The Politics Of Workers Participation

Monograph on political aspects and social implications of the Peruvian approach to workers participation - presents comparison of participation types in France, Germany, Federal Republic (codetermination), Sweden and Yugoslavia (workers self management), examines relations between labour policy, trade unions and profit sharing, and discusses government attitudes to increased trade unionization and strike activity in Peru. Bibliography pp. 269 to 275.

This title, originally published in 1986, explores the political and economic conditions of the 1980s, and reflects the world-wide interest in industrial democracy. Each chapter analyses the main adaptations in policy, theory and experimentation that have occurred in industrial democracy in the 1980s. In particular, the role of managers is examined in depth and detail, since these personnel have been responsible for a number of recent initiatives. The themes covered are vital for all those seeking new directions in the reform of modern industrial relations in the late 1980s and into the 1990s.

Employee participation encompasses the range of mechanisms used to involve the workforce in decisions at all levels of the organization - whether direct or indirect - conducted with employees or through their representatives. In its various guises, the topic of employee participation has been a recurring theme in industrial relations and human resource management. One of the problems in trying to develop any analysis of participation is that there is potentially limited overlap between these different disciplinary traditions, and scholars from diverse traditions may know relatively little of the research that has been done elsewhere. Accordingly in this book, a number of the more significant disciplinary areas are analysed in greater depth in order to ensure that readers gain a better appreciation of what participation means from these quite different contextual perspectives. Not only is there a range of different traditions contributing to the research and literature on the subject, there is also an extremely diverse sets of practices that congregate under the banner of participation. The handbook discusses various arguments and schools of thought about employee participation, analyzes the range of forms that participation can take in practice, and examines the way in which it meets objectives that are set for it, either by employers, trade unions, individual workers, or, indeed, the state. In doing so, the Handbook brings together leading scholars from around the world who present and discuss fundamental theories and approaches to participation in organization as well as their connection to broader political forces. These selections address the changing contexts of employee participation, different cultural/ institutional models, old/'new' economy models, shifting social and political patterns, and the correspondence between industrial and political democracy and participation.

This collection examines not only the enormous diversity of imeanings and forms of worker participation in the contemporary period but also its global character. The chapters cover Western and Eastern Europe, the United States and Japan, China, and the Third World. Each of them is informed in some way by the conviction that worker participation is an eminently political phenomenon- that it is about politics and power at the level of the workplace, and that the larger context of social, political, and economic power and organization shapes what happens to participation locally. In this sense, the volume is not simply about internal workplace reforms. Nor is it a country-by-country survey of laws and institutions, but rather a collection of substantive analyses of the actual dynamics of participation and change.

This book begins with a historical review of how authority in the Canadian workplace has changed over the past century. It proceeds to outline a theory of organization which provides a broad conceptual framework for the empirical analysis which follows. This theory is based on five concepts: the values of organizational members; the administrative structure of the organization; the interpersonal and intergroup processes; the reactions and adjustments of organization members; the social, political, economic, and cultural environments of the organization. A sample of 20 industrial organizations was selected to examine the effects of significant employee participation and to test the theory. They are matched pairs: ten permit some form of participation, and ten—similar in size, location, industry, union/non-union status, and work technology—follow conventional hierarchical design. The resulting data demonstrate that greater productivity results from employee participation in decisions relating to their work, in productivity bonuses, and in profit sharing and employee share-ownership plans.

Monographic comparison of political aspects of workers participation in Germany, Federal Republic and Sweden - includes an overview of the philosophy of work under differing political systems and discusses the role of trade unions, codetermination, collective bargaining and the integration of political participation and labour relations in relation to theories of democracy. References after each chapter.

First published in 1975, Workers’ Participation in Industry provides a fresh perspective on a highly significant issue. Its principal argument is that developments in workers’ participation and control cannot be satisfactorily understood except by reference to broader questions concerning the exercise of power in industry and in society at large. The book’s approach is sociological and explanatory, and it is written for the general reader as well as for students and specialists on both sides of industry.