Comment on
Employee owned companies
To me it sounds like you might be describing more of (in the US context) a company with an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) rather than say, a worker cooperative? (which can both be considered employee-owned but with very different contexts)
There is a wide range of possible structures/bylaws/statues for employee ownership that depends on the local regulations as well as the discretion of the employees with voting rights. For example, worker co-ops in France (SCOPs) can allow for external investors (capped to a certain % of equity, no voting rights), a voting system where one worker = one vote (independent of ownership %), require a fixed % of profit to be reinvested to the company's reserves before any profit sharing, etc.
I also would prefer to work at an employee-owned enterprise but to me it boils down to the culture of the people working there, independent of the chosen legal form and/or that imposed by the state. The workers can decide to do things in a capitalistic way or not, the legal form and bylaws are there to help prevent major abuse but if people want to act in a rent-seeking way, they're gonna find a way to do it, IMO.