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Workplace democracy is the application of democracy in all its forms (including voting systems, debates, democratic structuring, due process, adversarial process, systems of appeal, and so on) to the workplace.[1]
It usually involves or requires more use of lateral methods such as arbitration when workplace disputes arise.[citation needed]
Contents
[hide]
* 1 History
o 1.1 Associated with ideologies
o 1.2 Studies by management science
o 1.3 Early theory
o 1.4 Relation to political theory
* 2 Current approaches
o 2.1 Limits of management
o 2.2 Influenced matrix management
o 2.3 Semler and Semco
o 2.4 Venezuela
* 3 Comparison to Taylorism
* 4 Advantages and disadvantages
o 4.1 Individual career development
o 4.2 Organizational structure and management
o 4.3 Teams, talent and careers
* 5 See also
* 6 References
* 7 External links
[edit] History
[edit] Associated with ideologies
These methods are often seen as associated with trade unions or syndicalism (or more lately eco-syndicalism and eco-socialism), or anarcho-syndicalism.
Most unions have democratic structures at least for selecting the leader, and sometimes these are seen as providing the only democratic aspects of work. However, unions are not everywhere, and not every workplace that lacks a union lacks democracy, and not every workplace that has a union necessarily has a democratic way to resolve disputes.
However, some unions have historically been more committed to it than others. The Industrial Workers of the World pioneered the archetypal workplace democracy model, the Wobbly Shop, in which recallable delegates were elected by workers, and other norms of grassroots democracy were applied. This is still used in some organizations, notably Semco and in the software industry.
The best known and most studied example of a successfully democratic national labor union in the United States are the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, known throughout the labor movement as the UE. An independent trade Union, the UE was built from the bottom-up, and takes pride in its motto that "The Members Run This Union!".
The Binary Economics movement also advocates workplace democracy and the Employee Stock Ownership Plan, which is a method by which workers can buy their way into their corporations.
[edit] Studies by management science
Industrial and organizational psychology and even more formal management science has studied the methods of workplace democracy. They are just that - methods - and do not imply any particular political movement, agenda, theory, or ideology: There are many management science papers on the application of democratic structuring, in particular, to the workplace, and the benefits of it. Such benefits are usually compared to simple command hierarchy arrangements in which "the boss" can hire anyone and fire anyone, and takes absolute and total responsibility for his own well-being and also all that occurs "under" him. The command hierarchy is a preferred management style followed in many companies for its simplicity, speed and low process overheads.
[edit] Early theory
20th century pioneers of workplace democracy include the early Belgian advocates of syndicalism who argued that workers had more knowledge but less control of the workplace than they had of major political decisions (where they at least had a vote and the right to be heard even if they knew nothing about the situation). Of these theorists the most influential, de Paepe, is often considered as a peer or competitor to Karl Marx's concept of the workplace as merely a cauldron and test for the proletariat.
[edit] Relation to political theory
However, workplace democracy theory closely follows political democracy, especially where businesses are large or politics is small:
Spanish anarchists, Mohandas Gandhi's Swadeshi movement, farm and retail co-operative movements, all made contributions to the theory and practice of workplace democracy and often carried that into the political arena as a "more participatory democracy." The Green Parties worldwide adopted this as one of their Four Pillars and also often mimic workplace democracy norms such as gender equity, co-leadership, deliberative democracy applied to any major decision, and leaders who don't do policy. The Democratic Socialist Parties have always supported the notion of workplace democracy and democratically controlled institutions.
In Sweden, the Social democratic Party made laws and reforms from 1950-70 to achieve more democratic workplaces. Giving the unions a right to balance the management and have some influential power was rather radical at that time, but still within the capitalist structure as their influence was limited.
Politically, Salvador Allende inspired a large number of such experiments in Chile before his death on September 11, 1973. The book Brain of the Firm by Stafford Beer details experiments in workplace feedback that exploited systems theory extensively.
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It usually involves or requires more use of lateral methods such as arbitration when workplace disputes arise.[citation needed]
Contents
[hide]
* 1 History
o 1.1 Associated with ideologies
o 1.2 Studies by management science
o 1.3 Early theory
o 1.4 Relation to political theory
* 2 Current approaches
o 2.1 Limits of management
o 2.2 Influenced matrix management
o 2.3 Semler and Semco
o 2.4 Venezuela
* 3 Comparison to Taylorism
* 4 Advantages and disadvantages
o 4.1 Individual career development
o 4.2 Organizational structure and management
o 4.3 Teams, talent and careers
* 5 See also
* 6 References
* 7 External links
[edit] History
[edit] Associated with ideologies
These methods are often seen as associated with trade unions or syndicalism (or more lately eco-syndicalism and eco-socialism), or anarcho-syndicalism.
Most unions have democratic structures at least for selecting the leader, and sometimes these are seen as providing the only democratic aspects of work. However, unions are not everywhere, and not every workplace that lacks a union lacks democracy, and not every workplace that has a union necessarily has a democratic way to resolve disputes.
However, some unions have historically been more committed to it than others. The Industrial Workers of the World pioneered the archetypal workplace democracy model, the Wobbly Shop, in which recallable delegates were elected by workers, and other norms of grassroots democracy were applied. This is still used in some organizations, notably Semco and in the software industry.
The best known and most studied example of a successfully democratic national labor union in the United States are the United Electrical, Radio and Machine Workers of America, known throughout the labor movement as the UE. An independent trade Union, the UE was built from the bottom-up, and takes pride in its motto that "The Members Run This Union!".
The Binary Economics movement also advocates workplace democracy and the Employee Stock Ownership Plan, which is a method by which workers can buy their way into their corporations.
[edit] Studies by management science
Industrial and organizational psychology and even more formal management science has studied the methods of workplace democracy. They are just that - methods - and do not imply any particular political movement, agenda, theory, or ideology: There are many management science papers on the application of democratic structuring, in particular, to the workplace, and the benefits of it. Such benefits are usually compared to simple command hierarchy arrangements in which "the boss" can hire anyone and fire anyone, and takes absolute and total responsibility for his own well-being and also all that occurs "under" him. The command hierarchy is a preferred management style followed in many companies for its simplicity, speed and low process overheads.
[edit] Early theory
20th century pioneers of workplace democracy include the early Belgian advocates of syndicalism who argued that workers had more knowledge but less control of the workplace than they had of major political decisions (where they at least had a vote and the right to be heard even if they knew nothing about the situation). Of these theorists the most influential, de Paepe, is often considered as a peer or competitor to Karl Marx's concept of the workplace as merely a cauldron and test for the proletariat.
[edit] Relation to political theory
However, workplace democracy theory closely follows political democracy, especially where businesses are large or politics is small:
Spanish anarchists, Mohandas Gandhi's Swadeshi movement, farm and retail co-operative movements, all made contributions to the theory and practice of workplace democracy and often carried that into the political arena as a "more participatory democracy." The Green Parties worldwide adopted this as one of their Four Pillars and also often mimic workplace democracy norms such as gender equity, co-leadership, deliberative democracy applied to any major decision, and leaders who don't do policy. The Democratic Socialist Parties have always supported the notion of workplace democracy and democratically controlled institutions.
In Sweden, the Social democratic Party made laws and reforms from 1950-70 to achieve more democratic workplaces. Giving the unions a right to balance the management and have some influential power was rather radical at that time, but still within the capitalist structure as their influence was limited.
Politically, Salvador Allende inspired a large number of such experiments in Chile before his death on September 11, 1973. The book Brain of the Firm by Stafford Beer details experiments in workplace feedback that exploited systems theory extensively.
POS receipt printers
web hosting