Little research has been done to verify speculations about reasons for the upsurge of interest in workplace democracy in recent years. This study analyzes personal interview and mail survey data from workers in Gothenburg in 1977 and 1980, to discover what differentiates advocates and opponents of the idea. Although different categories of workers appeared basically like-minded about the effects of Sweden's new Codetermination Law, opinions on further democratization of the workplace varied according to workers' political philosophy, job experiences, and, to a lesser extent, upbringing. Some changes in the base of support for workplace democracy were detected, especially in terms of job-related factors.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
ALBRECHT, S.
(1981) “Preconditions for increased workers' influence.”Work and Occupations8 (May): 252-272.
2.
ALBRECHT, S.
and S. DEUTSCH (1983) “The challenge of economic democracy: the case of Sweden.”Economic and Industrial Democracy4 (August): 287-320.
3.
ANDREN, G.
(1976) “Varfor gick det som det gick i valet?”Sydsvenska Dagbladet Snallposten (December 5): 3.
4.
ARONOWITZ. S.
(1973) False Promises. New York: McGraw-Hill.
5.
AVRICH, P.
(1973) The Anarchists in the Russian Revolution. Ithaca, NY: Cornell Univ. Press.
6.
BERNSTEIN, P.
(1980) Workplace Democratization. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Press.
7.
BLOMQVIST, M.
(1981) Vem bestammer medbestammandet?Stockholm: Arbetslivscentrum.
8.
BLUMBERG, P.
(1969) Industrial Democracy. New York: Schocken.
9.
BRECHER, J.
(1972) Strike!Boston: South End Press.
10.
CARNOY, M.
and D. SHEARER (1980) Economic Democracy. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
11.
CHINOY, E.
(1970) Automobile Workers and the American Dream. Boston: Beacon.
12.
COLE, G.
(1972) Self-Government in Industry. London: Hutchinson.
13.
DAHLSTROM, E.
, K. ERIKSSON, B. GARDELL, O. HAMMARSTROM, and R. HAMMARSTROM (1971) LKAB och demokratin. Stockholm: Wahlstrom and Widstrand.
14.
DEUTSCH, S.
(1981) “Work environment reform and industrial democracy.”Work and Occupations8 (May): 180-194.
15.
EDLUND, S.
and S. GUSTAFSSON (1976) Medbestammanderatten. Boras: Tiden.
16.
EDWARDS, R.
(1970) Contested Terrain. New York: Basic Books.
17.
ERIKSSON, J.
(1971) Syndikalistisk syn pa ekonomisk demokrati. Stockholm: Federativs Forlag.
18.
FLACKS, R.
(1970) “Who protests?” pp. 141-239 in J. Foster and D. Long (eds.) Protest!New York: Morrow.
19.
GORZ, A.
(1973) Socialism and Revolution. New York: Anchor.
20.
Goteborgs-Posten
(1976) “Okat Meidner-motstand aven bland LO-anslutna.” (December 1): 17.
21.
GUERIN, D.
(1970) Anarchism. New York: Monthly Review Press.
22.
HAAS, A. (1977) “Workers' control in working-class consciousness.” Ph.D. dissertation, University of Wisconsin, Madison.
23.
HAAS, A.
(1980) “Workers' views on self-management: a comparative study of the United States and Sweden,” pp. 276-295 in M. Zeitlin (ed.) Classes, Class Conflict, and the State. Cambridge, MA: Winthrop.
24.
HAAS, A.
(1983) “The aftermath of Sweden's Codetermination Law.”Economic and Industrial Democracy4 (February): 19-46.
25.
HOLTER, H.
(1965) ``Attitudes toward employee participation in company decision-making processes.”Human Relations18: 297-319.
26.
JENKINS, D.
(1974) Job Power. Baltimore: Penguin.
27.
JENNINGS, K.
and R. NIEMI (1974) The Political Character of Adolescence. Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univ. Press.
28.
KAPELIUSH, I. A.
(1979) “Public opinion on electing managers (M. Vale, trans.).”Int. J. of Sociology8 (Winter): 60-80.
29.
KOHN, M.
(1969) Class and Conformity. Homewood, IL: Dorsey.
30.
KORPI, W.
(1978) The Working Class in Welfare Capitalism. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
31.
LIPSET, S.
(1963) Political Man. Garden City, NY: Doubleday.
32.
MACCOBY, M.
(1972) “On humanizing work.”Participation and Self-Management4: 143-151.
33.
MASON, R.
(1982) Participatory and Workplace Democracy. Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois Univ. Press.
34.
MEIDNER, R.
(1978) Employee Investment Funds. Boston: George Allen & Unwin.
35.
MILIBAND, R.
(1969) The State in Capitalist Society. New York: Basic Books.
36.
Ministry of Labor
(1977) Towards Democracy at the Workplace. Stockholm.
37.
ORUM, A.
(1978) Introduction to Political Sociology. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
38.
PARENTI, M.
(1978) Power and the Powerless. New York: St. Martin's Press.
39.
PATEMAN, C.
(1970) Participation and Democratic Theory. London: Cambridge Univ. Press.
40.
QUINN, R.
and G. STAINES (1979) The 1977 Quality of Employment Survey. Ann Arbor: Institute for Social Research, University of Michigan.
41.
RIFKIN, J.
(1977) Own Your Own Job. New York: Bantam.
42.
ROTHSCHILD-WHITT, J.
(1979) “The collectivist organization.”Amer. Soc. Rev.44 (August): 509-527.
43.
RUS, V.
(1979) “Limited effects of workers' participation and political counter-power,” pp. 223-247 in T. Burns, L. Karlsson, and V. Rus (eds.) Work and Power. London: Sage.
44.
SHEPPARD, H.
and N. HERRICK (1972) Where Have All the Robots Gone?New York: Free Press.
45.
STEARNS, P.
(1971) Revolutionary Syndicalism and French Labor. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers Univ. Press.
46.
U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare
(1973) Work in America. Cambridge: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Press.
47.
WESTLEY, W.
and M. WESTLEY (1971) The Emerging Worker. Montreal: McGill-Queen's Univ. Press.
48.
WITTE, J.
(1980) Democracy, Authority, and Alienation in Work. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.
49.
YANKELOVICH, D.
(1979) “Work, values, and the new breed,” pp. 3-26 in C. Kerr and J. Rosow (eds.) Work in America. New York: Van Nostrand.
