The European Centre for Employee Ownership has been at the forefront of the drive to develop employee ownership, particularly among multinational companies. The Centre’s first international workshop in Paris in1989 heralded a new era in employee participation issues in Europe. The annual workshops since then have carried the issues forward.
In 1991 the European Commission made its first tentative attempt at framing an initiative to promote employee ownership. The PEPPER Report ("Promotion of employee participation in profits and enterprise results") was heralded as a landmark in employee participation in Europe.
The report recommended that member states’ legal structures be adapted to support participation schemes. In addition, the report recommended close scrutiny of the fiscal position to ensure that participation schemes were not hindered.
In the years immediately after the report progress was slow. The gap between the UK and France on the one hand, and the rest of the member states widened. The two countries with the strongest support for employee participation were also the countries that took the PEPPER report most to heart.
In 1996 the Commission made public its follow-up report, known as PEPPER II. It was based on the responses received from governments to a questionnaire about the first PEPPER report but this was about the only action the Commission was free to take following the Council’s trimming of its earlier recommendations. This second report reached the conclusion that no serious headway had been made in the EU. However, the report merely reflected the responses of member states, whose respondents had missed the rapid development of employee ownership among multinational companies. However the Hermange report from the European Parliament found PEPPER wanting and made a string of recommendations, which gave the Commission a welcome new impetus.
This led to two successful joint initiatives between the Commission and the Centre in 1999. In April a seminar was held in Brussels, supported by Linklaters & Alliance, to identify the barriers which multinationals face in spreading their share plans across member states of the European Union. In November there was a workshop in Dublin, this time supported by the Irish union SIPTU and the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, on alternative rewards at work. This latter event was the prelude to employee ownership being recognised for the first time at national level anywhere in the world - in the national partnership agreement for 2000-2002 reached in February 2000by the Irish government, unions and employers.
The Foundation’s paper for Dublin and the final document from the Brussels seminar are available among Centre publications.
In addition to its joint work with the Commission, the European Centre develops its own events and activities. The global seminar in Davos (February 2000) is to be followed by the European seminar in Cannes (June 2000), a possible high-tech study visit to Seattle (autumn 2000) and a second global seminar in Davos or Courchevel (February 2001).
The European Centre plans further dialogue in 2000 with European business (UNICE, UEAPME, and the European Round Table), trades unions (ETUC) and institutions (European Commission, Parliament and Foundation).