A couple of months ago, the UK’s High Pay Centre and abrdn Financial Fairness Trust, published ‘Worker voice in corporate governance: how to bring perspectives from the workforce into the boardroom.’ This is a useful contribution to what can be called the ‘democratisation of the business model’, or workplace democracy.
Particularly useful is a survey of public opinion on what kind of business sector people want. This is a survey of UK opinion (carried out by Survation polling) but Irish opinion is unlikely to be qualitatively different. What do the polling numbers show?
People’s Priorities for Business
Survey interviewees were asked to select three issues from a list of possible business objectives that they felt businesses should care about the most. They were then asked what they think businesses actually do care about. The results show substantial discrepancies between the public’s priorities and their perception of businesses’ priorities.
There is a large discrepancy between what people want and what they perceive business (owners / managers) want. At the extremes:
- 58 percent want better pay and working conditions to be the top priority for business. Yet only 18 percent believe that this is actually a business priority.
- Only 10 percent want higher profits for shareholders. Yet, 54 percent believe this is actually business’s top priority.
For people, other priorities include paying a fair amount of tax, delivering value for money for consumers and protecting the environment.
This is a progressive agenda – living standards, good citizenship (paying tax), delivering value for money (a necessity for business resilience in any event) and environmental protection. People’s low priority for innovating new products – which are necessary to deliver higher pay and value – can be understood in the context that people may see such innovation as benefiting shareholders, not employees or customers.
Owners and Trade Unions
The survey asked people their perceptions of the contributions that management/owners and trade unions make to economic development and social benefit.
Half of survey respondents believed that trade unions actually stimulate the economy with only a third of people disagreeing. Nearly 50 percent do not believe businesses (management / owners) behave in a way that is beneficial to society.
In respect of economic development and social benefit, trade unions are considered to make a better contribution than owners and managers.
Workplace Democracy
A number of questions were asked concerning the impact of greater democracy in the workplace. To the question of ‘How important, if at all, do you think it is that workers have a greater say in the running of the companies that they work in?’ the response was:
- Very or Somewhat Important: 79 percent
- Not Very Important or Not at All: 16 percent
- Don’t Know: 5 percent
This is an overwhelming endorsement of the proposition that employees should have a greater say in the decision-making process in the workplace.
In a follow-up to this question people were asked: ‘If workers were given more of a say in the running of the companies that they work in, what kind of impact do you think it would have on the following?’
The response to the impact of greater workplace democracy is overwhelming – overwhelmingly positive.
- Unsurprisingly, people believe that greater democracy would have a positive impact on pay and conditions, and job satisfaction (70 and 73 percent respectively)
- Investment in sills and training is also high up the list at 67 percent
- The highest percentages for a negative impact are on business-decision making and economic performance - but these come in at 11 percent each (with positive percentages at 53 and 59 percent respectively)
There is one more issue: worker-directors. The survey put two statements to people.
Over half of the respondents believe that directors selected by the workforce should sit on the boards of the largest companies, with less than a third disagreeing.
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As stated, this is a UK poll. However, an Irish poll would probably come up with similar numbers. Given that in the UK there is a very strong and very loud lobby – comprising media outlets, commentators, and politicians – that have been attacking trade unions and employee rights for decades, one might have expected a larger cohort of anti-democratic views. In Ireland, however, such an influential lobby is lacking. That’s not to say that there aren’t hostile forces to trade unions and workers here; just that they don’t match the viciousness that comes out across the water.
Irish progressives and trade unionists can take some comfort in these numbers – and could even sponsor their own survey to get a specific read on the Irish public (though such comprehensive surveys can be quite expensive). The comfort is this: a campaign for greater workplace democracy would have public support.
We need to figure out how to leverage that support. After all, its not like workplace democracy is at the top or near the top of the public policy agenda.
Therefore, one of the many tasks for 2023 is to put workplace democracy and a democratic business model at the heart of the public debate and challenge the anti-democratic vested interests that dominate the economy. The majority of people are on our side.
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