According to John Duffy and his co-authors of the Jimmy Reid Foundation report on industrial democracy entitled Working Together, a major plank of the future of industrial relations in Scotland should be based on the adoption of European “models” involving employee forums, works councils and employee seats on company boards. It is a proposition that appears to have resonated with the Scottish Government, who include support for increased employee involvement in their Scotland’s Future White Paper.
On the face of it, such suggestions may look attractive, especially as they contrast sharply with the Con-Dem attack on employment rights and the establishment of the Carr Review to consider another raft of anti-union legislation. Continue reading
Enthusiasm for François Hollande’s new government in France is understandable, as it provides a popular mandate for an economic alternative to austerity, and a programme for economic growth. As Trevor Martin exhorts in his recent Tribune article “
Aside from the unfair voting system and the use of big money to buy political power and influence, Britain is, broadly speaking, a political democracy. But when it comes to the economy, we remain a dictatorship. A rich and powerful economic elite makes all the key economic decisions, disenfranchising millions of employees and consumers.