An interesting letter in this morning’s Observer newspaper reminded me of the MA thesis I wrote many moons ago. Barber’s letter, under the sub-title ‘Germany’s an inspiration’, reported that ‘The TUC has been urging policy-makers to look to Germany to learn from its industrial policies.’ Part of the reason for Germany’s success, Barber argues, ‘is the belief in a fair economic model, which challenges the assumption that the main motor of capitalism is greed. Employees sit on company supervisory boards, presenting both a challenge and an opportunity for trade unions. Ministers in the UK would do well to consider these lessons.’ My thesis was essentially about an irony, for worker participation in management boards (Mitbestimmung, or co-determination) was introduced into the German coal and steel industry in occupied Germany by… the British, as a way of preventing a repeat of any complicity by industrialists in unsavoury political developments. The model was a big success and was gradually generalised to all larger companies. Fast forward from the 1950s to the 1970s and the European Commission, seeking to harmonise company law, tabled the Fifth Company Law Directive, which (inevitably) proposed German-style worker representation on two-tier management boards. This led the then British Labour government to establish the Bullock Committee of Inquiry into Industrial Democracy. The recommendations of the 1977 Bullock report, like the so-called ‘Vredling Directive’, faced opposition from British trades unionists and industralists alike and were never implemented. The UK slid into the ‘winter of discontent’ and in 1979 a Conservative Government was elected that was to develop very different views about the role and the place of trades unions…
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