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Workplace Democracy: Why Bother?

University of Regina

Michael Polanyi

KAIROS, Toronto

North American business corporations are currently facing competitive challenges as well as rising public demand for more participative and accountable forms of governance. While they have responded to the competitive challenge by implementing new lean and .exible organizational processes to improve productivity, they have made few changes in governance, and employees continue to have little input into decisions that fundamentally affect them. This article outlines the conventional arguments for workplace democracy and proposes a new, health-based argument. The grounds for an emerging employee rights movement are then presented. The article concludes that while the evidence backing up the conventional arguments for workplace democracy may be equivocal, there are still compelling reasons, both economic and non-economic, to democratize workplaces.

Key Words: employee health • employee rights • industrial democracy • North America • working arrangements

Economic and Industrial Democracy, Vol. 27, No. 1, 173-191 (2006)
DOI: 10.1177/0143831X06060595


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