Story of Forced Labor and Immigrant Dreams in America,” discusses the story of a group of immigrant workers who experienced significant abuses in the US. Soni deals with these weighty questions by telling a gripping tale — a story of love, dreams, betrayal, greed, courage, redemption, and hope. Ultimately, it’s a story about learning to see across our society’s divides of race, ethnicity, class, gender, and geography to find our common humanity.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, adopted by the United Nations in 1948, set forth a set of civil, social, and economic rights that inspired the development of human rights’ laws around the world. In this context, the UN’s Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and The New School’s Institute on Race, Power and Political Economy announced the Partnership for a Human Rights Economy in 2022. In this event, panelists discuss the legacy and lasting influences of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; the philosophies and values that have come to shape our economy, and their consequences; and ideas to build a moral and inclusive economy based on human rights.
The US government is the largest purchaser of goods and services in the world, spending over $600 billion per year. And public procurement exceeds $2.1 trillion annually when state and local governments are included. In this event, panelists consider what it would mean if good jobs principles were embedded in procurement decisions.
As growing numbers of business owners retire, efforts are underway to help them convert their business to employee ownership, including worker cooperatives. Despite this momentum, however, worker cooperatives remain a small part of the US economy, and growing the model can be challenging. In this event, panelists share success stories — at home and abroad — and discuss what we can learn from them, including how to remove barriers to cooperatives’ growth.
It takes intention to design a workplace culture that fully leverages the strengths of employee ownership. In this event, panelists discuss the diverse ways that employee ownership can be realized for a business, including employee stock ownership plans, employee ownership trusts, worker-owned cooperatives, and equity compensation programs. Each holds different advantages and disadvantages, and they can differ in their profit sharing, costs, flexibility, and how workers are involved in decision making.
In this event, panelists discuss the promise of work-based learning. When designed well, work-based learning provides a number of benefits to workers and businesses. Approaches such as apprenticeship, on-the-job training, and other forms of employer-sponsored training can offer workers the opportunity for upward mobility and the chance to earn and learn at the same time, while employers gain a more engaged and skilled workforce.
The Hartford has a large workers’ compensation business, ranked 2nd in the nation based on direct written premiums. Workers’ compensation is insurance that provides coverage in the form of cash payments or medical care for workers who are injured on the job. Recently, the company discovered that a significant proportion of claims that were made through the workers’ compensation department were relatively simple claims, referred to as “medical only,” that required only coverage for medications or medical care and not more complex areas such as lost wages or time off work. Medical-only also includes claims that do not require any significant medical intervention or service, as well as claims where the treatment was completed before the claim was filed. This area represented a prime opportunity for automation, where work previously done by a claim administrator would instead be automated using custom-built computer algorithms, freeing up staff members to do more complex work. They determined that some medical-only claims processes could be automated, eliminating multiple human touchpoints without sacrificing compliance or customer outcomes. As with other automation efforts, AI often creates significant financial returns and efficiency gains, giving work previously done by humans to a machine. Unlike many automation efforts, though, The Hartford did not find savings through eliminating workforce. Rather, they took the opportunity created by the automation and reformed roles to fill different business needs, enabling the entire workers’ compensation department to handle more, more efficiently.