Joseph Blasi and Maureen Conway Give Closing Remarks at the 2025 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum

In this clip, the Aspen Institute’s Maureen Conway and Rutgers University’s Joseph Blasi provide closing remarks at the 2025 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum. For a transcript and additional resources, visit our website: https://www.aspeninstitute.org/videos/joseph-blasi-and-maureen-conway-give-closing-remarks-at-the-2025-employee-ownership-ideas-forum/ 

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The 2025 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum took place on April 9-10, 2025, virtually and in Washington DC. The Forum is proudly co-hosted by the Aspen Institute Economic Opportunities Program and the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing at Rutgers University.

This year’s theme, “From Workers to Owners,” highlights how the experience of ownership changes the reality of work for workers. The forum highlights companies in a range of business sectors and explores how employee ownership fits their business strategy and approach to business leadership. We also discuss the particular role employee ownership can play in supporting business success, and we consider the role institutional investors can play in improving capital access for employee ownership conversions and expansions.

For more information about the Employee Ownership Ideas Forum, including our speakers, agenda, and additional resources, visit our website: https://www.aspeninstitute.org/events/employee-ownership-ideas-forum-2025/

Episode Transcript

(00:04):
Well, I'll start with the a few thank you.
I I want to thank employee on S corporations for America of
America and and Stephanie Silverman for their for their
work. S corporations were the more
recent, but many, many years ESOP kid on the block.
And you may not know that Eska has a has a strategy of very

(00:26):
focused networking of of highly influential and sophisticated
members of Congress. And I think they have been
extremely effective in doing this.
Many of us do not see their their small conferences, their
networking sessions, their intensive research and records
has been very pleased to partnerwith them on some of this

(00:49):
research. Thank you.
But they have a very important role here as the sort of elite
fighting core in policy and we appreciate them.
I also want to thank again the financial services firms that
have supported us, Prudential, JP Morgan Chase, the support of

(01:18):
the Ford Foundation has been very important and the service
and impact Impact Fund. And this relates to, this
relates to my comments that you can bear with me for 3 or 4
minutes about the first part of this conference, which focused
on the tent, who should be inside and outside the tent and

(01:43):
how big the tent should be. This is a matter of, I think of
important debate. I think the tent should be very
big. And I've tried to share with you
some historical perspectives. So let me sort of take you back
in the Star Trek time machine tothe 1880s and talk about 1880 to

(02:09):
1920. What was happening?
There was a smattering of very small mattering smattering of
pure worker cooperatives around the country, which were barely
holding themselves above, above,above water.
And then a few people who they all thought were outside of the

(02:31):
tent, big finance people, sat down and we're thinking about
the future of capitalism. Under what they were observing
is mass urbanization, industrialization and
development of transportation systems.
One of them was William Cooper, Proctor Republican, who managed

(02:53):
the 1920 presidential campaign of one of the leading Republican
people. Proctor essentially invented
something very similar to an ESOP at Proctor at Proctor and
Gamble using cash profit sharingloans and dividends to help
workers buy, buy buy stock. When he was trying to get his

(03:17):
candidate who almost won at the Republican National Convention
elected, employee ownership was the center of their of their
campaign idea. Proctor heard about employee
ownership from his professor at Princeton University who talked

(03:41):
about it in in his theology class.
OK, all right, So what Proctor did it?
Proctor and Gamble set the stagefor a lot of other imitation of
their plans. No, it was not a pure ESOP, it
was not a pure worker coop. But the point I want to make is
that purity and homogeneity has not served the idea of shares

(04:07):
for workers. Well, then you had George
Pillsbury who created a whole series of broad based employee
ownership plans in Pillsbury. Most people don't know.
Again, I love going to these dusty archives that Pillsbury in
his nighttime activities was advising the worker cooperative

(04:28):
barrel makers in Minneapolis andgiving them personal loans of
credit to keep the whole. That was a very important group
of worker cooperatives to keep them them alive.
Again, Pillsbury was big business.
John D Rockefeller who designed a employee ownership plan, which

(04:53):
again was very similar to the ESOP, even added more than
Proctor by providing low interest loans to buy buy the
stock. De facto the impact and the
operation of the Rockefeller plan was essentially like like
the ESOP. And then Rockefeller organized
something called the special conference committee of about 20

(05:17):
top CE OS and businesses around the country who called for broad
based employee ownership as a solution to the differences
between capital, capital and labor.
Now, it's important to understand that what all of
these people were working, we didn't have tax incentives and

(05:39):
tax policy because we didn't have individual income taxes and
we didn't have individual corporate taxes, you know, until
we had the 16th Amendment in 1913.
But all of the laboratory work they did in their companies, and
they were not pure, right? Procter and Gamble, Standard Oil

(05:59):
and Pillsbury were about as far from purity of worker
cooperatives than you can guess.And yes, and yet their work
informed Wall Street, informed Washington and set the stage
once we got the the 16th Amendment on corporate income

(06:20):
tax, individual income taxes to begin the discussion and get tax
deductions for employee ownership plans in the United
States. And I just want to use this as
an illustration today we're talking about KKR, we're talking
about another piece of legislation in Congress to

(06:40):
change taxes sentence for broad based employee equity
compensation plans. We're talking about the
expanding ESOPS initiative. We're talking about EOTS, we're
talking about ownership works tohave a homogeneity and purity
agenda regarding all of this. History does not suggest that

(07:02):
that is the right approach to take.
History does not suggest that that is right approach to take.
Sure, Aesop's are a very specialform as our worker co-ops with
very special standards of inclusion and and and fairness.
But the broader arguments to Wall Street, if you look at

(07:22):
American history and the involvement of the big figures
in Wall Street has done a lot tolegitimate the idea of broad
based employee ownership in the United States.
Thank you very much and I so appreciative of our wonderful
partnership with Aspen and the entire team of 10 to 15 Aspen

(07:43):
and Rutgers people put this together.
Thank you. All right, well, thank you
everybody for sticking with us today.
I also want to thank we do actually have a live stream
audience that's been with us pretty much most of the day.
So big huge thanks to the live stream audience for for sticking

(08:04):
with us. I gather the live stream
actually worked today, which that was a plus.
I, I really want to thank actually our, our Thursday
afternoon planning committee, right, who's been meeting for
months and months and months to plan this, right?
So Matt Helmer, Merritt, Steven,Adria Sharp, Melissa Hoover,

(08:25):
Jack Moriarty. I don't know where Jack is.
Bethany Dennis. I shouldn't do this without
notes. I started scribbling down notes.
They're completely, they're incomplete, so I probably am
forgetting somebody, but it's just really taken a a huge team.
I also want to thank Francis Almodovar, who shows up and
takes pictures for us, Finney and Maxwell Johnson, Amanda

(08:51):
Finns. Sorry, Finney, who show up and
just pitch in and help out like Brian Morgan shows up seeing
Young was around, like my team just shows up and says, what do
you need and fills in the spacesBecause it takes a lot of work
to put these things on. And I'm just so grateful for you
all for for showing up and for helping.
Out it's. It really is is hugely

(09:13):
appreciated and what I am reallytaking away, and I hope what
we're all really taking away, isthat in this moment there's a
lot of promise. And there's a lot of work and.
I think we're all taking away things that we need to start
doing, as Stephanie mentioned, maybe like starting to talk to
somebody new pushing us outside of our comfort zones a little

(09:34):
bit. I really appreciate Margo
pointing out the, you know, expanding Overton window, but
there's the moment, right? And so, so I think what
hopefully we're all taking away and you know.
I. Hope you're.
Not all taking away what a pain in the neck I am about like
making you come back in the. Room but but I I was really
thrilled actually with the number of conversations, how

(09:56):
much you're connecting with people, how much you're making
plans with people for what you do next right.
And so that's what I hope we're all taking away is sort of
thinking about what do we do next.
We all can see the benefits of of broad based employee
ownership, many forms, lots to do.
So thank you all for being here and let's get to work.

(10:17):
Looking forward to hearing how it all goes next year.
Thank you very much.