Thread by @jonrshell

If @LongosMarkets was an American grocery chain, there's a good chance it would now be owned by its employees. In Canada, it sold to @sobeys.

My op-ed about why the Cdn gov't embracing employee ownership is a big deal.
#cdnpoli (1/12)
@WinnipegNews winnipegfreepress.com/opinion/analys…

@LongosMarkets is a great family-owned grocer, and their customers love it. So why did the Longo family sell out to one of the big three conglomerates?
Empire (Sobeys), Loblaw and Metro own 75% of the Canadian grocery market.
(2/12)
restobiz.ca/longos-ranks-a…

Maybe they got an offer they couldn't refuse!
Or, maybe they had no credible alternative.
That's not the case in the US, where US-ESOPs enabled family-owned @Publix, @WinCoFoods, @BrookshireBros and @HarpsFoodStores (and others) to stay independent by selling to their employees.

A US-ESOP is a regulation that encourages American business owners to sell to their employees at full market value on the condition that ALL employees get shares. The result? 14M American workers own $1.4 TRILLION in wealth in over 6,000 companies. nceo.org/articles/emplo… (4/12)

We don't have anything like the US-ESOP in Canada, though that might be about to change. The 2021 Budget called for the investigation of the barriers to these kinds of trusts in Canada. Creating an alternative for business owners could be huge. (5/12) budget.gc.ca/2021/report-ra…

It's one of the most successful American public policies of the past 50 years, and has bi-partisan support to this day. Seeing this, the UK brought in their own version in 2014, and almost 100 companies sold to employees in 2019. (6/12) bit.ly/3bsjB7v

Employee-owned companies are simply better. No US-ESOP owned grocer has ever gone bankrupt. Of the 12 US grocers to go bankrupt since 2015, 11 were private equity owned, and the other was a failed acquisition by Kroger - very similar to @sobeys purchase of @LongosMarkets. (7/12)

In fact, at American grocers @WinCoFoods and @Publix, regular employees retired as millionaires due to their share ownership.
Here in Canada, our grocers fight about whether to pay an extra $2 to front-line workers during COVID.
(8/12)
ajc.com/business/emplo…

We also know that Canadian owners would be interested. A recent @CFIB survey showed that 59% of Canadian owners supported US-ESOP-like policies, and 53% would be more likely to sell to employees if they existed in Canada. (9/12) cfib-fcei.ca/sites/default/…

And there's no better time for this, with over half the private businesses in Canada owned by baby boomers looking to retire in the next 5-10 years. (10/12)

If you want to hear a Canadian CEO wax eloquently about how great employee ownership is for companies and the economy, you would do well to spend 3 minutes on this video by @EllisDon CEO Geoff Smith. Your day will be better for it. (11/12)

The door is open. We need these structures in Canada to help build a more inclusive economy. Maybe then the next time a family like the Longos need to sell, they'll put their workers on a path to building real wealth. Let's get this done. (12/12)
#cdnpoli #employeeowned