Industrial Democracy at Enterprise Level: Problems and Prospects

Abstract

I have chosen to begin with the quote from Tawney for several reasons. First, I think it succinctly states a profound truth about industrial relations. Without such a starting point I think the search for high trust relations at work will prove very elusive. Secondly, it makes a simple but necessary connection between cooperation, responsibility and power. To suppose that we can, as it were, put questions of power in brackets when discussing industrial democracy is an illusion. Thirdly, when Tawney wrote The Acquisitive Society, he was reflecting on the profound social inequalities of his day. He was prepared to analyse the nature and implications of those inequalities in industry as elsewhere, whilst suggesting alternatives that he thought were morally preferable and administratively practical. The gulf between what he saw and what he wanted to see served as a spur to him. My concern is that those of us who think of industrial relations and how they might be organised might become absorbed in a form of reactionary ‘common sense’.

Cooperation involves responsibility and responsibility involves power. It is idle to expect that men will give their best to any system which they do not trust, or that they will trust any system in the control of which they do not share. (R. H. Tawney)¹