Abstract
How do we craft workplaces where employees feel valued, heard, and well-treated? Do worker co-operatives that have shared ownership and governance promote activism better than conventional hierarchical workplaces? In her well-researched book, Co-operative Workplace Dispute Resolution: Organizational Structure, Ownership, and Ideology, Elizabeth Hoffmann provides fresh insight into how organizational structures and contextual factors shape grievances and how workers raise their concerns. To better understand how industry can matter, Hoffmann uses a clever comparative case study approach of conventional and co-operative workplaces in three different industries: taxicabs, coal mining, and organic food distribution.
In the early part of the book, Hoffmann contrasts conventional workplaces (where managers and owners dictate the timing of work, the daily work tasks that need to be accomplished, and workplace rules and procedures) against worker cooperatives where all workers equally own the company and participate in decision-making. Along the way, questions like whether or not hierarchy is necessary within organizations, how shared ideology and goals may operate in its place, and whether or not post-Fordist trends in management (such as high-performance work systems) foster employee engagement are raised. Hoffmann then progresses to a concise and accessible discussion of dispute resolution; the conditions necessary to move a worker through the grievance steps of naming, blaming, and claiming; and factors that shape whether workers air their complaints through formal or informal mechanisms, tolerate the problem, or simply exit the job.
In the heart of the book, Hoffmann introduces each of her case studies and provides a rich description of each workplace’s culture, history, work tasks performed, race/ethnicity, and gender composition. By interviewing workers about troubles they have experienced on the job, how they dealt with these troubles, and why they chose the pathway that they did, the author casts a wide net that offers us a rare glimpse into dispute resolution. The stories told from the 128 interviews she conducted are sometimes serious and sometimes humorous and range from everyday slights with coworkers and clients to safety concerns and shady management practices.
Compared to their counterparts in conventional workplaces, workers in cooperative workplaces used a larger array of dispute resolution strategies and were less likely to simply tolerate a problem. Moreover, when grievances were raised in these shared governance environments, it sometimes led to positive organizational change that benefited all workers and the overall success of the company (such as improved safety standards, more inclusive workplace cultures, more productive ways of working, or rules being interpreted more fairly).
While Hoffmann finds that flattened hierarchies, shared governance, and a unifying ideology positively shaped dispute resolution options and outcomes, her case studies also reveal how hard it is for workplaces to transcend the sexism, racism, and classism that are present in the wider culture. Even in the most conscientious of workplaces, membership divisions occurred. Having a formal grievance policy was especially important in these situations.
Co-operative Workplace Dispute Resolution could be used in labor studies, organization, human resource, or management courses, but it would also appeal to business leaders and labor activists who are striving to create work environments that are productive, innovative, and just. The book offers useful practical suggestions that can be readily incorporated into all organizations, whether they are conventional or cooperative, large or small, or for-profit or non-profit.