Driving into the Future

Drivers in Colorado are creating an employee-owned rideshare firm.

In Brief: A group of Colorado drivers are interested in creating an employee–owned rideshare service that would compete with Uber and Lyft. 

Why It Matters: Proposals and general interest in creating employee-owned companies highlights the growing popularity of employee ownership as an alternative to the traditional company structure. Having employee ownership expand into new sectors such as the rideshare industry increases visibility and public knowledge of the employee owned structure. 

How it Would Work: Disillusioned drivers are currently working with leaders at the Rocky Mountain Employee Ownership Center to create a co-op rideshare firm named the Driver’s Co-op Colorado. The company’s mission would center on ensuring drivers are fairly compensated, with 85% of trip earnings going to drivers and 15% returning to the company. Owner-drivers would also have the flexibility to change this split based on the costs to run the company. While many employee-owned companies function as ESOPs - meaning employees have shares - or EOTs, where the company is in a trust, the Colorado group would be structured as a co-op, meaning all working drivers would share equally in the ownership of the company. 

Go Deeper: Hear from some drivers in the article here.

Image Credit: Photo by Paul Hanaoka on Unsplash