CBC Columnist: Workers should buy Ford.

[CanuckAmok]

It would cost each Ford employee in North America approximately $66,000 to purchase controlling interest in Ford Corporation. Instead of mortgaging their homes, this could be done by the employees, as a collective, borrowing 20% from their existing pension plans.

The employees would then have a say in trimming management (said to be a major issue in Ford's current situation), marketing, and legacy cost (pension plan) distribution.


What do DUers think?

[ChoralScholar]

1. It's an awfully large scale idea...

It worked with Harp's, a medium sized grocery chain in this region. But Ford? I dunno.

[Wickerman]

2. I think employees would discover very quickly

the true value of Ford as a company. I think there would quickly be a bidding war and the employees would wind up losing as they would cash out pensions and be left not being able to afford the stock for the company they wantd dontrol of. The pension plan would be devested and they'd be right where big bidness wants them - fucked.

[PATRICK]

3. The reason one shouldn't wait for a crisis

but with no crisis labor gets fat and cooperative. The same old human story, so as not to blame labor for playing it smart but not fending off the inevitable radical situation with a radical idea they could never get away with, even among their comfortable membership during good times.

The unions ARE partly in the stock market, so are their pensions. Like North and South Korea, the stock market is like the DMZ between them. In time, it has to be war or unification to survive.

[Inland]

4. Like the United employees?

Their pension plans and unions bought huge shares of the company. Turns out it's not a diversified investment.