員工持股計畫是由財經律師Louis Kelso所創，在美國已行之多年，廣為美國企業所採。最早的員工持股計畫是一種為了和平地從資本家手中移轉資本給員工、縮減貧富差距的工具。為了使這個計畫可以持續有效地運作下去，立法者將員工持股計畫為退休金計畫的一種，使員工必須長期持有股票，直到退休。然而在實務運作上，員工持股信託經常被運用為防止敵意併購的工具。尤有甚者，某些公司內部人會利用員工持股計畫為自己取得大量資金、移轉投資風險,但仍可保留對於公司的控制力。這些行為都有可能對股東及員工造成不利的影響，但在現行法制下，只能仰賴司法者透過判決保護這些經濟及資訊上的弱勢族群。 在台灣，員工持股計畫雖然已廣為許多企業所採用，但是發展了將近20年，只能成為另一種員工持有股票的工具。員工擁有的股票數量並不足以使其在股東會上贏得一個受公司內部人重視的地位，也不足以倚賴這些股票作為退休金之用。這種規模上的差異是台美員工持股計畫最關鍵的不同點。小規模雖然使員工持股計畫帶來的優勢少了許多，但相對地也減低許多代理成本，至今未有員工持股計畫侵害大量員工利益的事件爆發。然而這不表示員工持股計畫在台灣就是個可以被忽略的問題，若能在未來建立一套有效率的立法制度，使員工持股計畫的規模擴大，員工將可因此享受到更多公司盈餘，並且使其退休生活受到保障。相對地，參考美國員工持股計畫的問題後，也可以預先設想未來可能發生的弊端，未雨綢繆。本文相信，一個有效率的員工持股計畫，可以實現解決貧富不均的理想。 / Employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) which is created by Louis Kelso is brought to practice for many years. Many enterprises use it as their retirement pension plan. The earliest employee stock ownership plan to transfer the capital frome capitalists to labors and reduce the disparity between the rich and the poor.In order to make the plan work out continueously and effectively, the legislator devise ESOP as a pension fund which makes employee own stock chronically until they retires. However, in practice, ESOP is usually exercised for preventing hostile takeover. Moreover, some company insiders may use ESOP TTO get a great deal of capital and transfer the investment risk, but still own the controlling power to their company. This behaviors will cause some harmful effects to the shareholders and the employees, but in the current legal system,the only one we can depend is the judge who can protect the minority in the economic and the information. ESOP is exercised by many enterprises in Taiwan. But after 20 years, it can only become one of the tools which assist employees to acquire company stocks.The number of shares which employees owns can’t make them have a posi-tion which let the company insiders take account in the shareholder committee and have enough amounts for their retirement pensions.This disparity in scale is the keypoint what is different between Tiwan and the U.S. ESOP. Althoygh small scale makes the adventage of ESOP decrease, it reduce lots of agency costs. To this day, there’re not any events which injure the interests of employees by ESOP. Never-theless, it doesn’t mean that ESOP in Taiwan is a issue which can be neglected. If we can establish an efficient legal system and extend the scale of ESOP, employees can obtain more company interests and have a security of their retirement life.In the opposite, after researching the problem of the U.S. ESOP, we can assume the culpably misconduct which will happen in the future and repair the house before it rains。Ｉ believe that a efficient ESOP can realize the ideal to solve the problem of uneven distribution of the wealth.