Comment: Bridging the Gap Between Labour Law and Company Law
评论Wanjiru Njoya关于Wedderburn著作的文章，探讨在薪酬委员会中引入工人代表以解决高管薪酬过高问题，对劳动法和公司法学者有参考价值。
In her excellent contribution to this Special Issue, Wanjiru Njoya revisits what is perhaps one of Lord Wedderburn’s lesser known monographs, namely his published 2004 Institute of Employment Rights lecture Fat Cats, Corporate Governance and Workers.1 In this work, Wedderburn resurrects his longstanding crusade for the inculcation of effective worker voice within the legal-constitutional structure of the company, in response to the modern problem of executive pay excess and its impact on escalating social inequality. A particularly striking feature of this work is that—whilst Wedderburn’s normative stance is characteristically polemical—his ensuing proposal for reform is, at least by the standards of much of his earlier work, a relatively moderate one. In essence, Wedderburn advances the case for worker representation on the remuneration committees of UK public companies based on two grounds: (i) to increase remuneration committees' independence from the senior managers whose pay they are charged with evaluating; and (ii) to bring a broader set of values to committee deliberations, including greater sensitivity (in comparison to orthodox non-executive directors) to pay and employment conditions elsewhere in the relevant company or group. Although many labour lawyers may regard such a measure as a mere drop in the ocean in the context of the broader quest for effective worker democracy, one cannot underestimate the radicalness of this idea when placed within the more ideologically staid climate of company law. That Wedderburn opted to fight for such an apparently small gain within a territory that has traditionally been at best indifferent—and at worst outright hostile—to incremental attempted steps in the direction of enhanced worker empowerment is testament to both his political guile and ideological perseverance.