|
Dear EO Privers
I believe of all the sources of EO,
Privatisation is the worst one to promote it.
I say that mainly for the global abuse and
the failure rate that has resulted in using this source.
However there are many empirical and
successful examples of EO through Privatisation non more so than the Herend
Porcelain Manufactory in Hungary.
Form a Worker's point of view Privatisation
World Wide has been a disaster, particularly in Labour Intensive Industries
which most invariably are. As a worker if you don't lose your job you can bet
your wages and conditions will be under attack in a bid to put profits before
people.
Little wonder then that workers and their
representatives i.e. Trade Unions oppose privatisation so strongly. The problem
is that when a situation is inevitable the TUs do not have a plan "B" which is
to get involved in the process in order to get the best out of the situation for
their members. Even if initially it is viewed as a damage limitation exercise
that can only be a good thing, the positive thinking can come
later.
The way forward for workers is to join the
flow and become owners themselves in order to influence (even to some degree)
what is happening and some would say to try and protect them from the corruption
and mal-practice that seems prevalent in privatisations.
Once having reached that conclusion we
can address the questions posed by Dan Bell
Having been in and witnessed many
Privatisation situations where the workers were given the option of EO they
took it for the following reasons.
1. to protect our jobs and conditions as
much as we could
2..to be able to control our own destiny as
much as we could.
3. we could see what management and outsider
buy-outs were doing to their workforces
and we didn't want
that.
4 the accumulation of capital was
not something we were concerned with at the beginning
this was developed over a
period of time and we did turn £800 investment into
£1600 in 5
years
I hope this has answered a few questions as
far as how workers see EO in Privatisations
What is clear is that you cannot expect to
move from one culture to another overnight, some protective programme has to be
developed to make the transition smooth and
successful
Dave Wheatcroft
01246 233438
-Tel
|