The cafe is Banter

Ayy, workers coop. You love to see it.

Next time I’m in that area I will stop by for a cup of coffee.

Is there a buy in for new employees? What happens if you quit?

> No one ever needs to buy into the model and, as the business grows, the percentage of available ownership expands.

No, they purchased it from the previous owner. Soon the other owners will be bought out and new employees will work for the new owner. It’s been this way forever.

I thought that was a dating app.

Banter is now owned by its own employees

Don’t understand why the need for clickbait articles nowadays. Just get to the point.

The article says "all employees were granted an initial 10% of the business". That means that only a minor fraction (10%) is employee-owned. Seems comparable to most tech companies, for example.

Have you heard of ad revenue

Ah, bitch.

It’s here! It’s there! It’s every-fucking-where!

Banter

if you read the rest of the article you would see that it will increase over time. :P

So communism? They don’t deserve it, they aren’t skilled at all

Just curious - in a situation of the restaurant going into debt or a major lawsuit - are the empylowners still on the hook or are they basically having their cake and eating it too?

No

It's almost definitely organized as some kind of limited liability company, which means that the employowners, like the rest of the owners, are on the hook in that if the business goes under their share of the company is worthless, but they're not personally liable for the debt of the company.

It's a bit different. This was made possible via Teamshares.

> Teamshares buys small businesses from retiring owners, grants 10% ownership of the business’s stock to employees after closing, and progressively increases employee ownership to 80% within 20 years.

Not a bad deal after all, if you think that the employees don't have to pay a dime.

> Is there a buy in for new employees?

there's no buy in from anyone. Ever. Employees just get ownership for free.

> What happens if you quit?

You lose ownership, the program is to create employee-owned companies.

That makes sense, no one can accumulate shares from outgoing employees and get majority

for more details on the program: https://www.teamshares.com/

I wasn't aware this restaurant owned the means of production! Wow!

Bantr

interested in how they handle decision making, simple majority or something else?

Well that depends as most business owners in the beginning at least usually have to personally guarantee loans and credit lines. Although cafe has equipment they can use as collateral for the first loan maybe

But who makes decisions, does it have to be unanimous for all employees?

Actually this is pretty much prime example of capitalism, although I question how operations will work going forward. They have exchanged something previous owners wanted, money, for something they wanted ownership. How they obtained the money is irrevalent, and the state didn’t cease and transfer anything.

Haha ye me too, if it’s unanimous that’ll be a shit show. The holding co has to have some sort of board until they fully divest. Probably we’ll let you fuck up but not crater the business

Ahh this makes more sense

Teamshares recruits a talented, mission-driven president to lead the company forward. They begin with an intensive training program and continue to learn through on-the-ground experience and support from the Teamshares network.

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I think they mean future unrelated business decisions.

You guys know this happens quite often right?

The bigger risk is if their compensation is adjusted for the stock ownership they are getting. If they are being paid less than prevailing wages, to account for the value of stock ownership they are gaining, then it’s just forced investment.

No need to tip the staff since they are profiting off of sales.

*10% of it is owned by its employees

No I would call this socialism. The workers own the means of production and are able to keep the surplus value produced by their labor. It's great. That's how it should be. They can decide for themselves what hours they work, what tasks they perform, how profits are divided, etc., instead of the owner dictating all of that to them and keeping the profits for himself. A lot of people don't realize how much socialism we already have in the US. I would describe every mom-and-pop store, sole proprietorship, credit union, worker co-op, etc., as socialism. It's already here in some places and works great. We just need more of it.

Ya, interesting, I go to the village all the time, never heard of it.

Ye I guess that’s a good point using pure definition of socialism. But then that would mean that google and Facebook were socialist enterprises since the founders were the original workers and really continued working still, and for a while owned majority of shares. Theoretically every business starts as socialist enterprise then the original workers sell their stake in it, and incoming ones get none or tiny share

As someone who failed at working in a coffee shop- it’s absolutely a skill.

And even if it wasn’t- who are you to decide who does and doesn’t “deserve” something?

I mean, yes. Facebook was a "socialistic" enterprise until the IPO. That's not inconsistent with any definitions. Afterwards, Zuckerberg only has around 13.4% of the economic interests, and the other employees have far, far less than that. And what do you know, Facebook's influence and nefariousness have only grown as the corporate ownership becomes less connected to the people that actually work there.

Seems like they get their share of the profits and they get bought out when they leave

This Teamshares company provides a new boss to make the decisions

Increase to 80% within 20 years to be exact.

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Now let’s see how open the employowners are to hiring new employowners and chalking up equity