WaterBear [they/them, comrade/them]

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Joined 3 years ago
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Cake day: May 13th, 2021

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  • I am for what you describe, but that isn’t what is written:

    “Electing or dismissing employee directors and employee supervisors, electing employee representatives to meetings of creditors and creditors’ committees of the enterprise subject to bankruptcy proceedings in accordance with the law, and recommending or electing management personnel of the enterprise as authorized;”

    Could mean those that employees vote in (which are not all), could also mean all that have power over employees but I doubt it. Reads like the German and swedish phrasing of the two categories: employee directors (those that are elected by the employees) and “owner” directors (which are elected by shares).

    The law has less ability to punish and gold accountable individuals and strengthens more the collective worker organs and gives more information, as well as representation and participation.


  • “China has made all companies worker-controlled. I would show this article to anyone that claims otherwise. This is worker democracy.”

    No. Don’t overhype yourself in idealist ways cause you want the CPC settle handedly now to introduce full worker control.

    This law is a good step and would be great for counties like the US. However it isn’t worker control, far from it. Sadly.

    It gives institutionalized organs für the workers, which convene rarely, but have mandates to convene, which is good. It is unclear what punishment is if they don’t. It is also unclear what powers they have, as for example the German model for large companies has a minority of board members be worker council elected (more or less). However within the board they are a minority. Here it is written, that the company shareholders don’t have a say in election of that portion. This means it isn’t worker control.

    It is an option though to create instruments that might be formalized to express that companies worker’s wishes. This is course will have structural problems i.e. who is allowed to vote, talk, what is with internal conflicts, what is with competition between that company and others or the conflict between members of that company and those not employed in it?

    For those questions the presented solution is the trade union of that company, which means a structured entity. It isn’t clear how exactly that is meant, as the conception of unions varies a lot. I doubt it is the US conception and think it might be more aligned with the bigger unions in China, but derived from their members of that company.

    To further align the workers with a struggle that is not only focused on that company the membership within the communist party for some is quite relevant. This is what real socialist countries often encouraged. China has therefore, with it’s high membership count, a different condition than if the concept would’ve just been copied.

    The obligations to coerce relevant people and information though is an important step to establish workers control and participation in the companies.

    I welcome the spirit of the law as presented by OP, but urge you to not view laws that are stepping stones as the goal already. Details, implementation and practice matters.

    There are reasons the law doesn’t go further so that it actually is (full) worker control. Capital is still relevant in China, both domestic (even though managed) and international (with mechanisms to reduce capital flight, but not well controlled). This law therefore does try to not scare International capital in practice too much. Talk of worker control (then making the most important decisions) is sadly still propaganda.

    The law, if it really got obligations for all companies to create this assemblies would go further then the German law, as that exempts plenty of small companies that account for a majority of companies, even though not a majority of employees. Germany also has no real mechanism to hinder a medium sized company to make smaller ones to slip through.

    according to the Provisions on Democratic Governance of Enterprises, relevant local regulations, and subject to the number of its employees.

    This means that it mirrors the German law a bit and could include local exemptions i.e. special economic zones.

    But none the less:

    is set out in national law for the first time.

    Current German laws with by having a worker’s council elected (sounds cooler than it is often, cause it dissipates anger a bit and makes wild organizing hard), which has the right to request management to talk and inform, but sadly no access to books. They can convene workers assemblies (paid assemblies of the whole employees) multiple times per year is necessary, but also has minimums occurrences required by law. There is too little punishment for hindering those established laws, as the German state is neoliberal in many aspects.

    I encourage you to talk to experts of our side in labor relations and see what you can demand from that new law within your company. Also see what structural differences in terms of unions, membership, party membership, co existing laws and judicial system exist, as well as rights to strike, to healthcare and alike.

    Within the US as within Germany democracy end at the gate to the workplace. To quote century old writers.