Crosscurrents in Workers Participation

Abstract

Summary As I contemplate developments in recent years relating to participation in management, I am impressed by the uncertainties, the shifting tides of thought, the atmosphere of experimentation. At the level of participation theory, there is more rather than less doubt. A few years ago in the United States, optimistic theories like those of McGregor and Likert regarding workers needs and desires for self‐actualization seemed to be sweeping the field; today they are regarded as psychologically inadequate and faulty. In England the theory of joint consultation is confronted with something of a polarization ‐ either toward apathy or toward codetermination. In Israel the ideology of participation, derived originally from socialist theory, has been subjected to increasing challenge from pragmatic considerations of efficiency and profitability. Profit‐sharing plans, after a hundred years of experience and a widening acceptability, do not necessarily entail increased worker participation. At the level of practice, the dominant note once again is uncertainty rather than a clear progression toward either success or failure. Neither the Scanlon Plan in the US nor the Glacier Metals experiment in England have generated many followers. Joint consultation schemes appear generally to have declined in number. In Israel Koor experiments in joint management at the plant level have frittered away. Participation has not even been seriously tried in Australia. Reports from Yugoslavia and Germany, where participation programs have been most fully developed, raise questions about the impact of participation on the productivity and efficiency of the enterprises involved, as well as the degree of involvement of workers. On the other hand, there are some positive currents. The spread of collective bargaining to the local level in England and other European countries, the rising interest in productivity bargaining, the absorption of joint consultation committees by unions ‐ all point in the direction of more worker participation in management, although the model may be one of bargaining rather than integration. Out of these crosscurrents we can distinguish some of the main problems confronting the advocates of greater workers participation in management: How to persuade managers that their professional interests are best served by cooperating, if not taking the lead, in different types of participation schemes. How to convince workers that “participating” is worth the effort, and how to educate them in various forms of the process. How to involve worker representatives in both administration and policy‐making on a basis other than bargaining that will not estrange them from their constituents. Resolution of these problems will depend in part at least on recognition that participation is a multi‐dimensional process, that different types of participation may work better with regard to different issues or subjects (depending on requirements of technical knowledge and time), and that participation expectations and arrangements may vary with the different levels of an enterprise.

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