| English | Version of 14.08.2009 | Text as pdf-file |
| Esperanto - German/deutsch | Changes - Additional info | Author: Michael Kox |
Concept for more democratic influence on big enterprises and on the world economy
This concept originates in the following basic concept:
In big international enterprises the supervisory board (SB) that elects and controls the board
of managers (BoM) is elected by 3 groups having equal rights:
shareholders, employees and the population.
First the result of it is a better
co-determination / democratic influence in the enterprises.
Second this basic concept can also be the basis for an even more comprehensive democratization of the economy: by international democratic procedures (see mainly 2.2 and 4.1), with which international politics can be formed comprehensively, with consideration of social issues and ecology.
1. basic issues
1.1 democracy, power and property
1.2 basic concept
1.3 alternatives in the group
"population"
2. consequences of this concept
2.1 in a single enterprise
2.2 stronger democratic influence on the
world economy
3. size of an enterprise
4. election-procedures
4.1 population: distribution of 1/3 of the
SB-seats by it
4.1.1 overview and basic issues
4.1.2 election of a single seat of an
SB
partly by an international parliamentary assembly
4.1.3 election of the other SB-seats
4.2 employees: distribution of 1/3 of
the SB-seats by them
4.3 chairperson of a SB
4.4 ratio 5:5:5, 5:4:5 or 5:6:5 in a SB
5. human rights
6. carrying it through
6.1 Europe
6.2 state
6.3 customers
6.4 enterprises from states without this
co-determination
Appendix:
A. to 1.2 ("...existing mechanism in German enterprises,...")
B. completing regulations to 4.1
C. completing regulations to 4.1.3
D. property and constitution
The most comprehensive freedom of the greatest possible number of people (while
considering the rights of minorities!) needs as a base a democratic structure of society. In
order that democracy works well, the forming power of the democratic institutions must be
much greater than the power of persons or small groups through property; this power through
property is used especially by means of enterprises. Therefore concerning big enterprises we
must at least strive for the most comprehensive democratic co-determination, under which
free-market economy can work.
[About property see also appendix D.]
For this concept I start from the existing mechanism in German
enterprises that have more than 2000 employees: In the SB (that elects and controls the
BoM) half of the seats is elected by shareholders, the other half is elected by employees. If a
voting is undecided, then the chairperson of the SB has two votes in a repeated voting; this is
very important, because the representatives of the shareholders can elect her/him alone and
therefore can also make the decisions alone (e.g. can elect the BoM alone).
[More about it: see appendix A.]
The basic concept that I propose has a third group that can elect
members into the SB: the population. The representatives of all three groups have the
same number of votes; this is also valid during the election of the BoM.
How the population elects representatives for 1/3 of the SB-places:
Alternative 1: by the citizens directly;
alternative 2: by representatives of the population that were elected on communal or
regional level.
Every state can decide itself (also for international elections), which of the both alternatives
is used in the own state. See more in 4.1.1.b.
a) The population and politicians have influence
To support the own interests as strong as possible (e.g. to get SB-seats in the biggest
international enterprises), the political groups must unite in international groups (e.g.
socialists/social democrats, conservatives, liberals, greens).
If the big international party-like groups (IP-groups) can agree on common aims,
then they can effectively influence the world economy, e.g. with regard to social
issues/standards, human rights, ecology, taxes. This influence does not only work through the
single enterprises. Because of the right to decide in one single important world economic
issue (see 4.1.2) the international parliamentary assembly has the attention of the public and
of the national politicians, and so it can influence national politicians in many fields.
Through the governments the IP-groups can also have influence on international economic
organizations like the World Trade Organization (WTO), the World Bank and the
International Monetary Fund (IMF). In addition: Also the pressure and influence of big
enterprises on the WTO (and other organizations) and on the WTO-member-states is
influenced by the IP-groups und the international parliamentary assembly, respectively.
Through the international parliamentary assembly the political parties can build a democratic
structure of power that reduces problems, which occur because of the competition between
the states.
b) As a comparison: There is an idea to create a parliamentary
assembly of the World Trade Organization (WTO). This idea found support from
the European Parliament (EP) and the worldwide parliament association
Interparliamentary Union (IPU). The EP hopes that this assembly will have
consultative powers, the assembly should receive reports from the WTO and should have the
ability to make proposals to organs of the WTO.
The parliamentary assembly from my concept has a bigger influence to carry through contents
(see a))
See also www.mitbestimmung.eu/english/additional-info.
c) Non-Government Organizations (NGOs):
d) Trade/Labor unions: Through the fact that an international regulation takes place for a part of the employee-votes (see 4.2), also an important structure is created for the international coordination of the unions among themselves.
To explain the basic concept of this co-determination, I already mentioned as an example
enterprises with more than 2000 employees.
Besides the number of the employees there are further criteria for the introduction of this co-determination:
In addition there should be a graduation for the co-determination, according to the number of employees, the value of an enterprise, ... . Example:
| ratio of votes in the SB | employees | or | value, ... |
| ⅓ : ⅓ : ⅓ | more than 2000 | or | over A |
| (½ = shareholders) ½ : ¼ : ¼ | 200 to 2000 | or | 1/10 A to A |
(The election procedure for the SB-seats of the group "population" is for ⅓ : ⅓ : ⅓ international+national [see 4.1], for ½ : ¼ : ¼ national.)
In addition there should be regulations for:
Also if you advocate a reduced size of the big enterprises and combines, this co-determination / democratic influence makes sense:
| a. |
The representatives of the group "population" are elected into a SB in 3 ways:
1 member according to 4.1.2 (this election is only after the election according to 4.1.3), if the enterprise is one of the biggest, else according to 4.1.3 on international level, 2 members according to 4.1.3 on national level, 2 members according to 4.1.3 on international level. The SB can be smaller: with 9 members. The election of the SB-members of the group "population" takes place at the end of every year (for about 4 years): for SBs whose members of the group "shareholders" are elected in the months before or after. |
| b. |
Every state can decide itself (also for international elections), who has the right to vote in the
own state:
Their votes are weighted according to:
|
A single seat of a SB is elected partly by an international democratic parliamentary assembly. "Partly" means:
This SB-seat is elected only then, when the election of the other SB-seats of the group "population"
(according to 4.1.3) has already taken place. This SB-seat can be decisive for the creation of
majorities.
(About the purpose of the parliamentary asssembly: see also 2.2.a.)
a. election of the assembly
The voters (according to 4.1.1.b) elect an international parliamentary assembly with e.g. 200
members for 4 years; in the election they can choose between international lists of candidates,
which belong to various political directions (parties and international party-like groups).
80% of the delegates of this assembly are elected by the voters from the bigger states, 20% by
the voters from the "small states"; this separation is necessary because of the additional right
to vote of the "small states" (see below).
b. decision procedures
In the international parliamentary assembly decisions about the distribution of the
SB-seats are made in this way:
An agreement can include e.g.:
After such an agreement it is clear at once who the new SB-member is. This
SB-member is taken from a list of candidates according to 4.1.3.a.
Example: A SB-seat of the enterprise X is distributed to the regional
group 'Africa' of an IP-group. This SB-seat goes to the candidate that has,
from all according to 4.1.3 unsuccessful international candidates of this IP-group for this SB, the most votes from Africa.
The following basic election-procedure (a. till c.) is used twice:
In principle 50% of these SB-seats are elected on national level and 50% on international level, but exceptions or alternatives are possible (see appendixes C.4 and C.6.4).
Completing regulations to 4.1.3 you find in appendix C.
Irrespective of this co-determination in SBs, the employees have additional rights that refer to the work in the enterprise where they work.
This regulation is interesting for the example from 4.2 ("finance-enterprises with high-income employees"): The half of the employee-representatives that is elected by the unions (4.2.b) can have a majority together with all representatives of the group "population".
(Alternative regulations for such a majority:With alternative A or B the regulation in 4.3 for the SB-chairperson can be deleted.)
For the employees an even number of SB-seats is more practical (compare 4.2), for the group "population" an odd number of SB-seats is more practical (because of 4.3.1). If the ratio shareholders:employees:population is 5:4:5 or 5:6:5
instead of 5:5:5, then there is scarcely a difference: If shareholders and employees vote
completely against each other, then at all three alternatives decides the 3:2 majority of the
representatives of the group "population"; at that one has to pay attention to the method of
electing
the SB-chairperson, who has an additional vote, if the voting has resulted in a tie (so 3:2
becomes
4:2).
The proportions 5:4:5 and 5:6:5 could be changed with every new election of the SB.
Also the proportion 5:5:5 can be used (e.g if there are 6 representatives of the employees in a SB, but 2 of them have only a half vote; and in secret elections the other SB-members have each 2 half votes).
A committee will be elected, that can reduce the co-determination of the population of single states because of violation of
human rights (concerning 4.1.2.a; concerning the international election of 4.1.3).
Precise example: The committee consists of 15 persons; every 2 years 1/3 of the persons are
newly elected by a simple majority for 6 years (by the international parliamentary assembly from 4.1.2). The committee decides with a simple majority
about human right issues. A sentenced state looses up to 5% yearly of the normal portion of
votes of its population. An even greater part can be subtracted, if after the
human-rights-committee also the parliamentary assembly (4.1.2) supports it: with a
2/3-majority of the
votes cast and a simple majority of the votes from the "small states". Members of the
parliamentary assembly that have the nationality of the concerned state cannot vote.
The members of the committee can decide according to their own values; normally they
surely orientate themselves on the various human right conventions.
The members of the committee can make decisions on their own initiative.
The committee should sometime be replaced by a human rights court, which can reduce the
portion of co-determination without a limit according to very precise human right
laws.
This co-determination works, if it is introduced by several economically important states together. Therefore most states of the European Union (EU) have to join in, or the USA. If most states of the EU are ready to introduce this co-determination, then surely all over the world there are states that are interested in joining in.
For public contracts a member state has to prefer enterprises that have this co-determination, if there is a choice only between big enterprises. Criteria for this: according to 6.3, b.-c.
The customers can have influence by
Ranking lists or valuations in the internet or in magazines about products, producers, traders und service companies could be a help for the selection. For this the mass media and organizations can get information about suppliers, human rights, ecology etc. just from SB-members that are from the group "population", because:
If many customers prefer enterprises with this co-determination, then this can be an argument
for enterprises from states without this co-determination, to introduce such a
co-determination.
For such enterprises special regulations are necessary.
Appendix:
| A.1 | It is also worth mentioning: Also a representative of the group of the leading/managing employees belongs to the representatives of the employees. | ||
| A.2 |
A special case is the "Montan"-co-determination. This co-determination is applied in big mining enterprises and in big enterprises that produce iron and steel, if these fields make up at least 20% of an enterprise. It has the following regulation:
One could expand this regulation to all fields of enterprise.
Completion: According to the German law shareholders and employees have not entirely equal rights, when they elect the "neutral" person; through a regulation that twice involves a law court the shareholders can decide alone. |
B.1 What is a "small state"? "Small states" are those smallest
states of a
region (B.2), which together have not more than 20% of the population.
Completing rules:
B.2 big regions:
B.3 These and other regulations will be fixed in such a way that they can only be changed with a double 2/3-majority in the international parliamentary assembly: 2/3 of all votes and 2/3 of the votes from the "small states". The latitude for such changes will be defined in a treaty that will be made by the states.
C.1 A SB-seat that a party gets by an election on
national level can lead to the result that this party or the IP-group of this party does
not get an SB-seat in the election on international level.
Example: A party got 1 SB-seat for a certain SB during the election on
national level. Therefore in the election on international level this party or its IP-group can not
get an SB-seat for this SB; exception: if in the international election this party or its IP-group
has a share of votes for this SB that is corresponding with 2 or more SB-seats.
With this regulation it becomes more likely, that in the international election a party or
IP-group gets 2 SB-seats in 2 different SBs, than that it gets 2 SB-seats in a single SB.
Additional regulations:
C.2 To compensate a disadvantage of smaller parties or
IP-groups, the following correction is made; first on national level, then on international level
(before the use on international level: C.1 must be used).
"Party or IP-group" is meant where you find "party" in the following passages.
| a. |
Without correction the following is possible:
| ||||||||||||||||||||||
| b. |
The parties A, B and C get more SB-seats, the party D gets less SB-seats. A party with too few SB-seats (party A, B or C) gets these additional SB-seats for those SBs, where the difference of votes between this party's list of candidates and the list of candidates of party D is the smallest in percentages. Example for the parties B and D:
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| c. |
To C.2.b there are the following exceptions:
|
| d. |
When a party gets an SB-seat, then votes of this party are subtracted from its votes for all SBs together. Example: For a certain SB 2 SB-seats are elected on international level according to 4.1.3, for this SB 10.000 votes were cast. 10.000 : 2 = 5.000 votes per SB-seat. If a party has still 9.000 remaining votes of its votes for all SBs together, then it gets a seat in this SB, if this is possible according to C.2.b+c; and has after this still 4.000 remaining votes (9.000-5.000=4.000) to get seats in other SBs. If a party has instead of 9.000 only 4.999 remaining votes, then it does not get this SB-seat. |
| e. |
It can also happen that instead of 1 party (in C.2.a the party D) there are 2 or more parties that
have more SB-seats than are corresponding with their share of votes. The procedure remains
nearly the same. Example:
| ||||||||||||||||||||||
| f. |
Additional points:
|
C.3 common lists of candidates of several parties or
IP-groups:
If several parties or IP-groups create common lists of candidates for single SBs, it must be
prevented that the smaller parties are discriminated against the bigger ones. The
correction for this is similar to the correction according to C.2 . Central differences to the procedure in C.2:
Other regulations for common lists of candidates:
C.4 For the SB-seats that are elected on national level the following
special regulation is applied:
In the international parliamentary assembly (see 4.1.2) it can be decided with 2/3 of the votes
of all and more than ½ of the votes from the "small states", that for single enterprises the
election on national level can be replaced by an international election according to 4.1.3.
Example for usage: A big international enterprise has its headquarters in
a small state that is financially very dependent on this enterprise. And this dependency has
already become noticeable concerning a majority according to 4.3 ('The half of the ...').
C.5 In connection with 4.2 and 4.3 ("finance-enterprises with high-income employees") are the
following regulations. They prevent that parties or IP-groups that are especially near to
shareholders can prevail against a big majority of other parties or IP-groups.
One of the following alternatives is used:
Alternative 1: The international parliamentary assembly (4.1.2) can decide (with 2/3
of the votes of all and more than ½ of the votes from the "small states") that the SB of an enterprise
becomes smaller: all 3 groups (shareholders, employees, population) get
less seats in this SB.
Alternative 2: At the election for a SB a list of candidates gets all seats, if it fulfills the
following preconditions:
C.6 Additional points:
| C.6.1 | The voting (together for national and international election) could take place about 2 months before the decision according to 4.1.2.b. |
| C.6.2 | For a list of candidates (according to 4.1.3.a) there could bei a minimum size of 4 candidates. |
| C.6.3 | A person can be in maximum 3 SBs. If a person gets a 3rd and 4th SB-seat at the same time, then s/he can only keep the SB-seat where s/he got more votes as candidate. |
| C.6.4 | The international election could be further limited in favor of the national election. Example: Only in 50% of the enterprises SB-seats of the group "population" are elected on national and international level; it is about these 50% where the interest ist biggest according to the international voting. (In order that votes out of small countries carry weight, these votes are considered separately.) |
| C.6.5 | Not only parties and IP-groups can take part in the election. Citizens' initiatives and Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) that have collected a certain amount of subscriptions for single SBs/enterprises from supporters (and that have a democratic structure) can candidate. |
| C.6.6 | A candidate for a SB-seat can compete on a national and on an international list for the same SB at the same time. |
| C.6.7 | The voters shall have the possibility to create their ballot paper by the help of a computer database (but it also works without ist). |
| C.6.8 | Regulations could also be made for decentral decisions about the primary order of a (4.1.3.a) list of candidates. |
| C.6.9 | For very big states (e.g. India), whose voters can have
a maximum share of 12,5% of votes (see 4.1.1.b): It can be considered, if more than 12,5% of the
enterprises come from this country. Example: A state has 16% of the population and 15% of the enterprises. For the 2,5% (15%-12,5%=2,5%) of the enterprises that are most unpopular in the international election, the SBs are elected only on national level. (Instead of 2,5% the share could be a little bigger: because it only concerns the enterprises that are most unpopular). For all states applies: The share of enterprises that is above the share (in the example 16%) of the population is not considered. |
Regarding property in connection with big enterprises you must distinguish between 2 fields:
In a verdict about co-determination the German constitutional court wrote, in context with §14 ("property,...") of the constitution, the following:
| However regarding the property warrenty essentially only the membership powers of the shareholders are concerned, while the financial element of the property-share is not affected. In addition the only weak personal relation of the share-rights in their membership-legal meaning carries weight |
(From the reasons of a verdict from 1999 about the
"Montan"-co-determination; see
BverfG, 1 BvL 2/91 of 2 March 1999, paragraph no. 77, http://www.bverfg.de.
See also a verdict from 1979 about the co-determination law from 1976; BverfGE 50,
290 [341 ff.].
See also www.mitbestimmung.eu/english/additional-info.)
Michael Kox
www.mitbestimmung.eu/english/contact
Version of 14 August 2009
Changes:
www.mitbestimmung.eu/english/changes.htm
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