S
ince the 1939-45 war industrial democracy has been increasingly discussed and practised in Western
Europe although it has received little attention in many other parts of the world, including Australia.
After a brief discussion of the nature of industrial democracy some of the Australian developments in
this field are mentioned, all of them of recent origin. This is followed by some empirical data on worker,
union and employer opinion and then by an attempt to sum up the arguments for and against industrial
democracy, drawing on the experience of other countries. The final section attempts to draw some broad
conclusions on the topic in lts current Australian context.
