Establishing workers cooperative corporations

HB 2767 establishes a legal framework for worker cooperative corporations in West Virginia, enabling employee-owned businesses to form under specific rules. It requires these cooperatives to include "This corporation is a worker cooperative corporation" in their articles of incorporation and defines key terms like "capital account cooperative" (where net value is tracked per member) and "patronage" (measured by labor contribution, not stock ownership). The bill outlines how earnings must be distributed based on members' work (e.g., hours, wages, or jobs created) rather than shareholder profit, and allows for capital accounts to manage member equity and redemption terms. This directly affects workers seeking to create or join democratically run businesses focused on local economic stability and employee wealth, not investor profits.