KKR & Co. Co-Head of Global Private Equity Pete Stavros said that organized labor and employee equity ownership can co-exist, despite a fractious history between unions and companies.
(Bloomberg) — KKR & Co. Co-Head of Global Private Equity Pete Stavros said that organized labor and employee equity ownership can co-exist, despite a fractious history between unions and companies.
“There’s a real openness to new models and aligning capital and labor,” he said on Bloomberg TV’s Wall Street Week with David Westin, while speaking about the recent union resurgence. “We’ve gone from a period of time when you saw some strife in autos and manufacturing, but now you’re seeing it everywhere.”
Historically, labor unions have taken a “skeptical eye, understandably” to employee equity ownership because they view workers as their members — not a company’s employees, Stavros said. That view can create conflict when trying align the two, he added.
For their part, workers are looking for more transparency from employers on how they’ll tackle changes such as artificial intelligence, Stavros said. They also “want to be a part of something,” he said. “They want shared gains.”
KKR has implemented employee ownership at more than 30 of its portfolio companies since 2011 and plans to deploy similar programs worldwide. Stavros is founder and chairman of Ownership Works, a non-profit focused on expanding employee ownership.
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