Employees

A trip down memory lane: nearly 30 years ago, the then Labour government set up a Royal Commission to look into industrial democracy, chaired by Alan Bullock. The great and good were recruited and got down to work. Their final report recommended equal numbers of trade union and management-appointed directors on the boards of large companies, with independent co-optees holding the balance. They also wanted directors to take equal account of workers' and shareholders' interests under company law. But then Mrs Thatcher got elected, and that was that.

What a contrast with today's employment scene. Every issue of Briefing brings news of a flurry of micro-measures aimed at specific groups and at particular issues. In most industries, the unions are effectively sidelined and have been largely silent in the burgeoning CSR debate. The workforce has changed too: better qualified, more female, more flexible, and with more self-employment.

Government believes its role is confined to a set of supply side measures. Grand interventions such as prices and incomes policy or selective employment tax are inconceivable. Of course it still wants employers to do a whole raft of good things on the social agenda, but it knows that regulation and legislation is better aimed at preventing abuse than promoting positive action. The new Corporate Health and Safety Performance Index - which we feature later in this edition - is just the latest 'voluntary' initiative. The age of Bullock seems like the age of the dinosaurs.

But Bullock raised an issue that remains very relevant, namely how to take account of employees' issues and interests, and balance them against other stakeholders like investors. He wanted to institutionalise it. Employees these days are much consulted and surveyed, but it's employers who decide about the 'mix and match' from the array of CSR options in the workplace.

However, just think about the biggest shift of resources from employees to shareholders in the last decade - the virtual ending of final salary pension schemes. Would that have slipped away quite so easily, if employees had had representation at board level?