Federal loan program aims to shift company ownership to workers
S. 2458 — Employee Ownership Financing Act · Filed by Bernie Sanders (I-VT) · 4 cosponsors · Introduced Jul 24, 2025 · Referred to committee
Your members of Congress
Enter a ZIP to see where your representative and both senators stood on this bill.
Looked up on this device — your ZIP is never stored on our servers.
What it does
This bill creates a new Office of Employee Ownership within the Department of Labor and establishes a federal loan program offering up to $500 million in loans and loan guarantees to help employees and worker-owned cooperatives purchase companies or expand employee ownership stakes. It also amends labor law to give employees a right of first refusal to purchase their workplace before a plant closing, and creates an advisory council to guide the program.
Why we flagged it
The bill's core mechanism is federal financing for employee stock ownership plans and worker cooperatives, paired with mandatory workplace democracy provisions (board representation, employee committees, open-book management) and a right of first refusal on plant closures. This is fundamentally about shifting economic power toward workers, not a narrow tax or regulatory carve-out.
What the text implies
- The bill requires companies receiving loans to establish employee involvement committees and implement 'meaningful employee involvement' in work-related decisions within one year, effectively mandating workplace democracy structures that go beyond traditional ESOP governance.
- The right of first refusal on plant closures (Section 5) creates a 60-day negotiation period during which the facility must remain open, potentially delaying or preventing some closures and shifting leverage to workers in distressed situations.
The full analysis lists 5 implications of this text.
Who stands to gain
Employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs); Worker-owned cooperatives; Employees purchasing companies through ESOPs or cooperatives