Corporate democracy: some models of participation and new proposals

Abstract

After the Second World War and up until the mid-1970s, there were several reports and legislative initiatives to strengthen "industrial democracy" in Europe, through the participation of non-stockholders, especially workers, in decision-making within the capitalist corporation. A few years later, the conservative revolution not only put an end to the phenomenon, but even fought to reverse it. Today, immersed in a complex and contradictory panorama, voices are raised to defend a new model of enterprise, more participatory and plural, with broad corporate governance, where diverse stakeholders, even beyond shareholders and workers, must be represented. The purpose of this paper is to review some existing models or new proposals in relation to participation systems in companies. First, we carry out an analysis fundamentally from the labor perspective and with reference to concrete experiences. Then, we offer a set of clues for a debate in Spain, with the help of some new contributions from France and the United Kingdom in recent years.