Workers of the world unite!

James Adonis suggests that it is time for the Workers of the world unite!

The democratisation of the workplace, I suspect, is the way of the future. And by ‘democratisation’ I’m not referring merely to equality among employees and leaders when making decisions. I’m referring to employees themselves being both the owners and the leaders of the organisation. It’s already happening.

Besides referring to the standard example of Mondragon Corporation in Spain, Adonis refers to C-Mac Industries (Aust) as an employee-owned business. The website, however, says that it is a family and staff owned Australian company.

Adonis contends that employee-owned businesses perform better:

Data sourced by Employee Ownership Australia, a non-profit association helping organisations make the transition, show that these businesses have a higher rate of survival than other forms of enterprise. Employees, meanwhile, are four times less likely to be retrenched during a downturn. They also earn more than their peers working elsewhere.

And Adonis has the cheek to suggest that:

Putting people before profits. Surely that’s a good thing, right?