We should all welcome Guy Standing’s call for a Great Charter for the 21st century to “limit the liberties of tax dodgers and put the precariat at its heart” (The case for a new people’s charter, 23 January). Indeed, to mark the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta we need to deal with the unfinished business at the core of our democracy – that is, to address corporate irresponsibility by demanding genuine accountability at work too. Corporate power and greed, demonstrated by tax evasion and soaring executive remuneration, are a major source of social inequality and anxiety as senior managers come to lead lives ever more remote from those of countless workers and their families facing austerity and pay cuts.
Now is the moment for national debate on ways to extend our rights to cover our working lives, with rights to information, consultation and co-determination for all workers, whatever our hours, background or status. In particular, we need the right to elect employee representatives on to the boards of companies so that they can argue the case for workers’ interests at the earliest stages of formulating business strategy. The argument is simple: yes, shareholders invest their capital in companies for profit, but workers invest their lives in companies for income, and without their working lives there would be no profit, so they have equal entitlement to board representation.
The Trades Union Congress has made an excellent start by calling not only for employee board-level representation but also for amendments to company law to redress shareholder primacy and requiring ownership of shares for two years before they entitle shareholders to voting rights. The best way to commemorate Magna Carta will be to update it to our needs in 2015.
Michael Gold
Professor of comparative employment relations, Royal Holloway University of London
