January
1999 - Italian co-operative study
Do you ever wonder if you are
working yourself into an early grave? If so, you
might be interested in a study by David Erdal,
chairman of Baxi Partnership, the employee-owned
central heating boiler manufacturer in Bamber
Bridge, Lancashire.
His idea was to test, using various
measures, whether the quality of life in an egalitarian
community was better than that of a conventional
town.
He chose to explore his theories
among the small towns surrounding the Italian
city of Bologna. As Mr Erdal notes, life is good
in this part of Italy. He was attracted to the
region because of the large number of co-operative
ventures in the area, many of which are over 100
years old. The co-ops are particularly thickly
spread around Imola, a town of 60,000 people.
Some 18 per cent of Imola's working
population is employed in co-operatives. More
than a third of its families have at least one
member working in a co-op. But in Sassuolo , a
40,000-strong community about 40 miles away, no
one works in a co-op.
Imola has no great divide between
rich and poor. But in Sassuolo the divide appears
much greater.
Mr Erdal's theory is that co-operative
ventures promote stronger, more peace-loving and
healthier communities. His biggest problem has
been persuading the good people of either town
to return his questionnaires. A random sample
of 1,500 names taken from the telephone directory
has elicited just over 180 responses so far.
He has, however, collected other
evidence, scouring newspapers for crime reports
and checking death notifications. Early evidence
points to greater voluntary work and more employee
training in Imola.
But one clear difference has
emerged between the communities. The citizens
of Imola live longer than those in Sassuolo ,
with a 14 per cent lower mortality rate over the
past six years. This may in part have something
to do with diet. Further research would be needed
to examine the reasons. But Mr Erdal seems certain
of one point: "Employee share ownership makes
you live longer. That's the main thing I want
to bring out."
The finding tends to support
some long-running research on Whitehall hierarchies
by Michael Marmot, director of the International
Centre for Health and Society at University College
London. This research has discovered that people
lower down a hierarchy are more likely to suffer
heart attacks than those in the upper echelons.
Mr Erdal's finding was well received
by delegates at the annual International Employee
Ownership Conference, held in Oxford earlier this
month. The conference was seeking ideas to put
to Gordon Brown, the chancellor, who in November
announced a consultation exercise looking at ways
to extend employee share ownership.
One of the conference recommendations
is to extend tax benefits available for the owners
of family business seeking to pass on their shares
within the family to those who want to transfer
shares to employees.
Mr Erdal sold his shareholding
in the family paper milling business, Tullis Russell,
to employees in a leveraged buy-out deal where
profits are used to buy the shares on behalf of
employees. The sale allows him to pursue other
interests, including a PhD based on his study
of the Italian towns.
"The results at this stage
are suggestive rather than final," says Mr
Erdal who is continuing his research. "But
the evidence so far is supporting the thesis that
egalitarian communities are better than others
in important ways. It should be said that Sassuolo
is a very good place to live by international
comparisons - but Imola is better."
© 1999 The Financial Times
Ltd. All rights reserved
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