Labour would make companies found employee share schemes
Labour would make all private companies with more than 250 people set up “ownership funds”, giving workers financial stakes in their companies and a greater say in how they are run.
Shadow chancellor John McDonnell revealed the plans in an interview with the Observer as Labour gears up for a general election which he predicted could happen within months.
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“What this will ensure is that in large companies, in addition to rewarding workers with wages, they will reward them with shares that will go into a pool that will allow them to have an ownership role,” he said.
Among the ideas being looked at are one in which companies would have to put a percentage of profits into an employee fund which would be used to build a shareholding in the company.
The employee’s shares would be held in trust and would help give the workforce a say in how the company is run and managed.
The workers would not be able to sell the shares but they could boost their pay through dividends.
McDonnell, who will outline his plans at a speech to the Trades Union Congress in Manchester on Tuesday, also predicted the government would collapse in the next six months.
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“The opportunity is there for us. I think the government will fall apart in the next six months almost certainly,” he said.
“When they come back in the autumn with whatever they think will be their Brexit deal, they will rip themselves apart, and my argument is that they should move on and let us get on with the negotiations, and if not, call a general election. They might try to stagger on but by the spring of next year they will fall apart.”