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Once they accept a job, most Americans have little control over their work environments. In Worker Participation, John Pencavel examines some of those rare workplaces where employees both own and manage the companies they work for: the plywood cooperatives and forest worker cooperatives of the Pacific Northwest. Rather than relying on abstract theories, Pencavel reviews the actual experiences of these two groups of worker co-ops. He focuses on how worker-owned companies perform when compared to more traditional firms and whether companies operate more efficiently when workers determine how they are run. He also looks at the long-term viability of these enterprises and why they are so unusual. Most businesses are constantly caught in the battle over whether to use the firm's profits to pay labor or to increase capital. Worker cooperatives provide an appealing case study because the interests of labor and capital are aligned. If individuals have a role in setting goals, they should have an added incentive to help meet those goals, and productivity should benefit. On the other hand, observers have long argued that, since any single employee in a co-op reaps only a small benefit from working hard, workers may shirk work, and productivity can flag. Furthermore, co-ops often have difficulty raising capital, since they are constrained by how much money the workers have, and banks are often reluctant to lend them money. Using some fifteen years of data on forty mills in Washington State, Pencavel examines how worker co-ops really function. He assesses the practical problems of running a workplace where every employee is a boss. He looks at worker productivity, on-the-job injuries and financial risks facing owner-workers. He considers whether co-ops are inherently unstable and if they are plagued by infighting among the many worker-owners. Although many of the co-ops he studied have closed or been replaced by conventional businesses, Pencavel judges them to have been a success. Despite the risks inherent in such operations, allowing workers to make the decisions that profoundly affect them produces many benefits, including workplace efficiency and increased job security. However, Pencavel concludes, if more Americans are to enjoy such a working arrangement, labor laws will have to be changed, participation encouraged, and a more vigorous public debate about worker participation must take place. This book provides an excellent place to start the discussion.
Tensions over democratic values in today's business market -- The development of the Mondragón cooperatives -- Key value debates at Mondragón -- Practical lessons from Mondragón -- Participation and marketization at Mondragón and beyond.
Challenges unions and employers to move beyond adversarialism by using the opportunities afforded by a Labour Relations Act that leaves plenty of room for strategic play by both parties. This work focuses on a consideration of enterprise participation, tapping international experience and research. Contributions remind readers of key features of workplace participation; track the development of workplace forums in other countries; add findings from African research; unravel the Labour Relations Act; reflect on German codetermination; study financial participation and consider emerging trends and issues.
Employee participation and voice (EPV) concern power and influence. Traditionally, EPV has encompassed worker attempts to wrest control from employers through radical societal transformation or to share control through collective regulation by trade unions. This book offers a controversial alternative arguing that, in recent years, participation has shifted direction. In Employee Voice and Participation, the author contends that participation has moved away from employee attempts to secure autonomy and influence over organisational affairs, to one in which management ideas and initiatives have taken centre stage. This shift has been bolstered in the UK and USA by economic policies that treat regulation as an obstacle to competitive performance. Through an examination of the development of ideas and practice surrounding employee voice and participation, this volume tracks the story from the earliest attempts at securing worker control, through to the rise of trade unions, and today’s managerial efforts to contain union influence. It also explores the negative consequences of these changes and, though the outlook is pessimistic, considers possible approaches to address the growing power imbalance between employers and workers. Employee Voice and Participation will be an excellent supplementary text for advanced students of employment relations and Human Resource Management (HRM). It will also be a valuable read for researchers, policy makers, trade unions and HRM professionals.
In Indian context.
This work focuses on pay schemes which provide, in addition to fixed pay, a variable portion of remuneration linked to some measure of enterprise performance.
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.