Campaign group launches charter for ownership.

If there were more employee owned businesses would the UK have a fairer economy than it does now?

The Equality Trust, a group that campaigns on issues related to economic equality and social justice think it would. They have launched an ‘Ownership Charter’ to promote the creation of a new economy, marked by lower levels of inequality and a broader based prosperity.

Economic inequality is shown in differences in income and wealth and is influenced by factors such as gender, ethnicity and disability.

Graded using the Gini Coefficient, a measure of inequality across the whole of society the UK scores 0.35, making it an unequal society, although less so than the United States with a score of 0.38. More egalitarian countries such as Denmark score in the range of 0.25, the average for OECD countries is 0.32.

In the UK inequality has risen steadily since 1979, reaching a peak in 1990 and then plateauing for the next decade, since the crisis of 2008 levels have started to rise again.

In 2010 the top 10% of earners received 31% of the country’s wealth, the poorest 10% by contrast held just 1% of both wealth and income.

The Equality Trust claims that employee owned businesses have ‘stronger roots' in the community, are more democratic and are better employers.

Their ten-point charter calls on parties from across the political spectrum to, amongst other things, commit to growing the number of democratic employee owned companies, establishing a bank to support employee buy outs and reviewing legislation to make it easier for employees to buy out the companies they work for.

Commenting on the rising level of inequality in the UK Dr Wanda Wyporska, the executive director of the Equality Trust said, “the UK's appalling wealth inequality is a gross injustice and a dire threat to our economy.”

She added a warning that it could threaten social cohesion, saying that if wealth continues to “gush upwards”, it could be a “recipe for resentment, division and potentially disaster.”

Read more about the Ownership Charter and sign the Equality Trust petition by following this link: https://equalitytrust.eaction.org.uk/petition/ownershipcharter