What Is Industrial Democracy

The organization of work is under critique in many industrialized countries. Bureaucracy, specialization, repetitive technology, and hierarchical control structures are criticized by politicians, trade unionists, and social scientists. They argue for improved quality of work, for work democratization, and for the humanization of work. This book evaluates Norwegian field ex periments in the area of job redesign which started already in 1964. Norway has therefore a lead in experience compared to most other countries, particu to the United States, where debates and subsequent experiments re larly volving around the quality of working life and the democratization of work started only in the early seventies. The Norwegian social scientists who left their academic bastions and started action research drew heavily upon the 'open socio-technical system' thinking as developed by the Tavistock Insti tute of Human Relations in London. This descriptive evaluation study ana lyzes the job redesign experiments from an industrial democracy perspective and places the experiments in their national political and labor relations contexts. Special emphasis is given to the actual and potential role trade unions can play in shopfloor job design projects. The industrial relations of the United States is generally used as reference point in this study. system The theory guiding the experiments regards work democratization through job redesign as a first step in a bottom-up process of organizational demo cratization.

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"First edition." "Notes and references": pages 349-351.

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.

Since World War I, says Joseph McCartin, the central problem of American labor relations has been the struggle among workers, managers, and state officials to reconcile democracy and authority in the workplace. In his comprehensive look at labor issues during the decade of the Great War, McCartin explores the political, economic, and social forces that gave rise to this conflict and shows how rising labor militancy and the sudden erosion of managerial control in wartime workplaces combined to create an industrial crisis. The search for a resolution to this crisis led to the formation of an influential coalition of labor Democrats, AFL unionists, and Progressive activists on the eve of U.S. entry into the war. Though the coalition's efforts in pursuit of industrial democracy were eventually frustrated by powerful forces in business and government and by internal rifts within the movement itself, McCartin shows how the shared quest helped cement the ties between unionists and the Democratic Party that would subsequently shape much New Deal legislation and would continue to influence the course of American political and labor history to the present day.