When is Co-Management Participatory?

Abstract

At the end of his article, entitled &dquo;Participatory Unionism,&dquo; Heckscher suggests that his union typology provides a useful framework to focus future research, and that &dquo;participatory co-management,&dquo; in particular, bears a closer look. Does his typology help us to understand variations in the level, patterns and consequences of membership participation within labor organizations ? Since most labor education professionals believe that increased membership participation is the key to strengthening the labor movement and to attaining progressive social change, and since the AFL-CIO has based many of its recent actions on this same premise, Heckscher's &dquo;Participatory Unionism&dquo; is both timely and relevant. I will comment briefly on the usefulness of the typology and then focus most of my attention on Heckscher's s last union type, and the real focus of his article, participatory co-management. Heckscher's ConclusionsAt the risk of oversimplifying, I will briefly restate Heckscher's conclusions with the respect to the first three ideal types in his typology. First, radical unionism emerges and leads to high participation only under specific historical circumstances (war, depression, strong shop stewards movements), it quickly succumbs to the &dquo;iron law of oligarchy&dquo; or fragments due to competing intra-class interests (craft vs. unskilled) and &dquo;has no capacity to sustain itself or to unite workers in broad movements for change.&dquo; In effect radical unionism is a transitional type that, according to Heckscher, &dquo;tends at FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIV on

Local Union Leaders' Conception and Ideology of Stewards' Roles

“…Is this the legacy of the 1980s &dquo;cooperationism&dquo;? Labor academics and activists are divided in their approaches toward &dquo;employee involvement&dquo;-some think unions have no choice but to participate; some offer advice and check lists on how unions should &dquo;protect&dquo; themselves; some over-optimistically promote the &dquo;participatory co-management&dquo; model of unionism, and others object (Heckscher 2001;Mericle 2001;Nissen 1997;Rachleff 2001).…”