What you're describing is called a "worker cooperative" and they are somewhat rare but do exist already in real life.

Are they rare? Aren’t credit unions worker cooperatives? Insurance is often structured this way, and I’ve heard of farmer collectives too. I have a worker cooperative grocery store nearby. I do photography as a hobby and there’s all kinds of photography cooperatives, including Magnum which is incredibly famous in that world. I’m in an HOA which is another cooperative.

This doesn’t seem rare to me.

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OkayPhysicist 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Most "co-ops" are customer co-ops (Credit Unions, for example, are owned by their members, most grocery co-ops are membership programs, REI is/was the same). Farmer co-ops are owned by a collection of farmers, to pool resources for selling to consumers, but most employees aren't co-owners. Worker's co-ops are rarer, but you find them in the taxi industry pretty often, and in home care.

	▲	hellcow 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		Today I learned. Thank you!

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hahn-kev 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

I think credit unions are often owned by the customers or members. Not the employees.

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homarp 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mondragon_Corporation (discussed on HN https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22287794 and https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22287794)

or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Igalia (can't find any discussion related to their coop model - there is https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37799973 without any comment )

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shimman 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

No, what they are describing is workplace democracy:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Workplace_democracy