The State, Trade Unions and Self-Management: Issues of Competence and Control [Reprint 2015 ed.] 9783110849257, 9783110116670

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de Gruyter Studies in Organization 16 The State, Trade Unions and Self-Management

de Gruyter Studies in Organization An international series by internationally known authors presenting current fields of research in organization. Organizing and organizations are substantial prerequisites for the viability and future developments of society. Their study and comprehension are indispensable to the quality of human life. Therefore, the series aims to: - offer to the specialist work material in form of the most important and current problems, methods and results; - give interested readers access to different subject areas; - provide aids for decisions on contemporary problems and stimulate ideas. The series will include monographs, collections of contributed papers, and handbooks. Editorial Board: Michael Aiken, USA (Univ. of Wisconsin) - Franco Ferraresi, Italy (Univ. Torino) - David J. Hickson, GB (Univ. Bradford) - Alfred Kieser, FRG (Univ. Mannheim) Cornelis J. Lammers, Netherlands (Univ. Leiden) - Johan Olsen, Norway (Univ. Bergen) Jean-Claude Thoenig, France (INSEAD, Fontainebleau)

The State, Trade Unions and Self-Management Issues of Competence and Control Editors Gyorgy Szell • Paul Blyton • Chris Cornforth

w DE

G Walter de Gruyter • Berlin • New York 1989

Editors Dr. György Széll Professor, Dept. of Social Sciences, Universität Osnabrück, F R G Dr. Paul Blyton Senior Lecturer, Cardiff Business School, The University of Wales, Cardiff, Wales Chris Cornforth Lecturer, School of Management, Open University, Milton Keynes, England

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication

Data

The State, trade unions, and self-management : issues of competence and control / editors Gyorgy Szell ... [et al.]. p. cm. - (De Gruyter studies in organization : 16) ISBN 0-89925-475-6 (U.S.) 1. Management-Employee participation. 2. Trade-unions. 3. Works councils. I. Szell Gyorgy. II. Series. H D 5650.S 665 1988 338.6-dcl9 89-1094 CIP Deutsche Bibliothek Cataloging in Publication Data The state, trade unions, and self-management issues of competence and control / ed. György Széll .. - Berlin ; New York : de Gruyter, 1989 (De Gruyter studies in organization ; 16) ISBN 3-11-011667-7 NE: Széll, György [Hrsg.]; GT Copyright © 1989 by Walter de Gruyter & Co., Berlin 30. - All rights reserved, including those of translation into foreign languages. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form - by photoprint, microfilm or any other means - nor transmitted nor translated into a machine language without written permission from the publisher. - Typesetting and Printing: Tutte Druckerei GmbH, Salzweg-Passau. - Binding: Dieter Mikolai, Berlin. Cover Design: K. Lothar Hildebrand, Berlin. - Printed in Germany.

Preface

This volume is one of the outputs of Research Committee 10 of the International Sociological Association, which draws together researchers from various parts of the world with an interest in participation, workers' control, cooperatives, and self-management. Many of the ideas and arguments contained in the following chapters were first raised at a workshop held in Osnabrück, Federal Republic of Germany in 1985, which focused on the role of competence as a precondition for increased démocratisation of political and work life. This main theme gave rise to a number of sub-themes: how is competence created? What role does education play? What is the significance of technological and industrial change for the development of participatory competence? Do workers' councils, cooperatives, etc. need internal or external experts or advisers if they are to develop successfully? What is the role of trade unions in the democratic workplace? Can external bodies such as trade unions or the state assist in the development of competence? In the following chapters we address these and related issues, by focusing on such arenas as workers' co-operatives and community organisations, and against such backgrounds as market and non-market economies, and the changing nature of industrial society. Separate sections attempt to shed additional light on the various roles of institutions such as the state, trade unions, and education in the advance of more democratic forms of organisation. Many of the issues under scrutiny are not new but a re-examination seems timely. The world recession of the early 1980s severely reduced the power of labour and restricted or curtailed many of the initiatives under way in developing more democratic forms of work organisation. However, the current period of economic growth is one in which moves to greater power-sharing could again begin to flourish, bringing forth a new requirement to tackle issues such as creating or maintaining sufficient competence to make the democratic organisation viable in the long term. Various people helped to make the Osnabrück workshop and this collection possible. In particular thanks to Ute Széll, Susanne Raker, and Wiking Ehlert and our typists Kath Hollister, Wendy Morgan and Penny

VI

Preface

Malthouse in Cardiff, and Bernie Lake and Jennie Moffatt at the Open University. Financial help for running the Osnabrück workshop was gratefully received from the University of Osnabrück, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), the Deutsche Stiftung für internationale Entwicklung (DSE), and the State of Niedersachsen.

György Szell Paul Blyton Chris Cornforth

Contents

Preface

V

Introduction Chapter 1 - The Role of Competence in Participation, Workers' Control, and Self-Management Gydrgy Szell

1

Part I: Participation and Co-Determination

15

Introduction Chris Cornforth

17

Chapter 2 - "Worker Participation" in the United States: A Preliminary Analysis of Quality of Work Life Programs Bob Barber and Rochelle Towers

19

Chapter 3 - The Law as a Force for Change Philippe Bernoux

39

Chapter 4 - Co-Determination in the Federal Republic of Germany: An Appraisal of a Secular Experience Ulrich Briefs 63 Chapter 5 - A Political Bargaining Theory of Co-Determination Ad W.M. Teulings

75

Part II: Worker Co-operatives and Labour-Owned Firms

103

Introduction Chris Cornforth

105

VIII

Contents

Chapter 6 - The Role of Support Organisations in Developing Worker Co-operatives: A Model for Promoting Economic and Industrial Democracy? Chris Cornforth 107 Chapter 7 - Consulting for Second Order Change Warner Woodworth

125

Chapter 8 - Self-Management in Wales: Trade Union Encouragement of Worker Co-operatives Paul Blyton 137 Chapter 9 - The Possibilities and Limits of Self-Management in Cameroonian Enterprises: The Case of an Artisanal Co-operative in the Building Trade Emmanuel Kamdem 149

Part III: Economic Change, Labour, and the Unions

157

Introduction Paul Blyton

159

Chapter 10 - New Work Processes, Unregulated Capitalism and the Future of Labour Daniel Drache 163 Chapter 11 - Belgian Unionism and Self-Management Bob Hancke and Dany Wijgaerts

187

Chapter 12 - Trade Unions and the Challenge of Modernisation and Computerisation in France Peter Jansen and Leo Kissler 211 Chapter 13 - Technical Change and Informal Participation: The Role of Competence and Control in Administrative Work Ulrich Heisig and Wolfgang Littek

235

Part IV: The State and Self-Management

253

Introduction Paul Blyton

255

Contents

Chapter 14 - Limited Expertise and Local Autonomy Andras Sajd

IX

257

Chapter 15 - Organizations and Society: On Power Relationships Dusko Sekulic 273 Chapter 16 - The Impact of State Intervention on Workers' Control: A Case Study of Autogestion in Algeria Lena Dominelli 289

Part V: Education and Competence

299

Introduction Paul Blyton

301

Chapter 17 - An Inter-Organizational Analysis of Competence Veljko Rus

303

Chapter 18 - The Prospects of Industrial Democracy in the Context of the Proposed New Educational Policy in India Abha Avasthi 315 Chapter 19 - Cooperation Between Universities and Unions Edgar Einemann

327

Conclusion

337

Chapter 20 - Competence and Organizational Democracy: Concluding Reflections Cornelius Lammers List of Contributors

339 359

Introduction Chapter 1 The Role of Competence in Participation, Workers' Control, and Self-Management Gyôrgy Széll

"Unwissen ist Ohnmacht!" "Ignorance is impotence!" (Rosa Luxemburg)

After centuries of struggle for more democracy the question still stands: "Is self-management, the most developed form of democracy, possible?" And if yes: what are its preconditions? How is it affected by the division of labour, the gender division, science, technology, the economic system, the state, trade unions, political parties, education, family, etc.? In this chapter I explore these question in order to identify some of the initiatives that will be necessary to further the development of genuine workers' participation and self-management. In this perspective "competence" and "the trade union movement" have key roles.

The Historical Process In the immediate aftermath of the American and French revolutions a broad movement for more democracy developed in most Western countries. Socialist Utopias spread far in taking the slogan of the bourgeois revolution of "liberté, égalité, fraternité" seriously and not limiting it merely to the political sphere of representative democracy, but rather extending it to all domains of social life: economy, culture, science, religion, etc. The workers' movement in statu nascendi developed different strategies ranging from anarchism and Marxism to reformism. Without

2

Introduction

doubt the trade unions have become the most powerful and widespread self-managed organizations so far. At the same time we find the formation and growth of consumer and producer co-operatives, even including financial self-help institutions. But soon after their birth these movements were weakened through inherent faults, a lack of analysis of historical conditions, and severe repression by the ruling classes. Nevertheless, for a long time the owners of the means of production had only formal control over the production process. So workers had the opportunity to advance their interests, by means such as strikes, go-slows, and sabotage. The response of the bourgeoisie was a political one: repression; and counter-strategies in the form of "yellow" unions etc. It was through Taylorism and Fordism that the real subsumption of the production process under capital was largely realized at the beginning of this century. The reaction of the workers for more self-determination at the work-place, coming as it did after failed political revolutions in the West after World War I, was answered both by repression and offers of co-operation and integration in the form of workers' councils, full voting rights, and human relations styles of management. The developments in the Soviet Union were quite different. Although the political base had been the councils (the Soviets), from the very beginning real power lay in the hands of parts of the intelligentsia, who had been transformed into professional revolutionaries. The restructuring and the forced industrialization of the Soviet economy under strong pressure from outside (with the aim of destabilizing the whole regime), was directed as a war economy from above. Revolts like the Kronstadt uprising were suppressed by force (Bahro 1978, Dutschke 1974). For many reasons the Soviet Union of this period can be regarded as an underdeveloped country in the Marxian sense of the development of the productive forces. Indeed, many of the economic, social, and political problems of this society can be better understood against this background. That is, the objective preconditions of a socialist society had not been assembled. The development of the productive forces cannot just be reduced to technology and science, but also includes skills and knowledge held by the producers (Marx 1970: 54). These skills and know-how (defined as competence; Heller 1983) in regard to the production process were very much lacking in the Soviet Union, an agrarian society far behind the technological development of Western Europe at that time. Thus the subjective aspect of the social revolution, the consciousness of at least the then existing proletariat, was there, but not the objective aspect.

1 The Role of Competence in Participation

3

The old directors of the companies, leading managers, and even foremen had to be reinstalled to continue production. Two other important historical events further illustrate my argument: the Commune of Paris in 1871 and the Spanish Civil War of 1936/37. The failure of the Commune de Paris is certainly only to a small degree explainable through lack of competence, and more through physical destruction. Although only a degree of self-organization at the workplace could be realized in the few months of the Commune's existence, it is astonishing how fast the decision processes were restructured in the absence of most of the owners. The low complexity and development of the production sphere no doubt facilitated this take-over by the workers. Apparently the situation was quite different during the Spanish Civil War, where in some regions the whole production and distribution process was self-managed. But here as well we have a relatively low degree of technological and economic development, which while facilitating the take-over, places limits on further development. The Mondragon experience is a fascinating survival of these initiatives for a whole region (Bradley and Gelb 1983). After the Second World War we find a number of fascinating examples of participation, workers' control, and self-management. The most important seem to be those in Yugoslavia, Israel, Poland (Solidarnosc), Hungary, Czechoslovakia, China, Cuba, and in the liberated areas of a number of Third World countries in their struggle for independence, (for example there have been periods of greater self-determination in the early history of Algeria, Peru, and Chile). But with all these experiences there is a common denominator: in spite of all orthodox theories it was never in the most developed countries that a political revolution of this kind occurred, and in no case (not even the example of Yugoslavia; see Supek 1978) has a lasting self-managed society been realized. It is our task to look for the reasons for this. In some cases the lack of international competitiveness has been forwarded as a reason for reducing or abandoning self-management practices, as the capitalist countries are far more successful economically and technologically. On the other hand, in a number of capitalist countries we find different degrees of workers' participation in the plant, in worker-owned companies, in the political sphere, etc. Thus, models such as co-determination in West Germany and workers' co-operatives become more prominent even in periods of economic crisis. The terms "participation, workers' control, and self-management" are understood differently in different societies. For example, whereas in the

Introduction

4

Yugoslav context "self-management" means autonomy vis-à-vis the State and "workers' management" refers to the enterprise level, in the AngloSaxon world it is often just the opposite. So it is necessary to clarify concepts for international discussion, to avoid different interpretations of the same term. Participation undoubtedly means in every context the weakest form of a democratization process, if we think of a scale. In regard to the political and economic spheres of society a tentative illustration of these concepts is shown in Figure 1. "> 53 u J 13 o 2 Ss go g

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