Bret Keisling discusses the new "Own Your Job Job Board" recently launched by Apis & Heritage Capital Partners (A&H) and the Democracy at Work Institute (DAWI). Also: an excerpt from our upcoming episode with EO/co-op advocate Rodney North.
Listen to this episode on Soundcloud. Or subscribe on Google Play or iTunes/Apple Podcasts.
The ESOP Podcast is licensed under a CC BY-NC-ND Creative Commons License.
Mini-cast 99 Transcript
Bret Keisling: 00:05 Hello, my friends, welcome to the ESOP Mini-cast. My name is Bret Keisling and as it says on my business cards, I'm a passionate advocate for employee ownership. Next Tuesday on our primary EO/ESOP podcast, I'll be joined by Rodney North who spent 20 years as a co-op worker/owner and the last four years consulting with new and existing co-ops. I'm going to bring you a brief excerpt from the upcoming episode in just a few moments, but first: Earlier this week, Apis & Heritage in partnership with the Democracy at Work Institute launched the Own Your Own Job job board. This job board will bring together people who want to work at employee owned companies with the EO companies that are hiring. We're going to include a link to the job board in our show notes and I hope to bring you a full episode about the job board before too long.
Bret Keisling: 01:00 This is a great idea and a wonderful development, particularly with all the economic and job uncertainty during the pandemic. The job board currently has about 700 postings from 95 employee owned companies. It provides a brief description of the position as well as a link to the hiring company's actual website where potential employees can get more information and apply. If you're looking for work, check out the job board. If you're an EO company looking to hire, please get listed on the job board. And if you're an EO practitioner, then visit the job board, see what's there, and then ask your clients or other EO contacts to participate. It's a great and important idea. So thank you very much to Apis & Heritage and the Democracy at Work Institute.
Bret Keisling: 01:46 Next week on Episode 117 of the EO/ESOP Podcast, Rodney North will discuss the intersection between democracy and employee ownership and his belief that instilling more democratic principles in the workplace will make for better companies and a better society. Here's a brief excerpt from next week's episode.
Bret Keisling: 02:10 Why should employee ownership matter to society? We talk a lot about economic justice, social justice, et cetera, et cetera, but for you as a passionate advocate, what's making you keep doing what you're doing? Why do you think this is better, you know, will make our country and our world better if there was more employee ownership?
Rodney North: 02:43 I've got a few different reasons how it would. One, is to the extent that employee ownership is married to some degree of democratic practice we can, as we've described, deepen our democracy by giving people a chance to practice democracy at the workplace.
Rodney North: 02:50 So, we in the US, care a lot about democracy -- we have fought wars over it and we educate ourselves in school about it a lot, but then we leave it at the door, we leave at home when we go to work. If it is such a great thing, why can't we bring it to the workplace with us? So, so one answer is, is that more democracy is better. So if you can bring it to the workplace that's an expansion of the democratic practice.
Rodney North: 03:26 Two, regarding employee ownership. You hear a lot kind of across society concerns about like, is the current system working? There's a lot of concern about growing material inequality and inequality of opportunity. And so one way while working within a free market system, one way of gradually of reducing inequality is through employee ownership. And yeah, and it can take all different forms as you've discussed over the show. Worker co-ops are, you know, at one end of the spectrum in terms of sort of the profound quality of one member, one share, one vote with a lot of participation. But all of it is good and all of it, I think, is a step forward. And if it can reduce inequality, I think that it can help reduce tension and it gives us this, I think, peaceable way to make some progress.
Rodney North: 04:30 And I think there's a fairness element. I think people who show up at a business aren't getting the kind of due credit and reward for all that they contribute. And so if they can have an ownership stake, then I think they get more credit to get more of like an upside financial upside to their contribution. And I think everybody comes out the better for it.
Bret Keisling: 04:58 Thank you very much for joining me today. Visit our website www.theESOPpodcast.com for more than 200 archived episodes. If you like what we're doing, I'd really appreciate it if you would follow or like, or subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Bret Keisling: 05:16 Our country continues to go through some tough times, but remember we're going through them together and that's how we'll get through them, together.
Bret Keisling: 05:28 This is Bret Keisling. Have a great day.
Bitsy McCann: 05:30 We'd love to hear from you! To contact us, find us on Facebook at KEISOP, LLC and on Twitter @ESOPPodcast. To reach Bret, with one "T", email Bret@KEISOP.com, on LinkedIn at Bret Keisling, and most actively on Twitter at @EO_Bret. Again, that's one "T". This podcast has been produced by The KEISOP Group, technical assistance provided by Third Circle, Inc. and BitsyPlus Design. Original music composed by Max Keisling, archival podcast material edited and produced by Brian Keisling, and I'm Bitsy McCann.
Standard Disclaimer: The views expressed herein are my own and don't represent those of my own firms or the organizations to which I belong. Nothing in the podcast should be construed as guidance or advice of any kind in any field and the fact that I mentioned an organizational website or an advocate or a company on a podcast does not reflect an endorsement, but if you've heard your name or your group's name mentioned on this podcast, I'd love to have you come on and talk about it yourself.
A note on the transcript: This transcript was produced by Temi, an automated transcription service. While it has been reviewed by The ESOP Podcast, we can not guarantee the accuracy of the transcription. Please refer to the original audio when citing sources.