Cooperative Movement goes on the Rise

Mr. Magoo wrote:

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In my opinion any company going bankrupt should have no choice but to allow employees to buy them out with government support.

I think that most companies going bankrupt seek to sell what they can for what they can get, no arm twisting needed.  It's up to the employees to pool the necessary funds.

It's really unclear why the government should be compelled to support it, though.  When Blockbuster Video went out of business, should the government have been forced to "help" Blockbuster employees keep providing the VHS copies of Ferris Bueller's Day Off that we all want in 2018?

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I also think if companies buy other companies the parent company should remain responsible for debts.

That's like saying that if you buy a "fixer-upper" house, you're only buying the "good" parts of the house, but the seller is still financially responsible for the leaky roof and the old wiring.  Here's a better idea:  let the market factor both the good and the bad into the final price.

I'm saying the exact opposite. That the purchasing company is responsible for the leaky roof and the old wiring. 

Obviously the company being purchased by employees would have to be judged viable. Government help is needed because employees don't have the expertise in business and finance to negotiate nor the credit rating to borrow the money. 

Mr. Magoo wrote:

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I'm saying the exact opposite. That the purchasing company is responsible for the leaky roof and the old wiring.

OK.  Just to clarify, if Company B purchases Company A, which is the "parent"?  Company B, the "purchasing company"?

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Obviously the company being purchased by employees would have to be judged viable.

I'm not aware of such a purchase needing to be judged viable.  If the employees -- or any other group -- can produce sufficient funds to purchase the company, and the company sells, there's no "judgement" involved, is there?

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Government help is needed because employees don't have the expertise in business and finance to negotiate nor the credit rating to borrow the money.

So?  Same with me and my three buddies who totally, for shizzle, knew how to turn Blockbuster around and make VHS the new Netflix.  The government should have given us some public money?  WTF are you even saying?  I'm not averse to employees buying a failed company, if that's what they want to do with their nest egg, but it's really not clear how their challenges should be everyone's challenges.

What I'm saying is the government gives lots of money to big companies to stay and they often leave anyway. Co-ops are good for communities therefore the country because they retain jobs. 

Some companies buy other companies and drain them then let them go bankrupt, or even buy them to shut them down if they are a competitor. 

I didn't say the government should give them money. In the case cited in this thread the employees were not given government money. They just had an owner that cared so helped them to organize so they could buy him out. In that case he was selling not going bankrupt and when he realized that if he sold the local business would eventually be shut down he didn't want to do that to his employees and his town. 

If when a company goes bankrupt employees were automatically informed that they had the right to explore the viability of turning it into a co-op and guidance in that evaluation I think many more companies would stay in business. 

The government already does have various departments that help businesses and entrepeneurs in one way or another. The government runs trade missions. Why shouldn't they help employees start co-ops as an alternative to bankrupcy? 

Are you against minimum wage as well? Let the market decide? 

The government is the tool through which we can act collectively for our mutual benefit. Co-ops create stable jobs that people want to do. They stimulate the local economy which is good for the community. Without help most employees wouldn't even know where to begin to organize for a buyout if they even thought of it. They don't have the funds to hire experts to evaluate viability.

The free market doesn't exist. It isn't if the government intervenes it's how and on whose behalf. The Irvings or the rest of us. 

Workers should be accumlating shares in the "commanding heights of the economy", namely the banks, which make half of all the corporate profit in Canada. Lots of different co-ops (organized as their constituent people so wish) should do this.