Trade Unions,Industrial Democracy and Collective Bargaining

The demands presented by Trade Unions for Industrial Democracy remain, despite the lack of success in their realization, an important departure from the traditional bargaining objectives they have pursued in the post-war period. The significance of these demands lie in the fact that they explicitly focus on issues of control, particularly with regard to areas of strategic corporate decision making previously excluded from Trade Union influence. The main purpose of the paper is to consider how far the pursuit of these demands is capable of realizing any significant transfer of control to workers over the enterprises they work in. In doing so the paper considers definitions of industrial democracy, competing formulations offered by those concerned with exploring the functional contribution Industrial Democracy can make to Management purposes, and the objectives Trade Unions seek to achieve through industrial democracy. It is argued that the form of Industrial Democracy through which Trade Unions seek to secure their objectives is of key importance. Two main alternatives, that of worker directors and extending collective bargaining are considered in some detail, and the paper concludes that extending collective bargaining is likely to be more advantageous to Trade Unions both in terms of improving their bargaining power against management, and in their attempts to secure Industrial Democracy.