US Labor Unions Can Take a Page From Sweden’s Meidner Plan

The Meidner Plan, formulated in the 1970s, aimed to equalize wealth and enhance employee control over workplaces by requiring large companies to distribute a portion of their profits to wage-earner funds, which would be run by workers through their unions, with the goal of achieving majority worker-ownership within decades.
In Sweden, a watered-down version of the plan was enacted in 1984, resulting in wage-earner funds accumulating 7% of the Swedish stock market before being dismantled by a Conservative government in 1992, demonstrating the potential for worker ownership to reshape the economy.
The plan's core thesis - that ownership plays a decisive role in influencing and controlling companies - remains relevant today, with 14 million US workers already covered by employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs), and could be applied to the $8 trillion in US union pension funds to create a more equitable and democratic economy.