Cycles of control: Worker participation in sociological and historical perspective

Sociology

Volumn 11, Issue 3, 1977, Pages 481-506

  Ramsay, Harvie ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF STRATHCLYDE   (United Kingdom)

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EID: 84970764658     PISSN: 00380385     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/003803857701100304     Document Type: Article

References (116)

1. See also, however, books such as C. Pateman, Participation and Democratic Theory (Cambridge Univerity Press, 1970) and P. Blumberg, Industrial Democracy
2. The Sociology of Participation (Constable, 1968).
3. See e.g. E. H. Phelps Brown, The Growth of Industrial Relations in Great Britain: A Study from the standpoint of 1906-1914 (Macmillan, 1959)
4. R. Charles, The Development of Industrial Relations in Britain, 1911-1939 (Hutchinson, 1973)
5. D. Chang, British Methods of Industrial Peace (Columbia University Press, 1936, reprinted by A. M. S. Press, 1968). The same kind of evolutionary account is expressed, e.g., in statements by the then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, J. Davies, ‘Interdependence’, Industrial Participation (Autumn 1972), 3-5, and the chairman of the Commission on Industrial Relations from 1971-4 Sir L. Neal, ‘The Advance of Participation’, Industrial Participation (Summer 1972), 3-5.
6. See e.g. A. Fox, ‘Industrial Relations: A Social Critique of Industrial Pluralism’, in J. Child (ed.), Man and Organisation (Allen & Unwin, 1973); Man Mis-management (Hutchinson, 1974)
7. R. Hyman, Strikes (Fontana, 1972).
8. See, e.g., M. Mulder and H. Wilke, ‘Participation and Power Equalisation’, Organisational Behaviour and Human Performance, 5 (1970), 430-48
9. M. Mulder, ‘Power Equalisation Through Participation?’, Admin. Sci. Q. 16 March 1971), 31-8, and on the German experience R. Dahrendorf, Society and Democracy in Germany (Weidenfeld, 1967) and H. Schauer ‘Critique of Co-determination’ in G. Hunnius, G. D. Carson, and J. Case (eds.), Workers Control (Vintage, 1973), pp. 210-24.
10. R. Hyman and R. Fryer, ‘Trade Unions-Sociology and political economy’ in J. B. McKinlay (ed.), Processing People: Cases in Organisational Behaviour (Holt, Reinhart, & Winston, 1975).
11. See e.g. M. Mann, ‘The Social Cohesion of Liberal Democracy’, American Sociological Review, 1970
12. F. Parkin, Class Inequality and Political Order (MacGibben and Kee, 1971): R. Miliband, The State in Capitalist Society (London, Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1969)
13. Hyman and I. Brough, Social Values and Industrial Relations (Blackwell, 1975).
14. V. L. Allen, ‘The Origins Of Industrial Conciliation and Arbitration’, Int. Rev. Soc. His., 9 (1964). Page references are to reprint in Allen, The Sociology of Industrial Relations (Longmans, 1971).
15. He refers to C. Babbage, Traité sur L'économie des machines et des manufactures, traduit de l'anglais sur la troisième édition (Paris, 1933).
16. S. Taylor, Profit-Sharing between Capital and Labour (Kegan, Paul, Trench, & Co., 1884), p. 1 suggests that the earliest scheme was that set up by Leclaire in Paris in 1842.
17. K. Marx, Grundrisse, 1858, transl. M. Nicolaus (Penguin, 1973), p. 288, emphasis in original.
18. R. A. Church, ‘Profit Sharing and Labour Relations in England in the Nineteenth Century’, Int. Rev. Soc. Hist. 14.1 (1971), 2-16
19. E. Bristow, ‘Profit-Sharing, Socialism and Labour Unrest’, in K. D. Brown (ed.), Essays in Anti-Labour History (Macmillan, 1974), pp. 262-89.
20. E. R. Pease, Profit-Sharing and Co-partnership; A Fraud and a Failure? (Fabian Tract, 1913, no. 170), who concluded that ‘profit-sharing and co-partnership may properly be called a “piffling palliative” ' ’ (p. 16).
21. R. A. Church, 1971, Profit-Sharing and Co-partnership; A Fraud and a Failure? p. 9.
22. Bristow, Profit-Sharing and Co-partnership; A Fraud and a Failure?, p. 269. I. Meszaros, Marx's Theory of Alienation (Merlin, 1970, 2nd edn.), p. 299, quotes from Robert Owen's A New View of Society and Other Writings, a passage which reveals a paternalistic version of the Briggs' outlook. Owen argues that there is a real fear workers' normal conditions will lead them to ‘. acquire a gross ferocity of character, which, if legislative measures shall not be judiciously devised to prevent its increase and ameliorate the conditions of this day, will sooner or later plunge the country into a formidable and perhaps inextricable state of danger'.’.
23. On ideologies of management-and the erosion of these theories, with their consequent adaptation, under pressure-see R. Bendix, Work and Authority in Industry (Harper & Row, 1963). These last two profit-sharing cycles can perhaps be better understood as the first stages of the larger movement culminating in the Whitley councils scheme. This whole period was one of intense labour unrest.
24. See Church, Work and Authority in Industry, pp. I if.
25. Bristow, Work and Authority in Industry, pp. 276 ff.
26. E. J. Hobsbawm, 'British Gas Workers, 1873-1914' in Labouring Men (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1964), pp. 158-78, delineates the pressure from below on the management in the gas industry in this period.
27. See C. R. Fay, Co-partnership in Industry (Cambridge University Press, 1913), p. 105. Reformers have not since reformed their own gullibility and the delusion is shared, therefore, by R. O. Clarke and D. J. Fatchett, ‘Workers’ Participation in Management in Great Britain', Bulletin of the Int. Inst, for Lab. Studies, 9 (1972), 173-207 (see p. 183).
28. Church, Bulletin of the Int. Inst, for Lab. Studies p. 16.
29. Church, Bulletin of the Int. Inst, for Lab. Studies p. 10.
30. Bristow, Bulletin of the Int. Inst, for Lab. Studies p. 279.
31. Bristow, Bulletin of the Int. Inst, for Lab. Studies discusses this aspect of South Metropolitan Gas's purpose.
32. M. Poole, Workers' Participation in Industry (Routledge, 1975) in his review of the German experience of worker participation also produces telling parallels (pp. 135-41).
33. As in Briggs' proposal and in the case of South Metropolitan Gas, Church, Workers' Participation in Industry p. 11.
34. Bristow, Workers' Participation in Industry p. 288.
35. Hills, quoted Bristow, Workers' Participation in Industry p. 278.
36. See Bristow, Workers' Participation in Industry p. 288.
37. See Bristow, Workers' Participation in Industry p. 289, on worker share-ownership schemes.
38. Church, Workers' Participation in Industry p. 9. ‘Failure to understand’ is a common managerial proxy for a refusal by workers to accept their frame of reference.
39. Kendall, ‘Workers’ Participation and Workers' Control. Some aspects of British Experience', Paper to International Seminar at University of Bologna, 1969a, 18-21 December.
40. Kendall, The Labour Movement in Europe (Allen Lane, 1975), p. 344. Figures are for T.U.C. Affiliated Membership.
41. See White, ‘Ideological Hegemony and Political Control: the Sociology of anti-Bolshevism in Britain 1918-20', ’, Scottish Labour History Society Journal, 9 (June 1975), 3-20.
42. A prominent figure in this deliberation was an Ernest J. P. Benn. Mr. Benn was a stout employers' ideologist. His influence had a great deal to do with the proposals for works councils, so much so that they became commonly known as ‘Mr. Benn's Industrial Councils’, see E. Halevy, ‘The Policy of Social Peace in England: The Whitley Councils’, 1919, in Halevy, The Era of Tyrannies (Allen Lane, 1967), pp. 82-122, see p. 99). According to The Times, 25 June 1975, Benn's publishers dissociate themselves from, and are somewhat disdainful of, the verbally related but substantially dissimilar views of a certain descendant of the original.
43. Halevy, 1919, The Era of Tyrannies, pp. 90-1
44. Charles, The Era of Tyrannies, pp. 96-7.
45. In the same way they related to the political economies of the two classes-see Halevy, 1919, The Era of Tyrannies, pp. 110, 112. The potential managerial implications of the stated objective, ‘to secure co-operation by granting to workpeople a greater share in the consideration of matters affecting their industry', ’, quoted E. Wigham, The Power to Manage (Macmillan, 1973), p. 102, are self-evident.
46. E. Halevy, ‘The Problems of Workers’ Control', 1921, in Halevy, 1967, The Power to Manage, p. 139. Earlier, Halevy had characteristically laid the nature of the situation bare: ‘The workers talk about participation in the management of the business. The employers reply by talking about participation in profits and, in the most favourable cases, concede only a bastard form of joint control to the workers. we know very well how illusory this control is, and the appearance of control is intended to create the narrowest possible bond between the interests of the worker and the interests of the employer who hires him.'.’ See Halevy, 1919, The Power to Manage, p. 108.
47. The caveat of Clynes, Hobson, Lawrence, Mallon, and Wilson, quoted in Charles, The Power to Manage, p. 101.
48. They nevertheless thought that some progress could be encouraged through Whitleyism, see A. Flanders, Trade Unions (Hutchinson, 7th edn., 1968), p. 129-a contradictory position reproduced in much leftist thinking before and since.
49. Halevy, 1919, Trade Unions, p. 121.
50. H. A. Clegg, The System of Industrial Relations in Great Britain (Blackwell, 1970), p. 186, observes that the committees were less ‘democratic’ than the works committees set up in some factories during the war. He attributes part of the reason for their official acceptance to the unions' own eagerness to regain control of shop-floor movements.
51. Halevy, ‘The Present State of the Social Question in England’, 1922, in Halevy, 1967, The System of Industrial Relations in Great Britain, pp. 141-60, see p. 152.
52. J. Child, British Management Thought (Allen & Unwin, 1969a), p. 48.
53. See H. A. Clegg and T. E. Chester, ‘Joint Consultation’ in A. Flanders and H. A. Clegg (eds.), The System of Industrial Relations in Great Britain (Blackwell, 1954), pp. 332-3
54. E. Wigham, ‘Worker Participation: A New Look at an Old Principle’, The Times. Slightly differing figures can be found in Flanders, 1968, The Times., p. 209, while J. B. Seymour, The Whitley Councils Scheme (P. S. King, 1932), pp. 199-203, gives a full list of Councils, dates of establishment and of those known by him to be defunct.
55. See Chang, The Whitley Councils Scheme, p. 209
56. K. Coates and T. Topham, The New Unionism (Peter Owen, 1972), p. 47
57. Clegg and Chester, The New Unionism, p. 333, see this as an unwillingness to go ‘beyond’ wages and working conditions.
58. R. H. Desmarais, ‘The British Government's Strike Breaking Organisation and Black Friday’, J. of Contemporary Hist. 6 (2) (1971), 112-27
59. Desmarais, ‘Strikebreaking and the Labour Government of 1924’, J. of Contemporary Hist. 8 (4) (1973), 165-75.
60. G. W. McDonald and H. F. Gospel, ‘The Mond Turner Talks, 1927-1933: A Study in Industrial Co-operation’, Historical Journal, II (4) (1973), 807-29, which, despite its optimistic title, serves only the more starkly to show the failure of the talks.
61. W. M. Citrine, ‘The Next Step in Industrial Relations’, Manchester Guardian Supplement, 30 Nov. 1927.
62. Clegg and Chester, Manchester Guardian Supplement, p. 336.
63. Child, 1969a, Manchester Guardian Supplement, pp. 75-6. Trade unions learned to fear Works Committees set up in the years after the General Strike since they were normally bodies which ran Committees to action interests in effect as ‘house unions’
64. see Clegg and Chester, Manchester Guardian Supplement, p. 336. Coates and Topham, 1972, Manchester Guardian Supplement, record the use of consultation to try and undermine any surviving union leverage in I.C.I. (p. 48).
65. Child, 1969a, Manchester Guardian Supplement, p. 75.
66. See also Clegg, 1970, Manchester Guardian Supplement, p. 187, who notes the apparent loss of the previous moderate respect for unions by Cadbury's.
67. K. Coates and T. Topham (eds.), Workers' Control (Panther, 1970)
68. Also union membership was increasing once more-it rose by over one-third in the years 1938-43, see A. Calder, The People's War: Britain 1939-1943 (Cape, 1969). Reprinted (Panther, 1971), page refs. in text to Panther ed., pp. 454-5.
69. Clegg and Chester, The People's War: Britain 1939-1943, p. 338.
70. Flanders, 1968, The People's War: Britain 1939-1943, p. 135.
71. See H. A. Clegg, A New Approach to Industrial Democracy (Blackwell, 1960), p. 34
72. Flanders, 1968, A New Approach to Industrial Democracy, p. 134.
73. Clegg and Chester, A New Approach to Industrial Democracy, p. 339.
74. A. Calder, ‘Labour and the Second World War’ in D. Rubinstein (ed.), People for the People (Ithaca Press, 1973), pp. 234-40, see p. 236. In the later piece Calder is far more explicit about the way in which the J.P.C.s and nationalization actually emerged as pretend-socialism, conning the working class. G. S. Walpole, Management and Men (Cape, 1944) gives us the picture from the other side, revealing management aims (see, e.g., p. 43), if uncritically.
75. Calder, 1969, Management and Men, pp. 459-60.
76. Calder, 1969, Management and Men, p. 460.
77. Clegg and Chester, Management and Men, p. 339.
78. See, e.g., T. W. Agar, ‘Towards Industrial Democracy’ in W. H. Morrison, et al., Can Industry be Democratic? (George Routledge & Sons, 1944).
79. See Clegg, 1970, Can Industry be Democratic?, p. 189
80. R. A. Dahl, ‘Workers’ Control of Industry and the British Labour Party', Am. Pol. Sci. Rev. 41 (1947), 875-900
81. Coates and Topham, 1970, Am. Pol. Sci. Rev., pp. 273-5, 283-5.
82. I. C. McGivering, et. al., Management in Britain (Liverpool University Press, 1960), p. 92.
83. Flanders, 1968, Management in Britain, p. 135.
84. National Institute for Industrial Psychology, Joint Consultation in British Industry (Staples Press, 1952).
85. W. R. Brown and N. A. Howell-Everson, Industrial Democracy at Work: A Factual Survey (Pitman, 1950).
86. This kind of interpretation runs throughout Jaques's account of the Glacier Metal Company, for instance. He seems to use it repeatedly, in his reported consultancy role, as a means to cajole employees into accepting responsibilities, so gaining their co-operation with management. See, e.g., E. Jaques, The Changing Culture of a Factory (Tavistock, 1951), PP. 79, 97, 98-9, 116, etc.
87. See, e.g., F. Furstenburg, ‘The Dynamics of Joint Consultation’, Brit. J. of Sociology, 10 (1959), on the surviving councils.
88. A. I. Marsh and E. E. Coker, ‘Shop Steward Organisation in the Engineering Industry’, BJIR I (June 1963).
89. The ‘Eurocompany Statute’ and ‘Draft Directive Five’ outlined in Commission on Industrial Relations, Worker Participation and Collective Bargaining in Europe (H.M.S.O., 1974), pp. 7-11.
90. Some modifications in these proposals have since been made, see Employee Participation and Company Structure (Commission of the European Communities, 1975).
91. G. Radice, et. al., Industrial Democracy Bill (H.M.S.O., 1975).
92. Perhaps the most remarkable example which comes to mind here is Child. After his meticulous dissection of the ideological nature of British management writings and pronouncements on industrial relations policy, his account disintegrates into a homily of praise for current efforts at participation-see, e.g., J. Child, The Business Enterprise in Modern Industrial Society (Collier-Macmillan, 1969b), pp. 88 ff.
93. A. Flanders, The Fawley Productivity Agreements (Faber, 1964)
94. R. S. Edwards and R. D. V. Roberts, Status, Productivity and Pay (Macmillan, 1970).
95. T. Glyn and B. Sutcliffe, British Capitalism, Workers and the Profits Squeeze (Penguin, 1972). The trend has continued into 1976 (see Frances Cairncross, Guardian, 23 Feb. 1976, 'Hard-luck Story for Profits').
96. Even Fawley, the showpiece, has now been discredited-see, e.g., ‘The Great Productivity Myth’, E. Jacobs, Sunday Times Business News, 20 July 1975.
97. A. Flanders, Collective Bargaining; Prescription for a Change (London, Faber, 1967).
98. J. Jones, ‘A Plan for a Breakthrough in Production’, Tribune, II Feb. 1966.
99. R.D.V. Roberts and H. Sallis, ‘Joint Consultation in the Electricity Supply Industry, 1949-59’, Public Administration, 37 (2) (Summer 1959), 115-33, and on the Coal Industry, see P. Anthony, ‘The Coal Industry’ in Balfour (ed.), Participation in Industry (Croom Helm; 1973), A. R. Griffin, ‘Consultation and Conciliation in the Mining Industry: the need of a new approach’
100. Industrial Relations J. 3 (3) (1972)
101. J. Homer, Studies in Industrial Democracy (Gollancz, 1974), are two well-documented examples.
102. On the B.S.C. scheme, see, e.g., R. O. Clarke, D. J. Fatchett, and B. C. Roberts, Workers' Participation in Management in Britain (Heinemann, 1972), pp. 142-4;
103. See also P. Brannen, E. Batstone, D. J. Fatchett, and P. White, The Worker Directors; A Sociology of Participation (Hutchinson, 1976), a report which reveals the vulnerability to management of the worker directors.
104. Survey 1977; Salaries and Employee Participation (The Institution, 1975).
105. Industrial Democracy, British Institute of Management Occasional Paper No. 1, 1968.
106. The small firm, which surveys show consistently has been least likely to set up any formal scheme, is nevertheless by its nature far more likely to elicit a marked degree of worker involvement (see, e.g., G. K. Ingham, Size of Industrial Organisation and Worker Behaviour (Cambridge University Press, 1970)
107. on the relatively good strike record of small firms, Department of Employment Gazette, February 1976). Moreover, it may be that relations here are less sensitive to the cyclical forces we have discovered, since experience is usually far less impersonal.
108. The case of Lewis's seems to fit closely the alternative of continuing triviality where labour organization in opposition to management is weak-see A. Flanders, R. Pomerantz, and J. Woodward, Experiment in Industrial Democracy: A Study of the John Lewis Partnership (Faber, 1968).
109. J. Kelly, Is Scientific Management Possible? (Faber, 1968). Also W. Brown, Exploration in Management (Penguin, 1960). Spanish (J. Estivili, O. Homs, J. E. Sanchez, ‘Workers’ Participation in the Management of Undertakings in Spain', Bull. of I.I.L.S., 7 June 1970, pp. 252-81), Israeli (J. Y. Tabb and A. Goldfarb, Workers' Participation in Management: Expectations and Experience (Pergamon, 1970)
110. E. Rosenstein, ‘Histadrut's Search for a Participation Program’, Industrial Relations, 9 (2) (Feb. 1970), 170-86), and Japanese (T. Mitsufuji, ‘Workers’ Participation in Management in Japan', Bull. of I.I.L.S. 7 June 1970, pp. 200-49)-to give just a few examples.
111. F. E. Emery and E. Thorsrud, Form and Content in Industrial Democracy (Tavistock, 1969), p. 42
112. C. G. Renold, Joint Consultation over Thirty Years (Allen & Unwin, 1950), describes in his firm an acceptance of union activity which, if accurate, helps to explain the survival of their committees.
113. See H. E. Ramsay, ‘Who Wants Participation?’, New Society, 37 (730) (30 Sept. 1976), 694-6; ‘Participation: The Shop Floor View’, B.J.I.R. 14 (2) (July 1976), 128-41.
114. As suggested by J. Child, ‘British Management Thought as a Case Study Within the Sociology of Knowledge’, Sociological Review, 16 (1968), 217-39.
115. K. Marx, The German Ideology (1846), ed. C. J. Arthur (Lawrence & Wishart, 1970), p. 65.
116. For recent examples compare reports by the City Company Law Committee, Employee Participation (1975), or the Confederation of British Industry evidence to the Bullock Committee on industrial democracy (see Financial Times, 19 Feb. 1976) with the T.U.C.'s view in Industrial Democracy (1974).