Study Overview
This case study shares the story of a road construction company in California, how it came to be 100% worker-owned, and how its Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) relates to governance, management, and work at the company.
Study Results
Key contributors to success include: (1) robust, capital-intensive markets that facilitate meaningful shared gains; (2) institutional labor protections for public contracts and tax incentives that help make competitive a high-road strategy with higher compensation for frontline workers; and (3) a shared ownership culture that helps support: internal promotions, high autonomy, and employee input and innovation. Headwinds for the company include concerns about leadership succession and buy-in of younger employees who are perceived as less oriented to building retirement wealth. This study notes that standard job quality metrics generally exclude employee ownership from consideration, but ownership can be a differentiating factor and increase shared gains within the firm. Relative to non-worker-owned peers, the firm has broader wealth-sharing in the compensation structure due to its high-performing ESOP and reportedly reduced executive compensation.
Intervention: Employee ownership models
Research Partner: Institute for the Study of Employee Ownership and Profit Sharing
Populations: Unionized workers, public infrastructure workforce
Working Paper: Scott, K. MacKenzie. 2025. Article 5: Case Study of a Unionized ESOP: Pavement Recycling Systems
IBSI Funding Acknowledgement: Ownership Initiative
News & media
The Promote Ownership by Workers for Economic Recovery Act (AB 2849) Panel
June 13, 2023
The Promote Ownership by Workers for Economic Recovery Act (AB 2849), codified in Labor Code sections 10000-10010) establishes a panel to study the creation of an Association of Cooperative Labor Contractors, among other potential activities, to facilitate the growth of democratically-run high-road cooperative labor contractors.