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Dan
Without going over old ground to much again I would like
to make the following comments
As a worker (and their representative) who has been
through EO through Privatisation and in fact studied it happening throughout the
UK and the World I believe it is wrong and somewhat dishonest to say that EO
through Privatisation is going to be beneficial for them I think the past
has proved my point. It is true I believe that if Privatisation is
inevitable then EO is the best course to follow as a damage limitation
exercise. The positive side to EO can only be pursued after EO has been
established.
Let us go back to basics about what privatisation is all
about to show my point. It is a publicly owned body selling off it's assets
(usually inefficient) to raise capital to a person or organisation using capital
to buy assets in order to gain a return on their investment. The return usually comes from asset stripping either one or a
combination of property, work orders or workers pay and conditions.
Little wonder then that workers and their reps oppose
privatisation. However they should not be naive (as 99% of them are) and they
need to look for the alternative strategy and as I said I believe they should
first look at EO as probably the best alternative.
The one positive thing that workers get out of EO
that is worth promoting is a share in the capital
gains of the sale (particularly if it is well managed) and the greater diversity
of EO the better for all sorts of reasons like, keeping the ownership
local which in turn should help the local economy, keeping the community
alive, cutting out the Fat Cats and leading hopefully to more Industrial
democracy.
As you rightly say there has to be an educational
programme and a link to resource centres as well as government incentives, like
in the UK discounts of 5% were offered on the sale price if the
workers were involved, in some cases single bidder status was granted and of
course the various share plans with tax concessions that we
enjoy.
I hope these few comments (coming from a practitioner)are
useful to you.
Regards Dave
Dave Wheatcroft
01246 233438
-Tel
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