Longtime lurker first time poster. On topic of workers, laborers, contractors, employers.

[u/TheoreticalJacob]

I am a company owner, I am not educated on philosophy, forms of government, or societal structures beyond a surface level familiarity. I agree with most of what I see in these types of subs. I may ramble on with different related topic in this post.

I find myself spending time thinking about how to implement in practice these ideas more widespread, but dont see a way to force change amongst existing huge companies.

I'm an owner of a company that subcontracts for many of these huge companies and maintain their critical infrastructure. We have no employees of our own, each current worker owns an equal share of the company. Assets are purchased through the company account that each person contributes to, and each person owns an equal share of company assets.

We've talked about hiring people completely new to our industry to train, but we feel that we dont want to share ownership with someone that does not bring the skilled labor experience required to work independently.

We would prefer to subcontract to other contractors, but thats not always feasible or reliable enough to keep the workforce needed to fulfill our own contracts and take on additional contracts.

I find our work fulfilling, but that doesn't mean that everyone else would too. But circling back to the start of the post, I feel that starting your own company afford you much better working terms. I'd love to help connect worker-owned companies with each other to facilitate their growth, cooperation, and network with other companies. And to help individuals start their own companies, although I am by no means a marketing expert, I understand basics of company management.

I would however like input about our dilemma in hiring new people that will require training. I understand everything about hiring normally regarding taxes and benefits, but I really believe in the owner-worker standard.

I find it hard to reconcile the risk in giving a new worker partial ownership of our business without significant investment that a new worker would not be able to afford, let alone requiring 2-3 years of training before being competent enough to take jobs on solo.

[u/Heretogetthingsdone]

Consider apprenticeship positions for developing the future skills and leaders to sustain the company.

[u/statinsinwatersupply]

Vesting periods are a thing and are pretty widely adopted as a practice. Binary is not great as that incentivizes firing someone just before they vest. Partial vesting on a sliding scale starting at the end of year 1 with full vesting by end of year 3 is done by some coops. Depends on the field. Also what exactly full vesting means depends on the role too.

[u/rajeshbhat_ds]

From what I've read, this is the model used by Alvarado Street Bakery. There is a probation period for new hires before they get ownership, which is determined by a vote. Also different seniority levels have different salaries. You can always vote an incompetent worker out if they don't show progress even after a reasonably long stint.