Since we began going Beyond Corporations in 2021, we have been learning from the failures of multi-stakeholder initiatives to envision businesses as centering workers and communities in their ownership and governance. This fall, we had the opportunity to highlight this exciting transition and share some of our findings on ABC News’ Impact x Nightline and at the Center for Financial Inclusion’s Financial Inclusion Week. Videos for both are available online.
Limitations of ethical certification on ABC News’ Impact x Nightline
ABC News’ Impact x Nightline produced an episode investigating the ethical certifications (multi-stakeholder initiatives) in the coffee industry and their attempts to mitigate human rights abuses. Our Executive Director, Amelia Evans, had the opportunity to interview with the Impact x Nightline team to share the conclusions from our decade-long research project into MSIs: that MSIs fail to provide effective protection against abuse as they were created to do. Furthermore, MSIs could inadvertently risk doing more harm than good by creating a perception that critical issues, like child labor, are being taken care of when they are in fact being perpetuated.
We’re excited to see these critical conversations move into the mainstream. With this system of MSIs, the power ultimately lies with the companies who participate since they’re involved in the funding and governance of these initiatives. We aren’t going to see transformation occur while this is true. Through our research into MSIs, we identified that a true shift in power would require that (1) workers and/or affected communities be at the center of decision-making and (2) benefits and ownership accrue to workers who generate value for a business.
The power of employee ownership spotlighted at The Center for Financial Inclusion’s Financial Inclusion Week
The Center for Financial Inclusion allowed us to spotlight this second principle at their annual Financial Inclusion Week. This global virtual gathering is a place to exchange community-driven ideas and practices that advance the financial inclusion of marginalized and vulnerable groups. For our on-demand session, we highlighted a key, overlooked contributor to the steady increase in wealth inequality: the inequitable distribution of business ownership and how employee ownership has the power to address economic inequality. One recent study found that if all businesses become just 30% employee owned, then the median black household wealth would quadruple as with the wealth of the bottom 50% of all Americans. Employee ownership has a powerful yet underutilized capacity for addressing economic inequality.
These two moments highlight the pressing need and immense opportunity to advance an equitable economy. As workers and consumers continue to grapple with the complexity of ethically produced goods and services, MSI Integrity will continue to advocate for the shift in power to workers and communities in our work.
Subscribe to our newsletter for updates and keep an eye out for details on our upcoming project and reports:
Shifting Power: Assessing Worker- and Community-Centric Alternatives to Conventional Corporations, analyzing existing alternatives to corporate structures that already give workers and communities decision-making power and a share in profits and ownership
Creating Shared Value: A Guide to the Growing Employee Ownership Investment Opportunity, evaluating employee ownership structures and how to increase investment to fund them.