Establishing workers cooperative corporations

HB 5264 establishes a legal framework for "workers cooperative corporations" in West Virginia, allowing businesses to be organized with employees as owners. The bill defines key terms like "capital account cooperative" (where assets are tracked per member) and "collective board cooperative" (where all worker-members serve on the board), and requires corporations to state in their founding documents that they are worker cooperatives. It sets rules including limiting individual investment to $5,000 per member, requiring profit distribution based on member contributions (like hours worked or wages), and mandating that dissolved cooperatives distribute assets based on patronage or capital contributions. This directly affects businesses seeking to transition to employee ownership, providing a clear path for their formation and operation under state law.