A sport Direct worker director is one small step toward industrial democracy

Martin Kettle’s piece (If Sports Activities Direct can change, why not all our offices?, 9 September) changed into compelling. However, a word of caution is as if we aren’t to fall into a longstanding historic entice. What Kettle says is genuine, especially about BMW and the Mini plant in Cowley. Over the years, I have taken commercial enterprise students to the plant, where they have a chance to talk to “seasoned” managers who can evaluate and assess their years of revel in below BMC/Rover control and their revel in with BMW. He states they might never return to the antique days for all of the motives.

But like many giants and less big German corporations, BMW has an independent supervisory board whose venture in regulation is miles to supervise the sports of the organization’s management board. In Anglo-American jurisdictions, there’s no such distinction. Boards are available unitary Forums ruled in strength phrases by govt directors with a sprinkling of so-called independent directors who are, for the maximum element, ineffective in keeping government administrators to account. Hence, the lengthy-standing issues at

Sports Direct and lots of other companies My Pro Blog. Therefore, we ought to take Sports Direct’s beneficial offer to employ an employee director on the board with a pinch of salt. This will change little inside the organization’s lifestyle. To look for lasting improvement, we should include a constitutional design that is not unusual in Germany and other EU jurisdictions. A sticking plaster doesn’t work. These matters and a schedule for reform are set out simply in my e-book, The Looming Corporate Calamity.

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Richard Tudway

Burgess Hill, West Sussex

• it’s far well-timed that Corporate governance has shot up the political schedule. It’s far too far. I hoped that Theresa May’s danger to area people on Forums would open a long-awaited discussion on industrial democracy. In the po, during ration, the periodControl Fee in Germany fostered the concept of a tripartite board shape for industry, with a third drawn from a body of workers. This enlightened view did plenty to assist the reconstruction of Germany’s enterprise and set up a healthful basis on which it thrived.

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In the twenty-first century, it isn’t always true enough for Mike Ashley to mention he will position a personnel representative on the board of Sports Direct. This must not be the prerogative of the board of a public company; it must be proper that employees can decide on their own consultant/s. Indeed, if this constituted a third of the board’s membership, lots of the pronounced Corporate abuse might be challenged.