that’s funny, i worked for a company that was majority employee owned and this was the case. nearly all of the stock was owned by a handful of middle managers and that ownership was not extended to “regular” employees.

This is similar to what I experienced in an ESOP. The CEO was a giant asshole and no one could apparently do anything about it because he and his key supporters apparently owned enough shares to not give a shit about the rest of the company. It was pretty far from anything resembling a workplace democracy.