Worker participation

Press, 5 December 1979, Page 24

Worker participation

Sir, —“The Press” is to be congratulated for its articles on worker participation, but unless the conflict of interest between workers and owners is reduced by helping workers to become partowners of the factories they work in, schemes allowing workers some participation in management will not solve problems fully. Workers will only be able to buy a significant fraction of ownership if governments back sharebuying by workers with in-terest-free loans on about a five-to-one basis. That is to say, a worker would buy $lOOO worth of shares in his own factory with $2OO of his own money plus an $BOO interest. - free government loan and would be persuaded thus to spend $2OO by the incentive of receiving dividends on the whole $lOOO. The Social Credit Party supports such ideas, but the Labour Party and the National Party have shown little interest in resolving basic social conflicts.—Yours, etc. MARK D. SADLER. December 3, 1979.