Toward a Theory of Worker Participation

This paper proposes that the emergence of shop‐floor worker participation projects in many of the largest corporations in the United States has major theoretical interest because it points to a shift in the structure of American management from Taylorist forms of organization toward “post‐Taylorist” systems based on “relative worker autonomy” and limited democratic organization on the shop floor. The postulated shift toward “relative worker autonomy” is explored, first, in terms of the contradictions and failures of Taylorism‐specifically its failure to integrate workers or bind them effectively, either psychologically or ideologically, to their jobs and firms. While the costs of worker dis‐integration have led management to initiate post‐Taylorist labor control systems, an analysis of participative experiments suggests that these new systems produce new contradictions engendering worker expectations and entitlements for democracy in the workplace. The analysis suggests the need for a reformulation of current theories of the capitalist labor process that can explain both the emergence of “integrative” labor systems based on participation and democratic legitimations and also the new forms of contestation they produce.