LIVERPOOL, ENGLAND ¨C Large companies would be forced to transfer as much as 10 percent of their shares into a fund to be owned and managed collectively by their workers, under plans to be set out by Britain¡¯s opposition Labour Party on Monday.
Labour, which under socialist leader Jeremy Corbyn has shifted from a centrist pro-business platform to a more interventionist left-wing pitch, is using its annual conference to detail plans to help a greater number of people to share in economic prosperity that it says is ¡°hoarded by the few.
Over the weekend the party announced plans to nationalize key industries and give workers a third of seats on company boards.
Labour finance spokesman John McDonnell will say that every company with more than 250 employees would have to create an ¡°Inclusive Ownership Fund,¡± transferring a least 1 percent of their shares into the fund every year, up to a maximum of 10 percent.
¡°The evidence shows that employee ownership increases a company¡¯s productivity and encourages long-term thinking,¡± McDonnell will say on Monday in a speech to the Labour party¡¯s conference in Liverpool, according to extracts released in advance.
¡°The shares will be held and managed collectively by the workers. The shareholding will give workers the same rights as other shareholders to have a say over the direction of their company, and dividend payments will be made directly to the workers from the fund.¡±
Under the plans, individuals¡¯ dividend payments would be capped at ?500 a year.
The rest would be transferred back into public services in the form of a ¡°social dividend¡± into a national fund that the plans envisage being worth ?2.1 billion by the end of the first term of a Labour government.
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