Mayor de Blasio Launches Initiative to Assist Workers in Owning Businesses in which They Work

By Yehudit Garmaise

   As New Yorkers face a potential second lockdown, many small business owners are wondering whether they can keep going. 

   This morning, Mayor Bill de Blasio said that many small business owners in New York City have sadly made the decision that it doesn’t work for them anymore to try to keep their businesses going.

  “But,” the mayor said, “it may work for their employees to keep the business going.

As part of City Hall’s systematic effort to ensure that employees have an opportunity to own the businesses in which they work, Mayor de Blasio, this morning launched a new program called Employee Ownership NYC, in which employees can own the businesses in which they work.

   “Employee-owned businesses create a tremendous reality of equity and fairness of buy-in and of the opportunity to create capital and have an ownership stake,” the mayor said. “[Employee ownership] changes the whole reality [of working for a business].”

   The mayor said that he supports “every step of the way” workers in small businesses who would like financial stakes in their places of employment. 

   “What employee ownership means is that working people have more control over their lives,” Mayor de Blasio said. “It consistently means that businesses can thrive because the workers are fully invested, and they also get their share of the wealth that they create.”

Credit: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office.