The Report of the committee of inquiry on industrial democracy (1977) Cmnd 6706, also the Bullock Report for short, was a report proposing for a form of worker participation or workers' control

Workers' control

Workers' control is a term meaning participation in the management of factories and other commercial enterprises by the people who work there. It has been variously advocated by anarchists, socialists, Communists, Social Democrats and Christian Democrats, and has been combined with various...

, chaired by Alan Bullock

Alan Bullock

Alan Louis Charles Bullock, Baron Bullock , was a British historian, who wrote an influential biography of Adolf Hitler and many other works.-Early life and career:...

. The idea was seen by some as a way to solve the chronic industrial disputes and to enhance participation of employees in their workplace.

Background

A Committee of Enquiry into Industrial Democracy was set up by the Labour

Labour Party (UK)

The Labour Party is a centre-left democratic socialist party in the United Kingdom. It surpassed the Liberal Party in general elections during the early 1920s, forming minority governments under Ramsay MacDonald in 1924 and 1929-1931. The party was in a wartime coalition from 1940 to 1945, after...

 government of Harold Wilson

Harold Wilson

James Harold Wilson, Baron Wilson of Rievaulx, KG, OBE, FRS, FSS, PC was a British Labour Member of Parliament, Leader of the Labour Party. He was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom during the 1960s and 1970s, winning four general elections, including a minority government after the...

 in December 1975, in response to the European Commission

European Commission

The European Commission is the executive body of the European Union. The body is responsible for proposing legislation, implementing decisions, upholding the Union's treaties and the general day-to-day running of the Union....

's Draft Fifth Company Law Directive

Draft Fifth Company Law Directive

The Draft Fifth Company Law Directive is a European Union proposal for a Directive, primarily aimed to implement a right of employees to vote for the boards of directors in large companies...

 which sought to harmonise worker participation in management of companies across Europe

Europe

Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...

. Its terms of reference started with the words,

Content

The committee, chaired by Bullock, published its report in January 1977. This report was not unanimous, as a majority report it was signed by Bullock and as members of the committee: three trade unionists, two academics and a city solicitor. A minority report was produced by the three industrialists on the committee.

Reception

The Report was received with trepidation, but not rejecting the principles laid down. In a publication of the City Company Law Committee, A reply to Bullock, the authors said,

The more people are able to influence decisions which closely affect their work the more effective will that involvement be; the more effective the involvement the greater the commitment to the company’s objectives which, in the final analysis, will be concerned with generating wealth or services for the community as a whole.

Nevertheless, they did not want direct participation, because they viewed shareholders to be the "owners" of companies.

the fundamental basis of the joint stock company system... [is] a system based on the concept that the ultimate authority and control over a company rests with those who provide the capital (i.e. the shareholders) in general meeting. It is they who, at the outset, come together to incorporate the company as a legal entity and it is they who by the contract of incorporation embodied in the company’s original constitution agree between themselves what the company’s business and objects shall be and in what way the company shall be organised and managed.

There was also strong opposition to the report from many who might have been expected to support it, including the Institute for Workers' Control

Institute for Workers' Control

The Institute for Workers' Control was founded in 1968 by Tony Topham and Ken Coates, the latter then a leader of the International Marxist Group and subsequently professor at the University of Nottingham and a member of the European Parliament from 1989 until 1999.The Institute drew together shop...

.