Join us at this week's meeting of the Philosophy Club virtually or in-person (Auerbach 320) on Wednesday, Nov. 11 from 1 p.m.—2 p.m. as Daphne Berry of the University of Hartford Barney School presents on worker cooperatives.
Worker cooperatives are for-profit businesses owned and governed by people who work in the business. While they have a long, sometimes difficult history in the United States, they are rarely taught as options for businesses in the United States. Similar to worker cooperatives, Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) companies also share outcomes from the business success with employees. However, while there are many more ESOPs in the U.S. than there are worker cooperatives, the latter are not required to engage in participatory governance by employees.
Negative outcomes and externalities from various types of profit-focused (only) business activity in the United States have caused damage to communities, the environment, and to the economy. Worker and employee-owned businesses do better. In this talk, we discuss research (and teaching) on how and why employee/worker owned organizations produce better outcomes to people and communities and what might be possible if more businesses put high priority on outcomes to their workers and sustainability for people.
Associate Professor Daphne Berry teaches management and leadership, social enterprise, social responsibility, and international business courses. Since 2016, she has led student trips to Spain, where her classes learn firsthand about established business models such as worker cooperatives that feature broad-based worker ownership and participation in decision making.
Dr. Berry's corporate experience includes work as an engineer and manager in engineering, product management, and marketing departments at startup and large multi-national telecommunications firms.
She is a Fellow of the Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing at the School of Management and Labor Relations at Rutgers University.Her interests Her interests include Employee share ownership in the workplace, sustainable workplaces, demographic diversity and equity in organizations. She has earned the following degrees:
Questions? Contact Brian Skelly at bskelly@hartford.edu or 413.273.2273.
An ongoing weekly tradition at the University since 2001, the University of Hartford Philosophy Club is a place where students, professors, and people from the community at large meet as peers. Sometimes presentations are given, followed by discussion. Other times, topics are hashed out by the whole group.
Presenters may be students, professors, or people from the community. Anyone can offer to present a topic. The mode of presentation may be as formal or informal as the presenter chooses.
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