INDUSTRIAL MANAGEMENT

Contents
Workers' Participation in Management: Insights from a Case Study ............................................. 1

Introduction ................................................................................................................................. 1

Methodology ............................................................................................................................... 1

Data collection............................................................................................................................. 2

Major findings ............................................................................................................................. 2

1. Workers participation .......................................................................................................... 2

2. Joint consultation system ..................................................................................................... 2

3. Dispute settlement machinery ............................................................................................. 2

Argument ..................................................................................................................................... 3

Conclusion................................................................................................................................... 3

References: .................................................................................................................................. 4

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Workers' Participation in Management: Insights from a Case Study

Introduction
Workers’ participation in management is an essential ingredient of Industrial democracy. The
concept of workers’ participation in management is based on Human Relations approach to
Management which brought about a new set of values to labor and management (Punekar et al.,
1999).

Traditionally the concept of Workers’ Participation in Management (WPM) refers to

participation of non-managerial employees in the decision-making process of the organization.
But in this day WPM is the participation resulting from the practices which increase the scope
for employees’ share of influence in decision-making at different tiers of organizational
hierarchy with concomitant (related) assumption of responsibility (Buitelaar, 1999).

Workers’ participation is also known as ‘labor participation’ or ‘employee participation’ in

management. Literally, it means a participative arrangement of workers and management in
running a firm (Eaton, 1995).

Along with collective bargaining, workers participation in management forms an essential

component of cooperation in a firm. Collective bargaining means is a term synonymous with
trade unions and their activities as Aryee (1988) 1988) puts it that participation can be perceived
in as involvement in decision making or involvement so as to influence decisional outcome.

The aim of the study is to bring out the degree of support and perceptions of the workers
regarding various schemes of participation in the firm and the dispute settlement mechanism
employed by the trade union. And also try and locate the reasons for workers participation
gaining currency in the firm.

Methodology
The authors do their research in a steel manufacturing firm located in Eastern-India by the use of
a questionnaire survey tool to collect primary data from the workers. This questionnaire
contained both open-ended and close-ended questions. Interviews were also taken from select
key respondent. Secondary data sources and organizational documents were also reviewed. The

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firm studied singles out itself to present a unique case wherein contrary to the experiences of
other firm, workers participation has met with considerable success.

Data collection
The authors were collecting the data from August to October, 2011 by categorizing into three
divisions namely CSI (coke sinter iron), long products and flat products. The total number of
employees in these divisions, thereby constituting the universe of the study was 14,245,
comprising both workers and supervisors. A non-probabilistic purposive sampling was used for
the survey due to the field constraints. A total sample size of 303 workers were surveyed which
was distributed equally among these three divisions.

Major findings
The authors describe the degree of support to worker’s participation in management, consultation
system, and work committee in tables but dispute settlement machinery by graph.

1. Workers participation
From the survey the authors investigate that more than eighty five percent of the workers across
the divisions have welcomed the idea of having joint councils and works committee. They find it
as an opportunity to voice their concerns and issues to the management through dialogue and
discussions.

2. Joint consultation system

The authors observe that more than seventy percent of the workers across the departments have
agreed to the statement, with some departments have agreed to the statement, with some
departments even having all the workers(100 percent) agreeing to the statement. This shows that
the joint that the joint consultation system has been successful in its objective and one of the
reasons for the same lies in the non-overlapping functions of the different bodies.

3. Dispute settlement machinery

Most of the occasions when workers were asked about industrial disputes arising in the firm
more than forty percent is done. Close to forty percent agreed to boss-subordinate discussions for
the settlement of cases.

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The boss-subordinate discussion which takes place within the department is for minor issues that
concerns day-to-day functioning. A large number of workers being not aware of the union
negotiations and dispute settlement machinery points to the communication regarding disputes
settlements or higher level agreements with the management and the union that were not well
disseminated down the line.

Arguments
In order to have a confidence, the sample size must be representative of the total population, it is
critically important that have a large number of randomly-selected participants in each group to
be surveyed. A good maximum sample size is usually 10% as long as it does not exceed 1000
but in this paper the authors use only 2% of the total population this may give inaccurate result in
the evaluation of participation of workers in management in the firm.

The other weakness of this paper is, the authors use non-probabilistic sampling to survey the
total population. But this sampling technique is biased because the researchers select samples
based on the subjective judgment of the researcher rather than random selection and also not all
members of the population have an equal chance of participating in the study, unlike
probabilistic sampling.

Conclusion
Workers' participation in management has not gained much progress in its implementation across
firms, both public and private. The analysis of the field data shows that any form of participation
in management in the concerned firm is welcome. The questionnaire survey and the interviews
conducted with the workers point to the resentment of the trade union functioning. Where the
existence of the union is seen to be more or less redundant by the workers more space for
different schemes of participation emerges and gains popularity. Also, this behavior is
particularly encouraged by the lower and middle levels of management. In order for these
schemes to be successful it is important to inculcate a 'spirit of participation' among the
employees. The firm studied has had a long history of philanthropy work which has gathered
support for assistance and participation in the working of the firm.

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References:
Aryee, Samuel, O. (1988), "Structural Preconditions for Employee Involvement and Influence in
Managerial Decisions" Indian Journal of Industrial Relations, 24 (2): 198-212.

Buitelaar, Wout L (1999). Works, Councils, Consultation, Representation, and Cooperation in

Industrial Relations in Rogers Joel & Streeck Wolfgang book review. Organization Studies,
Winter.

Eaton J (1995). Employee Buyouts in Canada. British J. Industrial Relations, 33(3): 417-458.

Punekar SD, Deodhar SB, Sankaran, Saraswathi (1999). Labour Welfare, Trade Unionism and
Industrial Relations, New Delhi, Himalaya Publishing House.

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