Protecting Employee Entitlements: Corporate Governance and Industrial Democracy in Australia

Abstract

The protection of employee entitlements has been an issue of public policy debate following several major corporate failures including HIH and Ansett. While protection remains paramount on the public policy agenda and in the campaigns of trade unions, we argue that there is an equally important, yet neglected issue associated with employee entitlements. Employees are involuntary lenders of capital to their employing organisations. They do not receive interest on their loans and importantly they are invariably denied information, monitoring and voice rights within their organisations. In this article we argue that these rights should be granted to reduce risk to entitlements and in exchange for employer access to this capital.