DISCOURS
– SPEECHS
ALEAS DU GOUVERNEMENT D’ENTREPRISE
DEVELOPPEMENT INSTITUTE INTERNATIONAL
GLOBAL
CONFERENCE ON CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
2nd panel discussion : “Social issues in Corporate
Governance –
the role of the stakeholders”
“The 3 stages of the
profit-sharing process in France, the creation of employee share ownership and association, like AVAS, to
represent them…”
by JEAN-AYMON MASSIE
PRESIDENT OF AVAS GROUP TOTALFINAELF
PRESIDENT OF THE EAES
New Haven. SCS University July
10-11, 2000
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am very happy to be received at the global center
of the Southern Connecticut State University’s School of Business.I wish to
thank Dr Stephen Davis president of Davis Global Advisors and conference
chairman for his invitation to participate at this panel.
I would
like to present to this assembly the “3 stages of the profit sharing process in
France and the creation of employee ownership & association to represent
them like AVAS TotalFinaElf Group.
This
process has enabled the employees of many French companies to become
stakeholders alongside institutional shareholders, the state, and other
investors, and be involved in important issues related to corporate governance.
Elf, the company I’ve worked for during 34 years with employees detaining
almost 5 % of the capital, was a good example of that involvement
For many
employees, the employee profit-sharing and savings schemes represent an
important “nest egg” and make up a considerable percentage of their income
(between 3 to 5 time of their annual income).
The
all-employee savings plan is considered as the “last tax paradise” in France.
The amount of
all french company employee savings plan would be about USD 50 billion at the
end of 1999
As far as
TotalFinaElf Group is concerned, the amount would be USD 4 billion, owned by 70
% among the 130,000 employees.
I have
provided to you a text of my speach in two parts :
1. The first part concerns the 3
stages of the profit-sharing process in France
- This has
enabled the constitution of considerable employee savings in the short term and
will in the future enable long term savings towards additional retirement
income.
-
It has
also led to the creation of Employee Share Ownership and Associations of
Employee Shareholders to represent them.
2. The second part concerns the
political and social aims of the EAES.
- in the European context; this covers the
evolution of profit-sharing in the EURO zone countries and economic changes in
Europe and the goals and missions of the EAES.
FIRST PART.
The concepts of "participation" and
employee share ownership in France are closely linked. These 2 expressions
which “anglophones” call Employee Share Ownership Plan (ESOP) have the same
goal;
·
Participation under different aspects
(participation in profits, participation in the management and strategy of the
company) is an aim.
·
EMPLOYEE SHARE OWNERSHIP is a decisive step in reaching this aim.
Allow me to explain them briefly, as they are at
the origin of the French initiative to set up a European Association of
Employee Shareholders.
The French model of profit-sharing was adopted 40
years ago at the demand of General de Gaulle who introduced by an edict issued
on January 7, 1959 "a contractual system of worker participation in
company profits". An edict issued on August 17th, 1967
confirmed that "the participation in the profits of the company is a
recognised right in all companies employing more than 100 workers".
This was the defined objective which was taken by
other European countries and adapted according to the national culture and to
economic and social realities.
I would
like to remind you that the introduction of profit-sharing began in the United
Kingdom after the world war II , under the impetus of the Californian economist
Louis KELSO, author of the "Capitalist Manifesto"; published in 1958.
In the
same period, the first edicts of General de Gaulle in France were issued.
The PEPPER REPORT I and II works towards this,
slowly but surely, in the EURO zone countries. In his study, entitled "the
framework of Employee Participation for a new social Europe" Professor
ROGGEMANN analysed the transformation process currently in progress.
I would differentiate 3 stages in the development
of profit-sharing and, consequently, in the resulting Employee Share Ownership:
·
1st
stage: 1960-1986, participation
in results
·
2nd
stage: 1986-1998 participation in
capital
·
3rd
stage: From 1998 onwards,
participation in decision-making
n
THE FIRST
STAGE
« EMPLOYEE
PROFIT SHARING »
In the first stage, between
1960 and 1986, profit sharing was developed further with a series of laws
implemented by employers, employee working parties and trade unions.
·
The ordinance dated January 17,
1959 setting up a contractual association or
participation scheme for company workers.
·
The ordinance dated August
17, 1967
stated that sharing the fruits of success of the company is a right vested in
very employee and provided for the setting up a compulsory scheme for companies
employing more that 100 individuals.
·
The law dated December 27, 1973 supplemented
these provisions.
This
profit sharing structure took 3 forms (slide #1) :
1. an annual employee profit sharing :
it is a way to redistribute to the employees
part of the company’s profit
2.
An
annual all employee incentive premium ( the premium is calculated on the
company’s results and on the employees performances)
3.
in
addition, an annual employer matching contribution (matching shares) is
allocated to the employee if he invests exclusively in his company’s shares. It
can also be described as a company saving schemed made up of investments funds
collecting annual employee contributions blocked for a 5 years period but tax
free.
·
The
PEPPER REPORT came out at
this preliminary stage: a lot of European countries that had adopted the first
solution, a share in the firm annual profits, didn’t go beyond this stage.
·
In
France, a great number of companies did not go beyond this
first stage either because share capital was not offered to employees at each
capital increase or free share issue, or simply because in the case of private
or family run firms, company directors did not wish employees to have a stake
in the capital of the company.
In
France, by the end of 1994, 17,500 companies employing 4,7 million individuals
had entered into a profit sharing agreement. 6 out of 10 of these companies had
sufficient profits to be able to provide for the 1994 financial year payable in
1995 :
·
by way of annual profit sharing, 17,6 billion FRF
were shared out amongst 3,2 million employees, that is to say an average of
5,500 FRF per employee.
·
Under the bonus and top up scheme, 9,4 billion FRF
were paid out to 2,1 million employees, that is to say, an average amount of
4,500 FRF per employee.
At ELF AQUITAINE, annual profit sharing
was implemented as early as 1968. President Guillaumat, founder of the company
was a former minister of General de Gaulle. During this period, we saw the
value of the Elf shares climb from 400 FRF to 1,500 FRF.
In
today’s terms, I reckon that the overall amount of this profit share, i.e. that
is part of invested in shares (bearing in mind that a part remained invested in
interest bearing blocked accounts in the company, and another part in bonds)
did not exceed 1% of the share capital.
The
Group was a state owned enterprise, with the State owning 70% of the capital,
with negotiations taking place between employee representatives (the unions)
and general management representatives (personnel and finance departments).
Management took a keen interest in the framework which emerged as there were
considerable financial benefits to be gained on the one hand and the proposals
provided a strong incentive to staff and encouraged staff efficiency.
Such profit sharing was seen to be an
instrument in the wages policy in most French companies.
n the second stage
“THE
HOLDING OF SHARES BY EMPLOYEES”
The privatisation program of major French
companies set in motion in 1986, boosted employee share holding schemes (slide
#2).
On this occasion, employees were able to
subscribe to 10% of the privatised capital on very favourable terms:
· 10%
discount, interest free payments spread over 12 to 18 months,
· capital
gains exemption but subject to a five year share holding lock-in with respect
to shares subscribed for pursuant to a specially designed enterprise share
savings scheme.
As a
result of employees holding shares in major privatised French companies as
early as 1986, employee savings were immediately doubled or trebled. The
percentage of shares held by employees and retired employees in their company
leapt from 1% to 5% at Elf, and from 7% to 10% in banks or smaller industrial
companies. At the same time, State withdrawal from such companies brought
strong growth in their stock market capitalisation value, together with a
strong increase in the value of employee savings.
During this second stage, a special
legislation was voted :
· Laws
dated July 2nd and August 6t,h
1986 relating to the implementation of privatisation program.
·
The ordinance dated 21st
October 1986, relating to employee bonus, profit sharing and share holding
schemes. Company saving schemes became the main vector for
employee share holding with tax breaks for employees and companies being
significantly enhanced. For the first time, the term “Employee Share Ownership” was used.
· The
privatisation law dated July 19,
1993 relating to 21 major French companies
(manufacturing, banks and insurance companies, including Elf, BNP, Rhone
Poulenc, Usinor Sacilor, AGF, UAP) and the creation of a “Golden Share” for the
State.
· At
the same time, a law dated 23rd December 1988
set forth the framework for common investment funds, the purpose of which was
to shelter shares subscribed for on privatisation and managed by the
supervisory board which itself either exercised the voting rights attached to
the shares (article 20), or returned them to shareholders (article 21).
· The
supervisory Board is made up on an equal basis of trade union representatives
elected by staff and representatives from general management. This is the
situation at Elf and in other companies. The chairman of the supervisory boar,
a trade unionist, can in this manner gain a seat on the Board of the company
(after being elected by the shareholders general assembly).
#
Between 1989 and 1992, AVAS actively promoted the return of the right to vote to employed
shareholders to enable them to vote at General Assemblies and to feel more like
shareholders rather than employees.
At Elf
Aquitaine privatisation was implemented in two stages: October
1986 and February 1994.
u
The
first stage of the privatisation –
October 1986: 10% of the share capital was made available and employees were
entitled to subscribe for 10% of the 10% i.e. 1% of the capital. 15,500
employees (out of 80,000) subscribed for 1,3 million shares at a price of 275
FRF (after benefiting from a 10% discount).
However,
withdrawals from the company share scheme (the end of the 5 year block, early
retirement as a result of restructuring) had a disturbing effect upon the
percentage of the capital held.
To
maintain a significant level of employee share ownership and make up for state
withdrawal, AVAS has striven to promote
a two yearly capital increases reserved for employees equal to 1%, on the same
terms as the initial privatisation (discount, credit terms and five year block
in a savings scheme).
We had
to convince the Chairman, the personnel department, the minister of finance and
the stock Exchange Commission of the benefits of such a scheme.
Lobbying
such is a good example of the benefits which can derived from an employee
shareholder association. At the time, 1% of Elf’s capital had a value of 1
billion francs, which constitutes a very significant investment!
Accordingly,
three successive capital increases reserved for employees (present and retired)
set up:
·
June
1992 : 1.5 million shares (discount 10%, 50% top up on
the amount paid by the employee, capped at 3,000FRF, with payments spread over
12 months with interest free salary deductions).
·
March
1996: 2 million shares (20% but no top up).
·
December
1997 : 1.5 million shares (20% discount) were subscribed
for by 25,000 employees, present and past, with a wider international
participation.
u Meanwhile the second Elf
privatisation was implemented in February
1994 and the state which had held 70% of the capital, thereafter accounted for
only 0,5% but it also held the Golden share. The impact of the stable group of
French institutional investors was reduced significantly and employee shareholders became the largest
single shareholder in the company with 5% of the capital.
The 1994
privatisation made 73,000 employees shareholders: 65,000 French and Foreign
current employees and 8,000 retired employees. Out of a total of 12 million
shares, employees accounted for 700 000 million shares (with a 20% discount on
the public price, with payments spread over a period of 24 months and with an
allocation of 20 free shares for 46 purchased and held for 3 years).
This was
an excellent deal for the employee shareholders and significantly enhanced
their shareholdings which when calculated as at 31 December 1998 was
approximately 13 million shares (5% of the capital) and were held in the
company’s savings schemes.
Today,
in the new group Elf TOTALFINA, the 130,000 employee shareholders should hold
at least 23 million shares, that is to say 3% of the total capital of the new
group (700 million shares) with a value of 20 billion FRF. Accordingly, employee savings are currently worth 20 billion FRF.
1. The trade union organisations
were at first against privatisation (they considered that privatisation was
tantamount to treason) and they remained silent and away from the negotiations.
They were in a confused state about this change where employees became capitalists.
A new body was bought into
existence: the present and past employees shareholder
association – being a new representative body, long awaited by
management and the principal central service units (personnel and finance
departments) and the Public Authorities.
AVAS was founded in the group Elf in
1986. It is a voluntary association as the decision to buy shares is a
voluntary action. It has served as a model to 17 shareholder associations which
were subsequently created in France on the privatisation of major French
groups. We will come back to this later on.
2. Senior Management was mobilised and
transformed into messengers for the benefits of privatisation throughout the
group. This method worked well. Management was enthralled by the possibility to
purchase a maximum number of shares and in securing an excellent deal.
The
management rallied to this new dimension of the company, to its new
relationships in the Group which had grown considerably and taken on an
international dimension.
The senior
managers were conscious of the growing power of Employee Shareholders and began
to join Employee Share ownership associations in France. This was particularly
the case at Elf.
This is all very well but much remains
to be done to ensure that Employee Share Ownership is fully taken into account
and that our demands are satisfied both in respect of participation in the
management of the company and participation in strategic decisions.
n THIRD STAGE
“PARTICIPATION IN DECISIONS”
This is
the natural consequence of employee participation in capital. It is a logical
and ineluctable evolution. However, it is hard to have it accepted by the
French Employer Association (MEDEF), by the managing elite of the state, and by
traditionalist heads of companies.
This is the next stage
which should be accomplished during the course of the next ten years.
The employee shareholder does not become a
“capitalist”, but a co-owner of his company; it is a status that gives him rights but also obligations.
Professor
ROGGEMANN has used the words “entrepreneurial codetermination”, an expression
that has recently been used by the chairman of the company Bull who presented
the employed shareholders as “co-entrepreneurs”.
But
there is still lots to be done in companies as participation is still often
considered as an ordinary instrument of pay policy.
Yet, it
represents an amount of USD 50 billion in Dec. 1999.
A debate
was started in 1999 at the French parliament on the evolution of profit sharing
and the setting up of pension funds “à la française”. I will answer to your
questions on this topic, but I would like to remind that we have to make the
difference between 2 savings types.
The employees save in order to prepare an additional
retirement income has a long term objective (10 years and more); this employee
savings is invested in various values and not only in the company’s shares for
security reasons(slide #3).
But the employee will still have to make an additional
savings effort and the company will become tomorrow a huge centre where savings
are collected in competition with the bankers and the insurers!
There are many privatisation programs in France (Thomson,
Crédit Lyonnais, Aérospatiale…)….like in the rest of Europe, Italy, Portugal,
and Germany. They happen in all the countries where the State needs to
disengage themselves of the capital of state owned companies in order to reduce
its and in order to satisfy the Maastricht criteria. It is the case for the
countries of the EURO zone, but it also applies to the eastern European
countries who will join the EC in the next few years.
There are in France 700,000 employees
who are shareholders of their companies, 1 million in Germany, and about 1,500,
000 in United Kingdom.
In France, the associations are non profit and they are
governed by a 1901 law. AVAS was founded 13 years ago and has driven the
founding of associations in 17 companies. AVAS has 3,500 members and sympathisers. These 18 companies
regroup more than 500,000 employed shareholders and the market capitalisation
of their savings can be evaluated at an amount approaching USD 20 billion.
When the Trade
Unions were forced to the conclusion that they were backward on this topic,
they have started to press on and plead in favour of share ownership, and also
pension funds, so that they could catch up.
They wanted to negotiate in the name of the employed
shareholders, but the associations of employed shareholders have made sure that
their area of competence has been preserved.
In Elf, the Trade unions are represented on the
board of directors by 2 representatives who are elected (by all the staff) for
a period of 6 years : 1 is a representative of the employees, and the other is
a representative of the management. Since last year, a representative of the employed shareholders has sit in the
director board (he is member of the board of AVAS) and was elected during the
general assembly.
Today, we can establish a positive evaluation of the
situation within the French companies.
The 3rd stage
of participation : involvement in
corporate decision-making; it is the corollary of capital participation. It is
going to be the challenge of the next
decade.
This passage onto the 3rd step is already well
under way. It will be accelerated and made easier by (1)new law texts ( the
reform of corporate law), (2)by recommendations made by the European Commission
(a project of a new European society is under way), and in a quite innovative
way by the principles of corporate governance. All the listed companies will
have to respect those principles in order to preserve their shareholders’
trust.
Under the influence of
Anglo-Saxon pension funds ( they were obliged to do so by the US laws
which forced them to exercise their responsibilities as shareholders),
principles of good practice have been drawn up. They have been adopted progressively
by the French companies since 1997. These principles mainly require :
·
Transparent and truthful accounting
·
Independent and accountable directors
·
High-calibre and effective worker and employer
representatives
·
All shareholders must receive respect and regular
information
·
Clear, well-conceived strategies with a long term
business vision focused on core skills
·
Motivated, innovative and productive employees.
This implies that a strong, motivated and organised group of employed
shareholders is an asset for the company.
·
Acknowledgement of the key role of the general
meeting of shareholders
In
return, they demand to know if their
money is being well managed, that the company is achieving sustainable growth,
and how the share will behave on a long term period.
The
employed shareholders are also long term investors. Both advocate a long term
strategy geared to investment which will create jobs and secure competitiveness
and sustainability.
The
co-operation between these 2 categories
of shareholders will led us to step over the 3rd stage.
The
guardians of the principles of corporate governance are the members of the ICGN that was founded in 1995 by William
B. CRIST, chairman of CALPERS.
The
network assets value is worth today 6 trillion of US$.
# Within Elf, the principles that were
recommended by a French report written by Marc VIENOT have been applied since
1996.
But there is still a lot of progress to be made concerning
the change of mentalities and behaviours. The passage from the public sector to
the private sector is still recent thing for many companies, as well as for the
men who are its main wealth (richness).
It is only
at this stage that participation will begin to change the individuals working
in a company : if they feel co-owners, responsible, bound, the employees will
also be more motivated and feel and inclined to innovate, surpass
themselves during a negotiation, the execution or the running of a project,
respect the terms of a contract imposed by
the client.
Individuals
will be willing to ask themselves every morning : “what can I do to improve my
company’s competitiveness and increase the value of my savings!!”.
Lastly, due
to the vigilant presence of share ownership, which is a necessary counterweight
to the other institutional shareholders, we can hope that within the companies
the primacy of human factor will be restored upon the economic and financial
factor.
----------------
AVAS – Association Volontaire des Actionnaires
Salariés et anciens salariés du Groupe
TotalFinaElf régie par la loi du 19 juillet 1901
Association déclarée le 13 octobre 1986, modifiée
le 17 novembre 1999
) AVAS, Tour Elf, Bureau 03E12,
92078 Paris la Défense Cedex, France
% 01 47.44.27.18 %01.74.44.29.32 u Fax. 01. 47.44.37.82 u
email: esop.avas@elf-p.fr
second part
the
political and social goals of the AEAS
in a
european context:
n 1. the european context :
evolution of
the Participation in the countries of the
EURO zone and the economic changes in Europe :
Mergers and acquisitions between companies are a new challenge for
Employee Share Ownership. Participation could be an answer to social Europe. The adoption of
Participation in most EC countries was slow and has been balance.
Employee Share Ownership which is born (developed)
in these countries has to answer to a new challenge : how can it
counterbalance the increasing power of the institutional shareholders?
The institutional shareholders control today between
75% and 80% of the capital of the listed companies (notably those who make up
the national share index DAX, FOOTSE, CAC 40, EURO 50)
The EURO Zone which has become the domestic market,
will lead to a necessary recombining of the 3 following fabrics : industrial,
banking, and service.
The selection has become severe : in Italy for
instance, out of the 8 or 10 banks that are in competition, one can assume that
there will be only 2 or 3 big banks at the end of this change. These banks will
become later on cross-border by reaching into partnership agreements with the
Spanish groups HBS or BBV.
Germany gave the example of concentration in the
European sector of telecommunication.
The merger between ELF and TOTALFINA is the
beginning of concentrations in the energy sector.
Also, the sector of aeronautic and military
industry is going through turmoil; it is concentrating, merging in order
to take up the challenge of
globalisation and conquer planetary market shares.
This wave
of mergers of European companies is likely to cause job losses, especially
unqualified or jobs or where there are superfluous staff.
It is
the "economic horror" announced by Viviane FORRESTER in her
presageful book.
In this context, social Europe becomes a
reality. If politicians, "social partners", company heads, those in
charge of Employee Shareholder Associations, universities, do not anticipate
events in order to bring a concrete reply, social Europe will blow up in our
faces like a time bomb or a landmine.
n 2. GOALS AND MISSIONS OF EAES
The idea
of creating a European Association came to me during a symposium at the Elf
Tower in May 1977 with Senator Philippe Marini and Philippe Jaffré, the
Chairman of Elf. The subject was the modernisation of company law. I launched
this idea in the financial press, in particular in an article entitled
"towards a European Association or Federation of Employee
Shareholders" published in the AGEFI on May 23rd, 1997.
On May 6th,
1999, after a period of observation, contacts and unfruitful attempts, we
succeeded in setting up EAES whose statutes were registered and published in
Belgium.
There are 12
founder members and the Executive Office consists of 13 members.
At the
last meeting of the Board of Directors (18 members) which took place in Paris
at the beginning of October, the aims of EAES were confirmed and 2 priority
lines of action were proposed for the year 2000.
EAES HAS 3 MAIN GOALS :
w1rst Goal :
TO INFLUENCE THE EUROPEAN AUTHORITIES: ON THE ONE HAND,
THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION AND, ON THE OTHER HAND, THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT with
the aim of making official in the texts the status, the role and the means of
action of national associations, sometimes grouped into national federations,
clubs or institutes which co-ordinate their activities.
The imminent
adoption of the statutes of the European limited company is a good time to
integrate the status of minority shareholders and, by this means, that of
Employee Shareholder Associations.
- We recommend
that the European Commission set up a European Profit-sharing Research
Institute. It would in particular be responsible for measuring
the progress made, for ensuring the fair enforcement of the PEPPER II
proposals, making recommendations to the Commission, and enabling the different
players, economic and social "partners" to meet with a positive
attitude.
This
institute would be a meeting place for the four parties involved: trade union
representatives, employers' organisations, the European Commission and the
Employee Shareholder Associations and organisations grouped within EAES.
From now on, dialogue, reflection, and
decision must take this reality into account: Employee and Pensioner
Shareholder Associations are now on the same footing as the Employers and the
trade unions.
- we have
proposed to the European Commission, in particular the DG V that the EAES
experts should take part in the working groups created
by the different directors-general of the European Commission. This will enable
us to participate in a decisive manner in drawing up the proposals which will
be made in a green or white paper resulting in recommendations or directives.
Let us
cite as an example the DAVIGNON commission, working groups for the
"fostering of effective dialogue at community level", working groups
for the convention of organised non-trading companies, committees for
sector-based dialogue, consultative committees...
-
social
dialogue on a European level has already made notable progress and the social
chapter integrated in the body of Treaty of AMSTERDAM gives considerable powers
and responsibilities to the "social partners". EAES wishes to be part
of it.
w 2nd Goal
:
TO EXPAND in all the countries of
the European Union, and PROVIDE THEM
WITHTHE KNOW-HOW of the long-standing associations.
- TO EXCHANGE
EXPERIENCE IN ORDER TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT THE RESOURCES OF EACH COUNTRY, and
also local characteristics, institutional constraints, mentalities and
individual needs.
-
TO
SET UP A CENTRE FOR EXCHANGING INFORMATION ON LEGISLATION AND MODES FOR
ENFORCEMENT OF FINANCIAL PARTICIPATION AND PARTICIPATION IN DECISIONS.
For us, profit-sharing is
the answer to "social" Europe.
EAES has the support of the European Commission (to
be precise, the support of the DG V) and of the European Parliament (Mme
Hermange, reporter of the PEPPER II report and vice-president of the Social
Affairs Commission).
w3rd Goal :
TO DEVELOP EMPLOYEE SHARE OWNERSHIP IN EUROPEAN COMPANIES,
in particular, when companies are privatised and to create Employee Shareholder
Associations, first of all in the 15 countries of the European Union and
secondly in the countries of Eastern Europe who are likely to joint the
European Union within the next 4 to 5 years.
Special
attention should be given to the development of profit-sharing schemes and
Employee Share Ownership in small and medium-sized cross-border companies whose
development will be facilitated by the future statutes of Private European
Companies.
As
President of EAES, I am convinced that in working to achieve these 3 goals,
EAES will actively contribute to the construction of a social Europe, to
changing mentalities, to harmonising skills, to integrating multi-cultural
teams in companies, to creating jobs, to restoring the pre-eminence of the human
factor over the economic and financial factors in the minds of company heads,
Governments and shareholders.
n EAES HAS SET ITSELF 2 PRIORITY
MISSIONS FOR THE YEAR 2000
1. to select in each country
of the European Union experts in Employee Share Ownership, in financial and
institutional profit-sharing at company level (multinational but also small and
medium-sized companies).
-
and propose that these
expert-members of EAES join the working groups organised by the European
Commission with a view to fostering effective dialogue at community level and
community legislation in order to encourage the development of Employee Share
Ownership and Profit-sharing.
2. to conceive and carry
out a training programme with the financial aid of companies, organisation,
local communities which support EAES. This programme will be aimed at Human
Resources Managers of companies, those responsible for Employee Shareholder
Associations or of ESOPs or associations based on other legal formats, those
responsible for supervisory boards of company savings schemes, employee
representatives on company Boards of Directors.
Company
Directors are in favour of the EAES goals, they are ready to help it fulfil its
mission as they consider EAES to be :
· an
additional means of communication with the European Authorities,
· a
means of federating European personnel in different subsidiaries of large
companies whose social foundation will in the future no longer be national but
European,
· a
means of strengthening Share Ownership within companies as well as a factor of
motivation, and a means of self-defence for employees,
Company
Directors will support us on condition that we do not deviate from these goals,
or fall into the trap of corporatism or set up an inter-union association, or
give in to mercenary temptation.
This is because our organisation aims to foster new
relationships within companies based on economic and financial considerations,
giving priority to the human factor, and not on the class struggle as in the
past.
In conclusion, I am convinced that the
development of Employee Share Ownership and Profit-sharing will have a great
impact on the economies of all the countries of Europe, on the success of the
Euro and that it will serve to mitigate the adverse effects of the wave of
mergers which are currently destabilising European companies. It will also
contribute to setting the social chapter of Europe on a firm basis.
Thank you for your attention.
AVAS – Association Volontaire des Actionnaires
Salariés et anciens salariés du Groupe
TotalFinaElf régie par la loi du 19 juillet 1901
Association déclarée le 13 octobre 1986, modifiée
le 17 novembre 1999
) AVAS, Tour Elf, Bureau 03E12,
92078 Paris la Défense Cedex, France
% 01 47.44.27.18 %01.74.44.29.32 u Fax. 01. 47.44.37.82 u
email: esop.avas@elf-p.fr
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