Bernie Sanders Talks Employee Ownership at the 2024 Employee Ownership Ideas Forum

so um I'm in a strange position of introducing someone who really doesn't need an introduction I think given he's one of the few people in the world probably known just by his first name so um I'm sure most of you know that uh Senator Bernie Sanders is a strong supporter of the American worker and dare I say the American working class and one of the principal movers of employee ownership policy um here at the Federal level and we are really lucky to have him here and to hear his perspective and that's all I'm going to say cuz we want to welcome [Applause] Bernie my problem is I never get introduced everyone knows him what do you have to say um actually this is not a new issue for me uh when I was mayor of the City of Burlington we did unusual things uh and one of the things we did was hold a meeting on employee ownership because this concept has been something I've supported for my whole life and I was amazed I remember it like was yesterday City Hall was packed uh with people on an issue that city government had nothing to do with um and that told me the Resonance of this issue I don't have to tell anybody in this room that we're living in strange and difficult times one of the issues that we don't talk much about although I did write a book on it is the growth of oligarchy in America and the fact not only that we have an unprecedented level of income and wealth inequality uh in which 60% of our people are struggling uh paycheck to paycheck while the billionaire class has never had it so good but on top of all of that we are seeing an unbelievable level of concentration of ownership in America I don't know how familiar people are with that but in sector after sector you have a handful of companies really controlling uh what goes on you have three Wall Street firms uh that have assets control assets of over 20 trillion doar of the major stockholders and something like 95% of the companies in America so you got people on top making all of the decisions economic decisions and obviously with their zillions of dollars they buy and sell politicians have enormous power uh here in Washington DC and in state legislatures throughout the country with super Pacs you're going to see an election coming up which will essentially be funded by billionaires in their super packs so enormous power on the part of people on top and Ordinary People I think increasingly feel a government is not representing their need needs uh and B they feel kind of powerless they feel powerless politically and they in many cases feel powerless on their job uh we in America today uh have a decline in especially in certain parts of the country in life expectancy and what the doctors tell us is that one of the reasons for that is what they call diseases of Despair uh people are turning to drugs they're turning to alcohol uh they're overweight uh they're turning to uh suicide in some cases people feel fairly helpless and what I have noticed in my state of Vermont where we established an employee ownership Center many many years ago and are doing better than most States uh in in establishing employee ownership and esops is that when you walk into those businesses there really is a different tone uh people are not cogs in the machine they feel part of the process uh absenteeism is lower productivity is better uh people feel better about their jobs they're not going to work because just because they have to earn a paycheck they're going to work because you know they enjoy it and they're part of the process so I am a strong strong believer uh in uh employee ownership when you own your own company you're not going to be moving it abroad for cheap labor uh when you own your own company you're not going to be arbitrarily fired you're not going to be power lless so when we talk about democracy it's not only you know the right to vote every four years it really has to do with what goes on 24 hours a day democracy means having some control over your life when you work and that's what employee ownership means to me so this is an issue we have been working on uh Vermont is along with a few other states one of the leaders in the country in moving in that direction uh here in Washington we're also making some progress a couple of years ago a Congress passed legislation that I introd uced uh to deal just with the issue that the previous speaker was talking about is that all over this country you have people who started businesses they may have 40 50 60 workers they're retiring everything being equal they would just ass soon leave the company to their employees if they could if they had the tax benefits if they knew how to do it and that is what our legislation provides for uh it would educate retiring business owners and workers about the benefits of employee ownership right is known as the work act uh and it was modeled on the highly successful employee ownership centes uh that are established in in Vermont in Ohio uh our job now having gotten the bill authorized you know around the everything gets authorized a little bit harder to get it funded uh so we are working hard now to make sure that it is funding uh but we can't stop there uh we will soon be introducing legislation to create a US employee ownership Bank to provide low interest interest loans loan guarantees and other financial assistance to employees to purchase a business through an ESOP or worker owned Cooperative uh by expanding employee ownership and participation we can create stronger companies throughout the country prevent job loss and improve working conditions uh for the working class of this country so this is kind of a uh the work you're doing not to get you too nervous it's a little bit revolutionary uh it suggests that people don't have to just work for other people they can actually own the places that they work in they can have control over them be part of the decision-making process it is a big deal actually so I want to thank all of you for the work you're doing and we look forward to working with you in the future thanks very much