DEMOCRATIC PRODUCERISM - ENLISTING AMERICAN POLITICS FOR WORKPLACE FLEXIBILITY

Employee participation in management is a common element of on-going industrial relations reforms. Current liberal productivist models of reform focus on workplace co-operation between workers and managers and on competition among plants. Although there are serious pitfalls for unions in co-operation, American unions have a long history of interest in producerist schemes of labor participation. This essay argues that the actual character of industrial relations and whether or not the new industrial relations serves the interests of union members depends in part on the ability of unions to develop a new producerist vision that politically links workers’ interests at work with the interests of society in a productive economy. © 1991, Taylor & Francis Group, LLC. All rights reserved.