Industrial Democracy Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

In its most general form industrial democracy refers to employees’ right to be involved in the decision-making process at the workplace. In some countries such as Germany and Sweden, so-called codetermination between employers and employees is a matter of law (since 1976 in Germany with the Mitbestimungesesetz and since 1978 in Sweden with the Medbestämmandelagen), while in other countries similar arrangements are regulated in collective agreements between employers and workers. Since 1994 a European Union directive has existed that requires larger firms with operations in several European countries to create so-called European Works Councils, mainly to create a platform for consultation.

In its weakest form industrial democracy consists of mere information and consultation practices at the firm level. In its strongest form it means workers’ absolute workplace control, most often combined with ownership/control of the means of production. The arguments presented in favor of industrial democracy are that fewer hierarchy and authoritarian structures create less industrial disputes, improve decision-making processes at the workplace and firm levels, increase the employees’ commitment to corporate objectives, and increase productivity as well as job satisfaction.

At the same time, industrial democracy is a highly contested concept based on different national traditions and historical conjectures. In central European states, including Germany but also in Scandinavia, it is often equated with codetermination and implies collective rights and obligations. It is either based on law or included in general collective agreements. Moreover, arrangements that give workers a permanent place on company boards and in other governing bodies without opting for ownership—codetermination—are frequent here. Workers’ representation in such bodies is chosen either directly by the employees or indirectly by a local or central trade union. In its most radical version, industrial democracy is closely linked with the concept of economic democracy, which implies workers’ control in the form of ownership over a firm or industry as a whole. One example of such a scheme was the so-called wage earners fund proposed by Rudolf Meidner in Sweden in 1975, according to which trade unions gradually would take over the ownership of private firms.

In Anglo-Saxon countries such as Great Britain and the United States, industrial democracy most often denotes a situation of workplace control wherein the workers have control over their own immediate working conditions, the work process, working-time arrangements, and implementation of health regulations. Such control is based on local trade unions or on informal workshop arrangements. Hence the concept here is based on individual and local rights and obligations, and as such it has a long pedigree. A historical reference can be drawn to the British nineteenth-century shop steward system. The shop stewards were skilled workers who were able to dominate the work process in a certain workplace. Even though mechanization and scientific management (created by Frederick Winslow Taylor and others) did much to destroy such workplace control by skilled workers after World War I (1914–1918), it has remained a vital ideal, for example, in Britain. Industrial democracy in this version is often referred to as “craft” or “guild” socialism. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries it was also often combined with a wish to establish small-scale cooperative forms of ownership.

In the beginning of the twentieth century industrial democracy was often recognized in relation to a wider anarcho-syndicalist movement that was particularly influential in southern European states such as Spain and Italy but also in the United States. Industrial democracy as interpreted by the syndicalists was close to revolutionary socialism but at the same time highly critical of state socialism in its authoritarian version, especially that which developed in Soviet Russia after 1917. In contrast to the communists, the syndicalists emphasized the role of workplace control and cooperative ownership on the local level. In the United States the syndicalist Industrial Workers of the World (formed in 1905) sought to organize all workers in one big union that with the help of the general strike, would overthrow capitalism and establish local ownership of the means of production. In Spain during its civil war (1936–1939), experiments in this direction were undertaken but failed in their purpose as a consequence of the defeat of the Spanish republic in 1939.

Gradually, however, almost everywhere such radical interpretations of industrial democracy have declined in importance. Today, most would interpret them as some form of codeterminism aiming to enhance corporate aims such as high productivity and look upon them as a means to achieve aims in which both employers and employees have a common stake.

Bibliography:

Crouch, C., and F. Heller, eds. International Yearbook of Organizational Democracy. Chichester, UK:Wiley, 1983.
Davis, E., and R. Lansbury, eds. Democracy and Control in the Workplace. Melbourne, Australia: Longman Cheshire, 1986.
Deery, S., D. Plowman, and J.Walsh. Industrial Relations: A Contemporary Analysis. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1997.
Haug, R. “History of Industrial Democracy in Sweden: Industrial Revolution to 1980.” Industrial Journal of Management 21 (March 2004): 7–15.
Lichtenstein, N., and J. H. Howell. Industrial Democracy in America: The Ambiguous Promise. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993.
Mueller-Jentsch, W. “Industrial Democracy: Historical Development and Current Challenges.” Management Revue: The International Review of Management Studies 19 (2008): 260–273.
Webb, Sidney, and Beatrice Webb. Industrial Democracy. New York: AMS, 1994.

This example Industrial Democracy Essay is published for educational and informational purposes only. If you need a custom essay or research paper on this topic please use our writing services. EssayEmpire.com offers reliable custom essay writing services that can help you to receive high grades and impress your professors with the quality of each essay or research paper you hand in.