Industrial democracy : the sociology of participation

The view that workers should participate in the manage ment of the factories in which they labour has been a persistent theme in western socialist thought for over a century. Paul Blumberg, Assistant Professor of Sociology at Queens College of the City University of New York, examines this theme in contemporary theoretical and empirical perspective. Surveying various trends in the modern world, he argues that the old idea of workers' participation is not dead and may well assume significance during the final third of our century in the developing world as well as in the Western democracies and Communist lands. He closely analyses the classic Mayo experiments of the 'twenties and 'thirties, and reveals the significance of workers' participation in control and decision-making to have been hitherto under played. He goes on to examine the wide-ranging participation literature in the context of a discussion of work alienation and its suggested remedies, and concludes that workers' participation in decision making tends to increase work satisfaction, even though the technical processes of produc tion and workers' tasks re main unchanged. Contem porary criticisms of workers' management are evaluated, especially as this criticism has come to a focus in the writings of the British indus trial relations expert, Hugh Clegg, and his comments on Clegg's theories are both stimulating and controversial. Current systems of workers' management in Israel are examined and, finally, Professor Blumberg offers a detailed and absorbing discussion on Titoism as a political ideology and its bear ing on the theory and development of workers' management in Yugoslavia.