Alternative Exit
Avsnitt

Alternative Exit #68 | It Took a Strike To Give the Company Away | Sam Boustred, Scott Bader

Alternative Exit
Dela

am Boustred, Chair of the Global Members' Board, Scott Bader (Wollaston, UK)

Scott Bader went employee owned in 1951, 63 years before the Employee Ownership Trust existed in UK law. Founder Ernest Bader was a Quaker who did not want to share ownership. He wanted to dissolve it. So he put every share into a registered charity, the Scott Bader Commonwealth.

Sam joined the company in 2012 as a process operator on the shop floor. He is now the first person to hold the Chair of the Global Members' Board as a full time role, leading industrial democracy across a group of around 800 colleagues.

He talks Andy through the profit formula that has not moved since 1951, the strike that finally forced Ernest to hand the company over, why every pound paid to colleagues must be matched to charity, and what ownership means when nobody owns anything.

Key takeaways

  • ✅ Scott Bader's shares sit in a registered charity, so the Charity Commission holds the business to its purpose as well as its numbers.
  • 💡 The split has held since 1951: 60% of surplus stays in the business, up to 20% goes to colleagues, and every pound paid to colleagues is matched to charitable causes.
  • 🌟 Ownership is not automatic understanding. Six months of structured onboarding, culture cafés and refreshers every couple of years keep it real.
  • ✅ Members do not vote on daily decisions, they vote on who makes them. The 1963 constitution gave members appointment rights over directors.
  • 🎧 When the 2022 constitution review went to a vote, 80% of colleagues took part and 95% of them backed the changes.

Notable quotes

"We don't own the shares, we own the responsibility."

"You don't get many bosses or owners of businesses who go on strike, because you'd be poking yourself in the eye."

"In a true democracy you're not deciding all of the day to day decisions. You're deciding who is making those decisions, and you have the right to appoint and remove them."

Links

Rss
Podden och tillhörande omslagsbild på den här sidan tillhör Andy. Innehållet i podden är skapat av Andy och inte av, eller tillsammans med, Poddtoppen.