Abstract
Ludger Pries provides an integrated analytical framework for comparing different forms of contemporary worker participation at the plant level. Even though the twentieth century witnessed a significant growth of social rights, he argues that we are still facing great challenges regarding the implementation and extension of participative democracy at the workplace, especially since the end of the Cold War. Pries demonstrates how globalizing economies have contributed to the need to reconceptualize labor relations and for new institutions beyond the national levels. He also shows how different modes of worker participation have developed across the world, for example, on the basis of a more direct involvement through teamwork or on indirect involvement through councils. This chapter introduces a number of crucial issues, including arenas of collective bargaining, dominant actor groups, labor regulation, sources of power, shared ideology, cognitive maps, and different types of conflict resolutions. In comparing the paradigmatic examples of China and Germany, Pries refers to the structural tensions amongst the key actors in labor relations. Moreover, he compares in some detail a number of European Union (EU) member states. In his conclusion, he summarizes the opportunities as well as challenges of workers’ participation. In terms of opportunities, worker participation could help, for instance, to channel inter- and intragroup conflicts in the working area, stabilize the development of companies, and increase motivation and commitment of workers. On the other side, worker participation often challenges unions and other external collective actors by raising an intra-labor conflict on the question of who controls what. Participation at plant level also could stabilize unbalanced distribution of resources (e.g., between insiders and outsiders). Pries proposes that new dynamics and social mechanisms might help to counterbalance such challenges. For instance, new social movements or Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) could function as external monitors.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
- 1.
Schmoller 1892, 241, cited according to Fürstenberg 1973, 605; translation L.P. In 1891, Pope Leo XIII had proclaimed the encyclical Rerum Novarum, underlining that all property was committed to promote general welfare and to advance common good. The principles of workers’ participation by their own associations and the need to promote social justice in economy and by property were strong elements that made the so-called Catholic Social Doctrine a strong normative basis for the idea of justice and participation (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rerum_Novarum; Marx 2008). In a similar way, the Chinese philosophical tradition of Confucianism still is a strong normative framing of the idea of work ethics in general and especially the principle of ‘harmony at work’ that underlies the general idea of workers’ participation (Gardner 2016; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confucianism). The term ‘worker’ is used in this chapter including all salaried employees and workers of a given company.
- 2.
- 3.
‘A distinction certainly holds at the theoretical level. It assumes that participation arises and operates through the idea of cooperation between the parties to achieve what tend to be shared goals. Bargaining, on the other hand, is assumed, at least in principle, to involve a conflict (or structural antithesis) of interests. This distinction, however, appears to be contradicted by the recent development of collective bargaining in many countries and by actual experiences of participation, which make the material boundaries between their respective areas of autonomy uncertain’ (Arrigo and Casale 2010, 21); for an example of supposed contradiction of teamwork and union representativeness at plant level, see, e.g. Ortiz 2002.
- 4.
‘Studies show that absence of motivation on the part of management, where no need for improvement measures is perceived, is the most common obstacle to workplace innovation. Other obstacles are lack of correct information, poor ability to promote change and the potential business risks associated with change. Workers’ fear of change is also becoming an obstacle, in particular where the workplace lacks a culture of participation’ (Kurki and Manoliu 2011, p. 7).
- 5.
For general overviews, see the congresses of the International Industrial Relations Association (IIRA) that changed its name into International Labour and Employment Relations Association (ILERA) in 2010, e.g. http://www.ilo.org/public/english/iira/congresses/index.htm; see also Kaufman 2004 and Szell 1992.
- 6.
The term ‘works council’ will be put in capitals when it refers to the specific German or Austrian system.
- 7.
See the extensive documentation of legal texts at http://www.worker-participation.eu/About-WP/Legal-texts and the scientific research on workers’ participation in the EU at http://www.worker-participation.eu/.
- 8.
See the corresponding articles at http://www.worker-participation.eu/National-Industrial-Relations/Countries/
- 9.
For the distinction of regulative, normative, and cognitive basis of legitimacy and power, see Scott 2001.
- 10.
- 11.
In this chapter, the work China and Chinese always refers to the People’s Republic of China; for details, see also Pauls and Pries 2012 from where some parts of the following text are taken.
- 12.
For the labor law, see, for example, https://www.ilo.org/dyn/natlex/docs/WEBTEXT/37357/64926/E94CHN01.htm; all specific laws are accessible via corresponding Wikipedia entries.
- 13.
{21} There is, however, no such thing as private ownership established by nature, but property becomes private either through long occupancy (as in the case of those who long ago settled in unoccupied territory) or through conquest (is in the case of those who took it in war) or by due process of law, bargain, or purchase, or by allotment. On this principle the lands of Arpinum are said to belong to the Arpinates, the Tusculan lands to the Tusculans; and similar is the assignment of private property. Therefore, inasmuch as in each case some of those things which by nature had been common property became the property of individuals, each one should retain possession of that which has fallen to his lot; and if anyone appropriates to himself anything beyond that, he will be violating the laws of human society.
{22} ‘But since, as Plato has admirably expressed it, we are not born for ourselves alone, but our country claims a share of our being, and our friends a share; and since, as the Stoics hold, everything that the earth produces is created for man’s use; and as men, too, are born for the sake of men, that they may be able mutually to help one another; in this direction we ought to follow Nature as our guide, to contribute to the general good by an interchange of acts of kindness, by giving and receiving, and thus by our skill, our industry, and our talents to cement human society more closely together, man to man’ (Cicero 44 BC); see also http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sozialpflichtigkeit_des_Eigentums).
- 14.
See, for example, Hohn 1988; http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syndicalism
- 15.
For the hypothesis of union bureaucracies as interest and actor group operating quite independent from member interests, see, for example, Wilke and Müller 1991 for the German case; for the hypothesis of mutually win-win situations, see Trinczek in this volume and, for example, Bispinck 2005; in a general theoretical way Camfield 2012; Mandel 1975, 1992.
- 16.
Bibliography
Agarwala, T. (2010). Innovative Human Resource Practices and Organizational Commitment: An Empirical Investigation. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 2, 175–197.
Arrigo, G., & Casale, G. (2010). A Comparative Overview of Terms and Notions on Employee Participation. Labour Administration and Inspection Programme. LAB/ADMIN, Working Document Number 8. Geneva: International Labour Organization.
Bispinck, R. (2005). Betriebsräte, Arbeitsbedingungen und Tarifpolitik. WSI-Mitteilungen, 6, 301–307.
Bolle de Bal, M. (1992). Participation. In G. Szell (Ed.), Concise Encyclopaedia of Participation and Co-management (pp. 603–610). Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter.
Camfield, D. (2012). What Is Trade Union Bureaucracy? A Theoretical Account. In C. Fanelli & B. Evans (Eds.), Great Recession-Proof? Shattering the Myth of Canadian Exceptionalism (pp. 133–155). Ottawa: Red Quill Books. Available from: http://www.alternateroutes.ca/index.php/ar/article/viewFile/19221/16548. Accessed 13 Sept 2016.
Cicero, M. T. (44 BC). De officiis. Available from: http://www.constitution.org/rom/de_officiis.htm. Accessed 25 July 2013.
Davignon Group (High Level Group of Experts on ‘European Systems of Worker’s Involvement’) (1997). Final Report 14.5.1997 (IP/97/396). Available from: http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-97-396_en.htm. Accessed 13 Sept 2016.
Dehnen, V. (2014). Grenzüberschreitende Verhandlungen. Wie Akteursdynamiken und institutionelle Umwelten Internationale Rahmenvereinbarungen beeinflussen. Frankfurt/New York: Campus.
Dombois, R., & Pries, L. (1999). Arbeitsbeziehungen zwischen Markt und Staat. Neue Arbeitsregimes im Transformationsprozeß Lateinamerikas. Münster: Westfälisches Dampfboot (in Spanish: Relaciones Laborales entre Mercado y Estado: Nuevos Regímenes de Trabajo en la Transformación Latinoamericana. Caracas: Nueva Sociedad 2000).
ETUI. (2015). Benchmarking Working Europe. Brussels: ETUI.
ETUI (European Trade Union Institute). (2014). Benchmarking Working Europe 2014. Brussels: ETUI.
Eurofound (European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions). (2009). European Company Survey 2009: Overview. Luxembourg: Office for Official Publications of the European Communities.
European Commission (Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion). (2008). Employee Representatives in an Enlarged Europe (Vols. 1 and 2). Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.
European Commission (Directorate-General for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion). (2011). Industrial Relations in Europe 2010. Luxembourg: Publications Office of the European Union.
Felisini, D. (2014). The European Enterprise as a Key Player in the European Economic Model. A Historical Perspective. The EuroAtlantic Union Review, 1(0), 153–169.
Fricke, W., & Schuchardt, W. (1984). Beteiligung als Element gewerkschaftlicher Arbeitspolitik: Erfahrungen aus Norwegen, Italien, Schweden und der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Bonn: Neue Gesellschaft.
Fürstenberg, F. (1973). Mitbestimmung am Arbeitsplatz. Gewerkschaftliche Monatshefte, 10, 604–613.
Fürstenberg, F. (1993). Individual and Representative Participation, Dualism or Dilemma? Research and Practice in Human Resource Management, 1, 53–66.
Gardner, D. K. (2016). Confucianism: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Geren, B. L. (2016). The Chinese Work Ethic: Significance of Confucianism. Available from: http://www.wbiconpro.com/436-Brenda.pdf. Accessed 14 Sept 2016.
Gill, L. (2016). A Century of Violence in a Red City. Popular Struggle, Counterinsurgency and Human Rights in Colombia. Durham: Duke University Press.
Hauser-Ditz, A., Hertwig, M., & Pries, L. (2008). Betriebliche Interessenregulierung in Deutschland. In Arbeitnehmervertretung zwischen demokratischer Teilhabe und ökonomischer Effizienz. Frankfurt am Main/New York: Campus.
Hauser-Ditz, A., Hertwig, M., & Pries, L. (2013). Between Instrumentalization and Co-determination. Patterns of Collective Employee Representation at the Plant Level in Germany. Employee Relations, 5, 509–526.
Hauser-Ditz, A., Mählmeyer, V., & Pries, L. (2015). Überfordert im Managen von Vielfalt? Euro-Betriebsräte im Strukturwandel der Automobilzulieferindustrie. Frankfurt am Main: Campus.
Hauser-Ditz, A., Hertwig, M., Pries, L., & Rampeltshammer, L. (2016). A Transnational Solution for Transnational Labour Regulation? Company Internationalization and European Works Councils in the Automotive Sector. New York: Peter Lang.
HBS/ETUI (Hans Böckler Foundation/European Trade Union Institute) (Ed.). (2004). Workers’ Participation at Board Level in the EU-15 Countries. Reports on the National Systems and practices. Brussels: HBS/ETUI.
Hertwig, M., Pries, L., & Rampeltshammer, L. (Eds.). (2010). European Works Councils in Complementary Perspectives. Brussels: ETUI.
Hertwig, M., Pries, L., & Rampeltshammer, L. (2011). Stabilizing Effects of Cross-Border Institutions. The Case of the European Works Councils. European Journal of Industrial Relations, 17(3), 209–226.
Hohn, H.-W. (1988). Von der Einheitsgewerkschaft zum Betriebssyndikalismus: Soziale Schließung im dualen System der Interessenvertretung. Berlin: Sigma.
IDE (International Research Group Industrial Democracy in Europe). (1981). Industrial Democracy in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
IDE (International Research Group Industrial Democracy in Europe). (1993). Industrial Democracy in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
International Trade Union Congress (ITUC). (2006). Staff and Workers Representatives Congress Under Chinese Labour Law. Available from: http://www.ihlo.org/LRC/ACFTU/000804.html. Accessed 25 July 2013.
Kaufman, B. E. (2004). The Global Evolution if Industrial Relations: Events, Ideas and the IIRA. Geneva: ILO.
Kost, A. (2013). Direkte Demokratie. Lehrbuch. Wiesbaden: Springer.
Kurki, L., & Manoliu, M. (2011). Innovative Workplaces as a Source of Productivity and Quality Jobs (Own-Initiative Opinion). Brussels: European Economic and Social Committee. Available from: http://www.eesc.europa.eu/?i=portal.en.soc-opinions.14984. Accessed 16 May 2015.
Mandel, E. (1975). Self-Management: Dangers and Possibilities. International 4, Winter/Spring. Available from: https://www.marxists.org/archive/mandel/1975/xx/selfman.htm. Accessed 13 Sept 2016.
Mandel, E. (1992). Power and Money: A Marxist Theory of Bureaucracy. London: Verso.
Marshall, T. H. (1950). Citizenship and Social Class, and Other Essays. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Marx, R. (2008). Das Kapital. Ein Plädoyer für den Menschen. München: Pattloch.
Meyer, J. W., & Rowan, B. (1977). Institutionalized Organizations: Formal Structures as Myth and Ceremony. American Journal of Sociology, 83(2), 340–363.
Müller, T., Platzer, H.-W., & Rüb, S. (2008). International Framework Agreements – Opportunities and Limitations of a New Tool of Global Trade Union Policy. Briefing Papers No. 8. Bonn: Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung.
Müller-Jentsch, W. (1999). Konfliktpartnerschaft. Akteure und Institutionen industrieller Beziehungen. München: Hampp.
Müller-Jentsch, W. (2007). Industrial Democracy: Historical Development and Current Challenges. Management Revue, 4, 260–273.
Niedenhoff, H.-U. (2005). Mitbestimmung in der Bundesrepublik Deutschland. Köln: Deutscher Instituts-Verlag.
Ortiz, L. (2002). The Resilience of a Company-Level System of Industrial Relations: Union Responses to Teamwork in Renault’s Spanish Subsidiary. European Journal of Industrial Relations, 3, 277–299.
Pauls, R., & Pries, L. (2012). Changing Labour Relations in China’s Automotive Industry. International Journal of Automotive Technology and Management, 4, 376–394.
Piehl, E. (1973). Multinationale Konzerne und internationale Gewerkschaftsbewegung. Frankfurt am Main: Europäische Verlagsanstalt.
Poole, M. (1982). Theories of Industrial Democracy: The Emerging Synthesis. The Sociological Review, 2, 181–207.
Poole, M. (2008). Industrial Relations: Origins and Patterns of National Diversity (1st ed., 1986). London: Routledge.
Powell, W. P., & DiMaggio, P. J. (Eds.). (1991). The New Institutionalism in Organizational Analysis. Chicago: University of Chicago.
Pries, L. (1993). Volkswagen: ¿Un Nudo Gordiano Resuelto? [Volkswagen: Ist der Gordische Knoten gelöst?]. Trabajo, 9, 7–23 (UAM, Mexico).
Pries, L. (2004a). Renaissance of the German Carmakers During the 1990s: Successful Japanization or the Development of a Genuine Business Model? In M. Faust, U. Voskamp, & V. Wittke (Eds.), European Industrial Re-structuring in a Global Economy: Fragmentation and Relocation of the Value Chains (pp. 131–155). Göttingen: SOFI.
Pries, L. (2004b). New Production Systems and Workers’ Participation – A Contradiction? Some Lessons from German Automobile Companies. In E. Charron & P. Stewart (Eds.), Work and Employment Relations in the Automobile Industry (pp. 76–102). New York: Palgrave Macmillan.
Pries, L. (2005). Configurations of Geographic and Societal Spaces: A Sociological Proposal Between ‘Methodological Nationalism’ and the ‘Spaces of Flows’. Global Networks, 2, 167–190.
Pries, L. (2008). European Works Councils as Transnational Interest Organisations? In L. Pries (Ed.), Rethinking Transnationalism. The Mesolink of Organisations (pp. 155–173). London: Routledge.
Pries, L. (2013). Transformations in Work Organisation and Labour Regulation. In V. Pulignano, J. Arrowsmith, & G. D. Rocca (Eds.), The Transformation of Employment Relations: Institutions and Outcomes in the Age of Globalization, Routledge Research in Employment Relations (pp. 133–148). London/New York: Routledge.
Pries, L. (2016). Erwerbsregulierung in einer globalisierten Welt. (2nd ed., 1st ed., 2010). Wiesbaden: VS Verlag.
Pries, L., & Seeliger, M. (2012). Transnational Social Spaces Between Methodological Nationalism and “Cosmo-Globalism”. In A. Amelina, N. Devrimsel, T. Faist, & N. G. Schiller (Eds.), Beyond Methodological Nationalism: Social Science Research Methodologies in Transition (pp. 219–238). London/New York: Routledge.
Rosenbohm, S. (2015). Verhandelte Mitbestimmung. Die Arbeitnehmerbeteiligung in der Europäischen Aktiengesellschaft. Frankfurt/New York: Campus.
Schmoller, G. (1892). Ueber die Entwicklung des Großbetriebes und die sociale Klassenbildung. Preußische Jahrbücher,69(4), 457–480.
Scott, R. W. (2001). Institutions and Organizations. Thousand Oaks: Sage.
Serra, N., & Stiglitz, J. E. (2008). The Washington Consensus Reconsidered. Towards a New Global Governance. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Stollt, M., & Meinert, S. (Eds.). (2010). Worker Participation 2030. Four Scenarios. Brussels: ETUI.
Szell, G. (Ed.). (1992). Concise Encyclopaedia of Participation and Co-management. Berlin/New York: Walter de Gruyter.
Tudyka, K. P. (Ed.). (1974). Multinationale Konzerne und Gewerkschaftsstrategie. Hamburg: Hoffman und Campe.
Waddington, J. (2011). European Works Councils and Industrial Relations: A Transnational Institution in the Making. New York/London: Routledge.
Walton, R. E., & McKersie, R. B. (1965). A Behaviorial Theory of Labor Negotiations. An Analysis of a Social Interaction System. New York: McGraw Hill.
Whyte, W. F., & Whyte, K. K. (1991). Making Mondragon: The Growth and Dynamics of the Worker Cooperative Complex, Cornell International Industrial and Labor Relations Reports. Ithaca: Cornell University.
Wilke, M. & Müller, H.-P. (1991). Zwischen Solidarität und Eigennutz. Die Gewerkschaften des DGB im deutschen Vereinigungsprozeß. Melle: Ernst Knoth.
Wimmer, A., & Glick Schiller, N. (2002). Methodological Nationalism and Beyond: Nation-State Building, Migration and the Social Sciences. Global Networks, 2, 301–334.
Wissel, R. (1971, 1974, 1981). Des alten Handwerks Recht und Gewohnheit (= Einzelveröffentlichungen der Historischen Kommission zu Berlin, Bd. 7) (Vols. 1–3). Berlin: Colloquium.
Xiaoyang, Z., & Chan, A. (2005). ‘Staff and Workers’ Representative Congress. An Institutionalized Channel for Expression of Employees’ Interests? Chinese Sociology and Anthropology, 4, 6–33.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Pries, L. (2019). Workers’ Participation at Plant Level in a Comparative Perspective. In: Berger, S., Pries, L., Wannöffel, M. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Workers’ Participation at Plant Level. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-48192-4_3
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-48192-4_3
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-48191-7
Online ISBN: 978-1-137-48192-4
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)