The Survival of Employee Participation Programs in Unionized Settings

Abstract

Data from two surveys are analyzed to identify determinants of the survival of participative programs in unionized settings. The first survey responses were collected in 1987 from local union representatives of 86 bargaining units involved in a participation program; the second were collected from 66 of those same representatives, as well as 49 of their management counterparts, three years later. A surprisingly low failure rate of approximately 20-30% was reported. The results indicate that the perspectives of managers and union representatives differed sharply. For example, union representatives, but not managers, often ascribed program failure to poor labor-management relations and concessionary bargaining; and union respondents were considerably more likely than management respondents to perceive a program as defunct.

Is labor-management climate important? some Canadian evidence

“…Although it was not possible to directly match union and employer responses, the results from the Nova Scotia union sample suggest that union officials are considerably less optimistic than employers in their perceptions of labor-management climate. This finding is consistent with past research (Juravich et al, 1993;Eaton, 1994).…”

A Comparative Analysis of Developments in Industrial Democracy

“…Tying ESOP tax subsidies to worker representation, however, could establish this critical link. Meaningful employee participation occurs when appropriate structures are in place to provide the vehicle for participation (Eaton 1993). Unions tend to argue, however, that stock ownership gives workers the illusion of ownership without any real control and that it is chiefly a management technique to replace superannuation plans, to reduce union influence, or to cut wages.…”

Employee participation and assessments of support for organizational policy changes

“…Although calls for employee participation program adoption have been attributed to purely moralistic reasons (Locke and Schweiger, 1979), it is unlikely that the average profit-maximizing employer would adopt and continue to use (Eaton, 1994) participation programs on these grounds alone. One possible explanation for the seeming inconsistency is that participation programs may provide benefits in areas not yet as extensively researched as performance and satisfaction (Wagner, 1994).…”