Social enterprises in the EU (IVOR nr. 111) 2018/3.1.4.2:3.1.4.2 Employee participation in decision-making processes

Social enterprises in the EU (IVOR nr. 111) 2018/3.1.4.2

3.1.4.2 Employee participation in decision-making processes

Deze functie is alleen te gebruiken als je bent ingelogd.Deze functie is alleen te gebruiken als je bent ingelogd.Deze functie is alleen te gebruiken als je bent ingelogd.

Employee participation in the decision-making processes of cooperatives with a social purpose is required by the Belgian VSO legislation. The legal requirement imposes on the VSO social enterprise to provide a right to the employees to become a member/shareholder and to participate in the decision-making processes in the general assembly. As noted above, according to Article 667 of the Belgian Companies Code of 1999, the lack of implementation of the cumulative VSO legal requirements in the AoA can lead to sanctions. Claims submitted by a member/shareholder, interested stakeholders, or the public prosecutor could cause the termination of the VSO label. However, in practice, there is no great pressure on a VSO social enterprise to implement the employee co-ownership legal requirement. Apparently, there is no monitoring public institution/body with the competence to validate the compliance of the VSO social enterprise with the legal requirements of the VSO regime.

Furthermore, the implementation of the legal requirement regarding employee membership/shareholdership may be also barred by later and more specific legislation. The latter can derogate the earlier and less specific legislation (lex specialis derogat legi generali and lex posterior derogate legi priori). We noted that this is the case with respect to social cooperatives in the housing sector.

Subsequently, as regards employee participation in the decision-making processes, based on our interview data, we can distinguish various attitudes in social cooperatives:

(i)

Cooperatives with a social purpose which are keen to allow employee participation and to provide membership rights/shares to employees. At CORE, even though the AoA allow the provision of membership rights/ shares to employees, there are no ‘regular’ employees to purchase such shares. In this social cooperative, students-volunteers design, operate and execute CORE’s projects for as long as they are students. In return, they receive study points and they acquire knowledge in the field of social cooperative entrepreneurship and sustainable energy innovation, working experience, and a big network in industrial engineering. Working at CORE is also part of their education. Students-volunteers are considered the ‘real employees’ at CORE and that is why they are invited to become members/ shareholders by purchasing one Type C share (Interview with SJ, 16 February 2015; Interview with YG and G, 13 November 2014; Interview with PO, 16 February 2015). As members/shareholders, they participate in the decision-making processes in the general assembly, they exercise voting rights, they elect and appoint representatives at the board of directors, and they influence the daily decisions that are taken at CORE. Students-volunteers who graduate are allowed to maintain their membership rights/shares but they are not allowed to provide services at CORE anymore (Interview with YG and G, 13 November 2014). They, however, still constitute a very important sub-category of Type C members/shareholders as they promote the values and the idea of CORE to the market, attract new projects and new members/shareholders. They also share with the new students-volunteers their experiences by coaching and mentoring (Interview with YG and G, 13 November 2014).

(ii)

Cooperatives with a social purpose which are not keen to allow employee participation nor do they provide membership rights/shares to employees. At Microstart, employees are not allowed to purchase shares. The VSO legal requirements to that end have not been introduced in Microstart’s AoA. The involvement of employees in the decision-making processes and the provision of membership rights/shares are perceived to be related with risks in governance due to the fact that the organisation is in the start- up phase (Interview with LH, 16 June 2015). An employee at Microstart mentions ‘we are still at the first steps, so we first have to make the company very stable and then maybe we will open the shares to old clients and maybe to employees and some volunteers’ (Interview with CO, 16 June 2015).

(iii)

Cooperatives with a social purpose which are excluded from offering membership rights/shares to employees. Volkshuisvesting, is a cooperative with a social purpose in the housing sector and is subject to the regional social housing policy of the Flemish region. The Flemish Housing Code of 1997, forbids the provision of membership rights/shares to employees. Hence, Volkshuisvesting cannot provide membership rights/shares to employees. Furthermore, members/shareholders of this social cooperative can only become employees after they have disposed of their shares.

Deze functie is alleen te gebruiken als je bent ingelogd.