John Robertson
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Re:Private Equity - what response from the Trades - 18/07/2007 11:32
Few of us know what to do about the unacceptable face of capitalism. Unions and the givernment have a special history of not knowing what do do.
Two suggestions.
Company pensions: give them to the staff
Company pension funds should immediately be made mutuals. There is a curious paternalism that currently assumes they are a bonus given by a beneighn management which can legally also be the trustee. No messing or tinkering is possible here: company pensions should belong to the pensioners and the staff, not the private equity firm, Robert Maxwell, the receiver or anybody else.
Company shares: unions can buy them
My own union -T&G- sends me emails lombasting the private equity firm that threatens its members at Sainsbury's. But it doesn't seem to have any shares in Sainsbury's itself, dispite the objectives in its rule book about promoting worker's control.
I think that union shareholding could popular objective and a selling point for membership. "This union has 1% of shares in your company", their leaflets could say; "join now and help us make it 2%". The ambition could be to make Sainsbury's more like John Lewis / Waitrose and exempt from the worries of private equity take overs just as it would be exempt from bullying bosses and big-time dodgy dealing against the staff.
The one dilemma about this scheme would be that it might be too successfull. If unions had a lot of votes in a company, they should surely distribute these to members who have a stake in that company by online secret ballot. But has a union ever done anything like this yet?
7/12/2007: my website is now public: Employees.org.uk is a proposed legal insurance buying group employees.org.uk
Post edited by: Mortlake, at: 22/12/2007 18:28
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