A legal right to workplace democracy: the right to collectively buy-in

The lack of workplace democracy is a serious problem, causing inequality, job insecurity, disrespect, and domination. The fundamental solution is the democratization of workplace. But how might this realistically occur? This paper proposes a novel legal right: All workers should have the right to collectively buy in to their firm by paying the owners the fair value of the firm’s worth. This buy-in grants workers the right to collectively become equal partners, at which point the firm is legally transformed into a worker cooperative. Importantly, this right does not require agreement from the owners. It is shown that this law would provide substantial benefits to workers, whereas the costs to owners are likely to be minor. There may be some costs to the economy more broadly, but these are also likely to be quite modest. For society overall, the benefits of this legislation are likely to significantly outweigh the costs.