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.