the merger of SpaceX with xAI is an example

There is an idea that sounds almost radical in 2026, but that has actually been operating for decades in several European countries or in the form of internal experiments in companies: that workers have a real seat on the boards of directors of the companies where they work.

The debate has returned to the front line due to a proposal from Yolanda Díaz, third vice president and Minister of Labor, based on the report of the International Commission of High Level Experts “On Democracy at Work”. Curiously, one of the best metaphors to understand what this report proposes is not in a factory or an SME: it is in the upcoming merger of the Elon Musk’s business universe.

Díaz’s proposal. The Ministry of Labor presented a report which proposes two major changes in the relationship between companies and workers: giving workers more voice in the strategic decisions of companies and facilitating access to company property. The underlying idea is simple and has been applied for some time in certain managerial ranks and industries, in which part of the remuneration is in the form of shares or participations in the company itself.

The report suggests that, if a workforce is an essential part of a company, their participation should not be limited to negotiating salaries or schedules, but rather to be an active part of its management. For this reason, it proposes introducing more worker representation on boards of directors. Not as a symbolic gesture, but with real weight.

The proposal is staggered: in medium and large companies (50 to 1,000 employees), a portion of the board seats would be reserved for staff representatives, with percentages that would grow depending on size. Furthermore, the report states that companies should make it easier for employees have a part of the capitalwith formulas that can range from participation plans based on shares, to more structured models in the form of trusts or funds.

SpaceX: employees who are “owners”, but without a voice. In Silicon Valley, and especially in startups, it is very common for companies pay part of salary in sharesoptions or units that are consolidated over time or based on objectives. This means that thousands of workers end up being, de facto, partial owners of the company they work for.

However, and here the shock appears, these workers/owners do not have a voice in the decisions made by the company, leaving so much your workplace as your propertyin the hands of third parties. In a merger as decisive as the one that has been proposed between SpaceX and xAI (or in any similar operation in the Musk ecosystem as the one that occurred before between X and xAI), employees find out about these decisions after the fact, through internal channels and without leaving room to maneuver.

Europe has been doing it for years. One of the keys to the report is that it does not propose an isolated occurrence, but rather an adaptation of models that already exist and on which research has been done. The best known case is Germany, where the co-management model It has been integrating worker representatives into supervisory or administrative bodies in large companies for decades.

Also has been tested in Norway in a law implemented in 2020, or with the Rebsamen law of 2015 in France. These previous studies have shown that the participation of workers in company decision-making improves labor relations, greater investment in training and long-term productivity, although the effects may vary depending on the sectoral context and institutional design.

The report insists that Spain is behind in this area and recalls that the article 129.2 of the Spanish Constitution It already marks the obligation to promote the participation of workers in the company. The proposal, therefore, is presented as a way to ground that mandate in a modern model that improves labor relations.

It is a paradigm shift in Spain. The great value of the Ministry of Labor’s approach is that it unites two concepts that normally go separately: labor participation and ownership. Although this remuneration formula that motivates workers to improve your performance and thus improve your personal capital, is not something common in Spain.

However, giving workers a greater presence would also give the workforce power to influence on key decisions such as relocations or restructuring that lead to closure “preventing viable companies from being liquidated or sold to predatory investment funds,” the minister said.

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Image | Flickr (The Left, World Economic Forum)