Episode 30: Taiwan Election, Congress Talks Budget, and a Deep Dive on Worker Democracy

This week’s current events: - The Iowa caucus is 4 days away - Trump seeks immunity in court - House and Senate leadership came to a tentative deal on a new budget, until the Freedom Caucus said hell no - We examine the border funding the Biden administration has requested that’s holding up House Republicans - Ukrainian audits find corruption in the military - A Republican representative in the House proposed a bill that would make an Indo-Pacific alliance like NATO to counter China - The Taiwanese election is about to happen - Republican governors are rejecting federal money for free lunch programs for poor families during the summer - Teachers licenses are starting to appear useless - U.S. GDP grew in 2023 while emissions declined … but still not nearly enough In our deep dive, we examine worker democracy, organizational structures where workers have a say in the decisions regarding their company’s management. Specifically, we look at three types. The first is employee stock ownership programs, or ESOPs, where employees pay into a trust that owns some or all of a company’s stock, and they then have some kind of voting power over high level decisions. Second is codetermination, where some percentage of a company’s board seats are filled by members elected by employees. And third are co-ops, where the company is laid out such that each employee owns an equal share of the business, and has an equal vote. We discuss the benefits of such structures, real-world examples of how they work, the potential difficulties in creating them, and what kind of legislation the U.S. might enact to make worker democracy more prominent. #politics #iowa #election #trump #desantis #haley #christie #newhampshirei #caucus #senate #congress #budget #ukraine #war #military #taiwan #china #pacific #lunch #teachers #climatechange #greentransition #democracy #employee #esop