A group of former employees are accusing U.S. Sugar insiders of scheming to enrich themselves by buying workers’ shares back on the cheap.
people work harder and feel more attachment to a company they partially or wholly own. so companies like to offer ways for employees to be part of the company success to encourage them to do things like work overtime or for salary employees work more time for free. but here's the catch that these sugar workers fell into. they didn't really own a part of the company so they didn't have a chance to know what was going on with the company. their retirement company owned the stock. they were also screwed because the stock wasn't trading publicly so they didn't know the value of the stock. stock options also fall into this problem. sure you profit when the company rises in value but you still aren't a shareholder so you can't know what is going and vote on the direction of the company. i think every company that offers their stock as a retirement option or offers stock options to employees should be required to have each person have at least one real share or vote in the company. not that everyone would be informed even in that case, but at least that way if one person in the company did discover something they could mobilize all the other employees to vote against something.
