Corporate governance and workplace democracy: some paradigms and paradoxes

The paper aims to explore contemporary developments of the debate on employees’ participation and workplace democracy. This paper particularly focuses on Company Law and its Review, EU social law and the EU Information and Consultation Directive and its implementation in the UK through the Information and Consultation of Employees (ICE) Regulations. In doing so, this paper has two objectives. First this paper examines various corporation theories in search for legitimacy for employees' participation in the corporate governance model. Second, this paper questions whether there are effective alternatives to collective bargaining as the best mechanism for promoting workplace democracy and justice, and the extent to which current legal developments can be used by trade unions and their members to their advantage. The paper analyses a variety of models, including the 'European Social Model' and South African Labour Law, for promoting workplace democracy and the paradoxes that they arguably generate in terms of their potential consequences.