Employee funds in Europe

Interest in this important subject was stimulated by the articles written about it in July 1976, January 1977 and May 1977 by John Wellens. He draws attention to the lack of interest the trade unions and the employer associations in the UK have shown in the idea of employee shareholding. The start of a new round of wage bargaining suggests that in this third phase of incomes policy there will be no discussion on how incomes policy is linked to the wider problem of capital growth, wealth creation and the distribution of profits. But there will be a fourth phase of incomes policy in due course and since the conservative party is strongly in favour of employee share ownership schemes, the debate on their merits and demerits need not be too long delayed. As a member of the EEC it is worth recalling that the European debate about employee funds commenced at the end of the second World War. The war left destruction of productive capacity, disorganised local and community services and much poverty. Rebuilding the economic systems called for national purpose, national solidarity, restraint by the trade unions: they were forthcoming in good measure. And so, with the assistance of capital loans by America, rehabilitation of several countries took place.