The False Promise of 'Employee Ownership'

Employee shareholding presents itself as a means of sweetening the pill for workers to make them accept any reduction in wages and breakdowns in working conditions.

The more inflation and the precariousness of workers increase, the more the monopolistic bourgeoisie resorts to “smoke screens”. On December 21, 2023, the Franco-Italian-American automotive group Stellantis announced that its employees in France and Italy had subscribed to 4.4 million shares of the group, equivalent to 65 billion euros in total, as part of a first employee shareholding plan, in order to “support the purchasing power of the company's employees and to involve them in the decisions and directions of the company”. The CEO of Stellantis saw his remuneration increase by 56% to €36.5 million; the group generated a record profit of €18.6 billion and will pay €7.7 billion to shareholders. Launched last November to 85,000 eligible employees in 2 of its historic countries and under preferential conditions, this plan was used by 22% of eligible employees, with an average investment of 2,470 euros.

So, what is employee shareholding?

It is a system aimed at bringing the employees of a company into the capital of the latter on a long-term basis. The idea initiated by Charles De Gaulle and established by the order of August 17, 1967, on "the participation of employees in the fruits of the expansion of companies" from those with more than 100 employees then 50 since 1990. After a first test in 1959, employee shareholding has developed very modestly in France, because it currently remains concentrated in large groups, with a minority of companies which have ‘democratized’ share ownership and opened it to a large proportion of employees.

According to a 2021 report published by the European Federation of Employee Shareholding (FEAS), France is the European country where employee shareholding is the most developed with nearly 80% of listed companies having at least 1% of their shares held by their employees. Still according to this report, on average employee shareholders in the CAC 40 [the stock market index] hold 3.5% of shares. In 2022, employee shareholding experienced a significant boom with 42 operations carried out compared to 35 in 2021 and 5 companies, including 3 part of the SBF 120 [another stock market index], which launched their first employee shareholding plan. This practice was also publicized by the takeover of the La Redoute group.

Suffice to say that this interests the Macron-Attal government and their principals, the monopolies, in a context where inflation is becoming ever more rampant and where the purchasing power of workers is increasingly weakened.

Remember that on November 29, 2023, the law transposing the national inter-professional agreement relating to the sharing of value within the company, concluded in February 2023 between the CFDT, FO, the CFE-CGC and the CFTC on the union side and Medef, CPME and U2P on the employer side, came into force. Containing 36 articles divided into 5 chapters, the 4th is devoted to employee shareholding. The latter is presented as “allow[ing] employees to own shares in their company, thus becoming […] owners of part of the company” and as “very structuring and positive in the relationship between shareholders, management and the company's employees" in addition to being "particularly suited to employee loyalty and conducive to high-quality social dialogue. »

Present for decades in the policies of successive governments and their principals, the monopolies, employee shareholding has positioned itself at an important place in the current political debate, at a time when the general and systemic crisis of capitalism- Imperialism was sharpening and hitting workers and their families ever more intensely, as an alternative to the demands for general wage increases posed by workers at a time of intensification and multiplication of their struggles and the unions.

Employee ownership is a harmful proposition.

This system is presented by its promoters as a catalyst for the feeling of belonging, motivation, and involvement of employees in the company. Except that behind the shareholding there is always a constant objective of maximizing the profits generated and therefore systematically implying a reduction in wages and working conditions. Employee shareholding therefore presents itself as a means of sweetening the pill for workers to make them accept any reduction in wages and breakdowns in working conditions. For Fabrice Angéï, of the CGT, “employee shareholding does not improve remuneration in any way. Worse: it is always accompanied by salary moderation. » Furthermore, “employees saw the branch on which they are sitting, because the managerial logic behind it is to make them accept everything. » Encouraged to be more productive, “employees become their own executioners. »

Employee shareholding is presented as a system allowing employees to become owners of part of “their” company and, at a minimum, to have a little voice in decision-making. However, in reality, there is control by managers over the vote of employee shareholders and it therefore often happens that the representatives of employee shareholders are puppet candidates more or less designated by management. So if employee shareholding can make one believe in a community of interests between labor and capital, it demonstrates, on the contrary, that their respective interests are antagonistic and irreconcilable. Especially since, in most cases, employee shareholding is often oriented towards executives and company directors. Employee shareholding also has the advantage, for monopolies and employers, of implementing a social policy at lower costs, because this system above all makes it possible to transform company expenses into equity, because employee shareholding schemes are exempt from charges for businesses.

This illusion of “shared ownership” through employee shareholding therefore has nothing to do with what Socialism-Communism offers, a mode of production based on collective ownership of all means of production and exchange between hands of all workers in society, on the construction of their state apparatus on the breakdown of that of the monopoly bourgeoisie and on centralized and democratic planning of production, will allow the establishment of an effective policy of fight against inflation, low wages and precariousness.

This is demonstrated by the Soviet example: the socialization of 99.4% of the means of production and exchange, that is to say their nationalization by the proletarian State, from the 1930s, had the effect of consequence that the products of labor belonged to all members of society for the first time in human history. Unemployment having been liquidated and wage employment having been abolished, the working day was divided into work for oneself (salary) and work for society, that is to say for productive investment and social and collective needs. (health, education, leisure, access to culture, housing, transport), inaccessible to all proletarians in other capitalist countries. During its ascendant period from 1928 to 1956, Socialism in the USSR was characterized by the increase in productivity and its repercussions on the real fall in the prices of everyday consumer products. For example, the latter fell by 56.5% from 1947 to 1954. We must also talk about the fact that housing and heating were inexpensive for workers and their families. From 1917 to 1954, purchasing power increased by 600% .

The entire approach of the Revolutionary Communist Party of France is based on demonstrating to workers that only the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism-imperialism associated with the construction of Socialism-Communism will make it possible to resolve all the problems and issues facing human society.

This is why our Party launched the “Accuse Capitalism” campaigns, and in particular the one entitled “Against the High Cost of Living”: in order to link the daily demands of workers with the need for the revolutionary overthrow of capitalism-imperialism and construction of Socialism-Communism.

If this has not already been done, it is necessary for workers to organize themselves into collectives of struggle in each industrial company and in each employment area, associating themselves with all the victims of capitalism and more broadly with local populations, appropriating slogans such as:

  “for the general increase in wages”,

  “for a decrease in the prices of everyday consumer materials by tapping into the safes and profits of mass distribution and energy monopolies”,

  “for free public services accessible to all and against their privatization”,

  “for the launch of neighbourhood purchasing cooperatives with the pooling of tools and materials”

  “against the expenses of France's military interventions and its military budget. »

These collectives will have to join forces with others in order to create a solid class front to put an end to capitalist property and wage exploitation.


[Original article, in French, is linked here ]