Never at a level that would influence company direction, though, even if all the employees banded together.

Which just sounds like a union, anyway. So why not just unionize instead...

This implies that employee and owner goals can’t ever align.

It sounds just like a co-op or an employee-owned business.

Now, I love me a good union - and there’s something to be said about a healthy tension between management and labour in terms of keeping management a bit more honest, just like management and capital - but in smaller orgs, a co-op will probably do the job.

Ethically they’d return all profits to all employees regardless of ownership instead of leaching off the value of their labor

That isn't ethical, that is a magical fairy realm where everyone else has 0% profit margins and you get 100% of the profit.

It’s only a fairy realm because the capitalists have won. There is no reason the world couldn’t work like this beyond human nature being what it is