Even before COVID-19, the U.S. was experiencing some of the highest levels of income inequality and largest racial and gender wealth gaps in recent memory. By most accounts, the pandemic is now exacerbating these and related systemic inequities in American society. Rather than taking measures to simply weather the storm and return to slightly less—but still grossly—uneven pre-COVID distributions of wealth and opportunity, we must match the scale of our policy responses to the scale of the crises we face. In short, we are at a critical juncture from where we are well-positioned to question business-as-usual and set course for a new, more democratic and inclusive economy and society.

There are no shortcuts or silver bullets that will take us there effortlessly. More generally, there is no “there” at all, as making a democratic economy is an ongoing, active process and not a final destination. The objective is therefore not to design a single perfect society from the top-down, but to create supportive conditions, at the top and everywhere else, that allow us to continuously build better ones from the bottom on up. In their latest report, the Cornell ILR Buffalo Co-Lab explores opportunities for creating such conditions to support the emergence and sustainability of innovative business enterprises that are intentionally designed to confront the multiplying crises that face our nation and planet in the 21^st Century. These next generation enterprises (NGEs), as the report defines them, are characterized by:

• Democratic employee ownership;
• Democratic worker participation in and influence on corporate decisions;
• Binding social missions that make them accountable for creating public benefits; and
• Deeply inclusive practices and values that create employment and ownership opportunities for historically marginalized persons and populations.

Within the current political economic system, prevailing cultural norms and institutional infrastructure have forged a business climate that rewards self-interest, growth, and profit-maximization while essentially punishing “costly” actions that enhance the public good at the expense of the private bottom line. As such, entities that exhibit all of the NGE features listed above are extremely rare. And they are under constant threat of being swept away by competitive economic forces where they do exist. This report explores strategies for changing this reality—both by building on existing institutions that work to make the economy more democratic and equitable in the here and now, and by designing and implementing new tools and mechanisms to allow new NGEs to emerge, and thrive, in a new economy for the “next generation.”

Toward those ends, the report is divided into three roughly equal parts. First, Part I (Chapters 2 and 3) provides a selected, non-exhaustive overview of workplace-based institutions and institutional designs for confronting economic and wage inequality. The three “building blocks” featured in this part are:

• Labor unions, which have a history of encouraging participatory democracy and cultivating workers’ collective power to make decisions in and about their workplaces;
• Employee-owned enterprises, where workers have ownership stakes in their firms; and
• Mission-led enterprises or social mission businesses, which use portions of their profits and/or other resources to provide public and community benefits.

Part II (Ch. 4) adds empirical weight and a regional focus to the report by inventorying and studying these three “building block” institutions in the Buffalo-Niagara region of Western New York. Namely, we develop and execute a mixed methods case study of Buffalo-Niagara that explores links between wages and the presence of these building blocks by industry, race, and gender. We find that evidence of worker power and worker ownership in firms is strongly associated with higher wages in most economic sectors, for workers of color, and for women. Specific findings from the analyses include:

• 77.3% of workers in private sector unionized firms earn $40,000 per year or more, compared to 51.0% of all other workers in the same census tracts;
• 24.0% of workers in private sector unionized firms identify as persons of color, compared to 15.6% of all other workers in the same census tracts;
• 93.6% of workers in firms with employee stock ownership plans earn $40,000 per year or more, compared to 47.4% of all other workers in the same census tracts;
• 53.8% of workers in firms with employee stock ownership plans identify as persons of color, compared to 14.3% of all other workers in the same census tracts;
• Private sector wages for workers of color and women are higher in census tracts with unionized and/or employee-owned firms compared to tracts without these “building block” institutions.

Qualitative insights from interviews with members of the regional cooperative movement bolster the data-driven findings, as interviewees regularly mentioned group solidarity and combatting inequality as factors that motivated them to pursue cooperative ventures. Indeed, some of the recurring reasons that interviewees gave for joining the cooperative movement include:

• the desire to make something different and demonstrate what alternatives are possible;
• a sense of community and solidarity with people in society; and
• a demand for democracy at work and equitable outcomes and success for everyone.

On top of these themes, a review of the mission statements of the organizations represented in the interviews turned up statements such as:

• “Creating an economy where we can generate and keep our resources within the community”;
• “Five percent giving”, whereby one co-op commits itself to sharing 5% of its monthly sales to community causes and organizations—each month, worker-owners democratically choose the cause or organization to be funded; and
• “Building a better Buffalo is in our DNA. We…provide job training opportunities for at-risk and disadvantaged youth.”

In other words, many of the worker cooperatives included in the study are also mission-led enterprises or social mission businesses that commit themselves to creating public benefits.

Taken together, the evidence generated in the case study suggests that democratic ownership and democratic control/worker power are consistently tied to higher wages—and both phenomena are systematically associated with greater racial inclusion—in Western New York. Further links between democratic ownership, democratic control, and social mission were revealed in interviews with leaders in the regional worker cooperative movement.

In light of those results, Part III (Ch. 5-6) lays out an overarching strategic framework and set of goals for building empowered “next generation” enterprises that can fight inequality and help build a more democratic economy and society. Using that framework as a point of departure, Chapter 6 outlines policies and mechanisms for bringing “next generation” enterprises to scale at local, state, and national levels. The proposals were drawn selectively from existing literature and on-the-ground examples to serve as inspiration for moving a new economy agenda forward. Specific recommendations, which are spelled out in more detail in Chapter 6, include:

Federal Proposals:

1. Reform federal labor law (e.g., pass the Workplace Democracy Act and the PRO Act).
2. Require that all public companies in the U.S. give workers the right to directly elect at least one-third of their companies’ boards of directors.
3. Expand the 1042 Rollover program so that it incentivizes worker ownership and control, rather than just the former.
4. Grant employees a “right of first refusal” to collectively purchase their companies when owners wish to sell and create a U.S. Employee Ownership Bank to facilitate employee firm acquisitions.
5. Amend the Self-Employment Assistance Program (SEAP) to permit groups of workers seeking to start an NGE to jointly request their benefits as lump-sum advances.

[New York] State Proposals:

6. Adopt standard annual reporting requirements for New York State benefit corporations and publish the data on an openly accessible web interface.
7. Adopt the Uniform Limited Cooperative Association Act (ULCAA).
8. Adopt procedures to assign preference to NGEs in state government contracting.
9. Establish a statewide Center for Worker Ownership (i.e., pass New York Senate Bill S2184).

Local Proposals:

10. Adopt procedures to assign preference to NGEs in local government contracting (same as proposal #8).
11. Adopt an Economic Development Accountability Act (EDAA).
12. Provide an NGE tax incentive.
13. Establish a dedicated local NGE fund.

The final section of the report reflects on the added importance that policies like the ones listed above have taken on in the era of COVID-19.

Click here to download the full report as a PDF.