In what way is it currently illegal for workers to buy out their firm? Or does this create the ability to pull off a forced buyout, i.e. a coup?

@1,

I presume that’s the point of it.

Who decides what price the forced sale happens at? If it’s too low, no-one will fund capital intensive new businesses.

(Feedback on new design: This comment box uses a font that’s too big. It wants to be reduced.)

It’s a very minor issue, but I agree with Phil RE comment font. It makes me feel like I’m writing in crayon.

This isn’t collective ownership of the means of production (not a criticism, just an observation).

More detail of the workings would be good.

This will certainly get private sector investment going.

Going away.

As a customer or just a member of the public what does it mater to me who owns a business?

This just shows that the greens don’t understand the fundamental objective of a ‘co op’ – they are just have a pavlovianresponse to the use of the word.

How to promote a subcontract/self-employment model in 3 sentences…

tbh I read the headline and thought this was about the Green Party having a ‘clause 4 moment’ – i.e removing something that was seen as an obsticle to people voting for you – something on homeopathy perhaps.

Well lets play the ball not the man – what specific problems are you hoping this policy will solve?

For publicly-traded companies, this is effectively a hostile take-over by a government-funded workers’ co-operative. Not sure why that’s something that a Green National Investment Bank should be prioritising over actually green investments, but whatever.

But for non-publicly-traded companies, this is a hostile take-over of a private entity – a private entity that, moreover, has no defined price. Even if you grant the right to buyout that private property, what body can fairly determine a price?

And what of businesses that are not companies? Would not every private company evade this in seconds by converting to a limited liability partnership?

But if you extend the net to any employer, then you have to ask, what of a sole trader who owns a business outright as her personal property? – there is no distinction in law between the business and the person.

And last, what of a charity? Could they get acquired by their staff?

No, there is too little thought gone into this.

A further thorny issue will be business failures.

The state will be covering these via the Green Bank, so we’ll all be paying. Profits, however, will remain with the owners.

Further, what happens to employees who don’t want to take the investment risk, and just want to remain as standard employees?

@1 Coup? Surely a mutiny.

@ 11 Cylux

A fair point. Mutiny it is.

Workers’ cooperatives still have to operate in a market economy, and diversity of ownership models is surely a good thing. However, this motion sounds like expropriation by a taxpayer-funded ‘bank’.

More generally, if you place some abstract goal like ‘the environment’ or ‘race’, you will slip into authoritarianism because you are ultimately not concerned with the individual or institutions but with some supra-personal goal. I fear the Greens will mutate into eco-fascists.

You do not say whether the sale would be forced if the legal owner was an unwilling seller. Is it the case the GIB would just be providing the equity finance for an agreed sale?

Even an agreed sale would likely breach EU single market laws on state aid.

Article 107

” Save as otherwise provided in the Treaties, any aid granted by a Member State or through State resources in any form whatsoever which distorts or threatens to distort competition by favouring certain undertakings or the production of certain goods shall, in so far as it affects trade between Member States, be incompatible with the internal market. ”

It is compatible to provide aid if the aid has a social character, or the area has abnormally low economic development. However, to be compatible aid should be provided without discrimination. Since the aid would be contingent on following certain policies, by definition means it would be specifically discriminatory.

” Buy outs would be funded by a Green National Investment Bank and contingent on the co-ops following green and ethical policies. ”

The Greens could say that they are only providing equity finance to facilitate the development of certain economic activities and that is compatible with the single market. Regional development agencies already do that with public funds. The proposal implies that the employees would hold legal title to the equity. However, the equity finance gives the new owners of the equity an unfair advantage, they could leverage the equity as collateral and thereby obtain debt finance below the rates of others. That would not be compatible with EU law because such aid would be held to be adversely affecting trading conditions.

A forced purchase of equity on an unwilling seller would most probably fail an ” unconscionability” test under English contract law. There would clearly exist a situation of “Inequality of bargaining power” in an state v an unwilling equity seller scenario.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unconscionability_in_English_law

@14 single market? Are you forgetting that the greens are anti eu?

UKIP are anti EU so the UK can trade more freely with the rest of the world.

Greens are anti EU so the UK don’t have to trade with anyone!

I wish Labour would. Obviously that’s out of the members’ hands, as the right always wanted,

Would what Chris? And why is it out of the member’s hands, whatever it is?

@ Paul

“UKIP are anti EU so the UK can trade more freely with the rest of the world.”

Are they? They do a good job of hiding that. Based on their rhetoric, I thought they were anti-EU because Europe wants to force us to eat French cheese, ban Christmas, etc. etc.

Employee ownership through the co-operative model, is fundamentally an improvement on the current situation. As with most things, apart from full communism, it is not full communism. It would help if the article actually explained why this was a clause 4 moment. I cant see any explanation. can someone explain? anyone?

19

Beats me too, is it supposed to be a metaphor as someone else has intimated, clause 4 was about socialism, co-ops already exist within capitalism.

@chaise – love europe; hate EU.

Diverse cultures, languages, wines cheeses – great; 27 unelected political has beens (or never weres) overriding the directly elected parliament of the UK – not great.
….

I look forward to seeing this one in action. He said sarcastically.

So should workers be able to buy out their companies? I can think of two ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers right now off the top of my head. So come on eggheads, it shouldn’t take you long to get this one sorted!

A quote from the motion via the OP: “Buy outs would be funded by a Green National Investment Bank and contingent on the co-ops following green and ethical policies.”

So buy outs will be funded — subject to the ideological decisions of an undefined authority. Suddenly, I am falling in love with bankers…

[As the older fart who complained about small font size in the reply box, it seems fine to me. But the same size as the thread above it would work, assuming it is possible using the stylesheets.]

There is already a partial step towards employee ownership, enshrined in law. It is called sharesave. Why I am a shareholder. What I want to see is ‘one shareholder, one vote’ that way, the fact that someone else, with more voting rights, but only one brain, has the same rights as me, with less shares. The majority shareholder after all still only has one brain, and with recognition that majority shareholder = every other shareholder it will be more democratic…

Then, it is up to us all at the AGM to debate the future trajectory. The green case can then be debated fairly… at least hopefully!

You know I wish such radical sentiments were accompanied by a little more thought because it’s damned easy to scribble down a motion but damned hard to appear credible while unravelling the gordion knot of unintended consequences arising from adopting it.
No word on the guidelines for a Green Investment Bank – how it prices the company due to be taken over, how it appraises risk, how it determines whether the workforce have the necessary skills to run the enterprise.
It’s an open door to fraud; person A starts a company, grossly inflates its value through ghost trading and gets friends B-Z to demand a buyout backed by the taxpayer. Person A cashes in a disappears while B-Z cheerfullylet it go to the wall and split A’s proceeds with him on a beach in Brazil.
No word on whether there has to be any test for when a buyout might be appropriate – ie when a company is on the verge of collapse and faces being shut down; great, just when it’s turning profitable after some poor guy put his house on the line and slogged his guts out for five years to get it there; crap.
If I’m asked about this on the doorstep I’ll put it down to good intentions, youthful idealism and enthusiasm triumphing over properly working though a policy before adopting it. Sheesh.

#25 @Jonathan – ouch!

I’m not sure “youthful idealism, etc” is a sufficient excuse. A more charitable explanation is contained in the OP: it would appear that many thought they were voting for “collective ownership, etc”.

This would still imply a massive ignorance of the past, a grim totalitarian mind-set, etc, but at least there would be some coherence.

“You know I wish such radical sentiments were accompanied by a little more thought ”

But this is entirely why it is stupid to have policies decided by a show of hands in a party conference. A more sane approach would be to have conference vote on a principle, which then translates into the policy people turning the principle into something detailed and robust. So instead of this, what happens is party conference passes a motion worded along the lines of:

“Calls on the party to adopt policies aimed at improving employee ownerhip and involvement in the running of private workplaces”

The party wonks then turn this into actual policies.

@chaise – love europe; hate EU.

Diverse cultures, languages, wines cheeses – great; 27 unelected political has beens (or never weres) overriding the directly elected parliament of the UK – not great.
….f

@ 23 Charlieman

“A quote from the motion via the OP: “Buy outs would be funded by a Green National Investment Bank and contingent on the co-ops following green and ethical policies.”

So buy outs will be funded — subject to the ideological decisions of an undefined authority. Suddenly, I am falling in love with bankers…”

Christ, I sauntered over that part of the OP. You’re right, that’s horrible. If you want to prevent corporate irresponsibility then you outlaw irresponsible behaviour in the first place. You don’t just hand businesses over to people you like more.

Greens’ll probably lose my vote on this one (full disclosure: for FPTP reasons, they only had it in Europe anyway).

“As the older fart who complained about small font size in the reply box, it seems fine to me. But the same size as the thread above it would work, assuming it is possible using the stylesheets.”

That’s what I was thinking. I was gonna scroll out, but that makes the rest of the site look tiny. Actually, isn’t it fixed? Just realised the font looks normal as I type this.

@ 29 Paul

” love europe; hate EU.

Diverse cultures, languages, wines cheeses – great; 27 unelected political has beens (or never weres) overriding the directly elected parliament of the UK – not great.”

Absolutely fair enough. So I’ve no quarrel with you personally (still in favour of the EU, but I respect your reasons). But UKIP – from its grassroots to its management – does delight in mindless nationalistic appeals and, at times, great big fibs. You know, immigrants being allowed to stay in the UK because they have a cat, that sort of thing.

Excellent news, the Greens are positioning themselves to replace labour, now that labour have become a party of cynical neoliberal careerists.
It’s time the unions backed away from the Labour party and started exploring a relationship with the Greens, the Labour party in it’s current incarnation views the unions as a cash cow and nothing else, they are overtly contemptuous of worker’s rights and repeatedly condemn industrial action.
If the Labour poshos regard the unions as an embarrassment then it’s time the purse strings drew tight and the unions went elsewhere in the battle for representation of working men and women because it, sure as shit, isn’t on Labour’s agenda anymore.

So would this allow teachers to buy out their school?
Nurses to buy out their hospital?

Or are they not to get the rights that others get?

It’s just loopy no matter which way you look at it.