Workers' Councils:the yugoslav experience

Industrial relations continue to be a source of problems and frustrations in many societies experiencing the rapidly changing conditions of a technological age. Certain basic issues are common to all: how to achieve a sustained rate of economic growth as a basis for an improved standard and quality of living, and at the same time to create dynamic and flexible patterns of organization and control whereby a trained and willing work force can reach high levels of pro duction and efficiency. Because of the com plexity of the factors involved and the particular needs of different industries and cultures, there can be no single ultimate solution to conflict in industrial relations. Rather, a study of diverse approaches and a pooling of experience may help to identify the variables on which industrial behaviour depends and point the way to the alle viation of the more intractable problems.

An account of Yugoslavia's system of workers' councils is of particular value in a discussion of industrial forms. Striving both for political inde pendence and for economic expansion-as are many developing nations today-Yugoslavia at the beginning of the 1950s sought to reduce its highly centralized system of political and economic controls and to strengthen local admin istration. Within the framework of the national economic plan, workers' councils are responsible for industrial management. Since workers on the shop floor are proportionally represented on the councils, individual employees in Yugoslavia have better access to information about the in dustrial scene and wider opportunities for parti cipation in managerial decisions than have their counterparts in other countries. To what extent do they make use of these advantages in practice?

The present study is the first to present a body of material, systematically collected with ade quate scientific controls, to supplement the official statements and visitors' reports which have hitherto been the only source of informa tion. It offers an interesting commentary on the activities of the workers' councils in two fac tories in Belgrade, and on their relations with the other organizations that play a part in the