Creating a Matrix of National Employee Ownership Laws and Policies - your participation is requested

[Deborah Groban Olson <dgo@esoplaw.com>]

Dear EO Nation folks:

        As moderator of the Capital Ownership Group (COG) on-line discussion of
national employee ownership laws and policies (EO Nations), I plan to
create a matrix of national employee ownership laws and policies to serve
as an interactive resource on the COG website. It would be available to all
who need it, and it would be updated by people in the affected countries
(if possible) as the laws and policies change. It is a huge undertaking,
which cannot be completed by volunteers and our limited staff resources.
However, it can be started. 

        Please remember that our current COG Ford project is essentially a
planning grant. We are expected to develop project and research efforts
that cannot be completed within this 15 month grant period. However, as
long as we view it as a work which is continuously being updated and
revised when people with better information choose to correct it, it can
become a useful interactive tool. Consider it our version of the human
genome project. I have suggested many categories. Please respond with your
thoughts on prioritizing them, availability of data (especially in
electronic format) and knowledge of people already doing related research
or possibly interested in undertaking such research.

        I am seeking your thoughts on: 1) the type of information and categories
we want to include in the matrix; 2) any information you would like
included; 3) ideas regarding formatting the information; 4) volunteers
(including student interns or researchers) who might be interested in
organizing the data; 5) appropriate categories, etc.

        The Pepper Commission is a European Community Commission investigating 
and
developing policy proposals on "promotion of participation of employed
persons in profits and enterprise results in EU member states". Tables 1-4
of the 1996-97 Pepper II Commission Report looks like a good starting point
for this process. I wrote the authors of that report seeking electronic
copies of them and seeking their advice and experience in creating that
report. 

        Do we want to follow the Pepper Commission using the follwoing 
categories:
profit-sharing (PS), share-based profit sharing (SPS), bond-based
profit-sharing (BPS), cash-based profit-sharing (CPS), deferred
profit-sharing (DPS), employee share ownership (ESO), stock options (SO),
descretionary share options (DSO), employee stock ownership plans (ESOP),
and employee buy-outs (EBO)? Perhaps we should add executive stock options
(EXSO), broad stock options (BSO), privatization stock vouchers (PSV),
privatization stock grants (PSG) and privatization stock sales (PSS).  

        The Pepper report used the following matrix categories: 1) country; 2)
general situation comment; 2) Legislation a) specific laws and year of
introduction and b) tax benefits; 3) Diffusion of PEPPER schemes: a)
prevalent types, b) no. of shcemes/ firms involved, c) no. of employees
involved;  d) employee benefits or profit sharing per employee, e) changes
since 1990. 

        Other categories I would like to add include these: 1) private sector 
tax
incentives; 2) broad ownership requirements; 3) pension or non-pension
related; 4) employee voting rights; 5)  employee owned companies as a
percent of all companies; 6)   number and percent of all employees who have
some form of ownership in the companies where they work as a percent of all
employees in the country; 7) number and size of majority employee owned
companies; 8) relationship of unions to employee ownership; 9) amount and
percent of pension-type funds invested in corporate securities over which
unions or employees have some form of control (example Canadian Labour
Venture funds) with brief description of the control mechanisms.

        Do you think the matrix project will be useful? 
        
        Any thoughts or comments you have on this are greatly appreciated.

        Best regards,
        Deb Olson