means for transforming capitalism in a nonviolent direction, especially because they do not challenge the foundations of capitalism. They are a type of cooption. They are essentially about making capitalism work a bit more fairly. Capitalism is retained but with some adaptation for people’s needs. Although they do little to challenge the foundations of capitalism, job campaigns are essential for the survival, standard of living and self-esteem of many people and communities.
Workers’ control
For a strong contrast to campaigns for better wages and conditions, jobs or the right to organise, consider a campaign for workers’ control, namely for the alternative in which workers collectively and democratically control all aspects of work in an enterprise, including who does what, who gets paid what, and what gets produced. With workers’ control, owners and managers are eliminated or made irrelevant to the actual operation. This is also called workers’ self-management.[4]
There are various ways a campaign for workers’ control could proceed. It might be by lobbying government to introduce it as a more efficient method of production. It might come about by enlightened owners turning a company over to the workers, as has happened on a few occasions, such as with the Scott Bader Company in Britain. It might come about when workers join together to buy out a failing company. Finally, it might come about by a direct takeover by workers.
The focus here is on scenarios in which direct worker action is the primary driving force behind introduction of workers’ control. Few governments have ever supported it and few private owners have relinquished their role. The exceptions most often occur during revolutionary upsurges, for example during the Russian Revolution when workers took over factories (making them into “soviets”). The Bolsheviks supported this while it served the purpose of helping overthrow the existing regime but introduced bureaucratic control once the party had solidified its power.[5]
So to the check list.
1. Does the campaign help to
• undermine the violent underpinnings of capitalism, or
• undermine the legitimacy of capitalism, or
• build a nonviolent alternative to capitalism?
Most obviously, workers’ control is a nonviolent alternative to capitalism, since it dispenses with the need for owners and managers. One self-managed enterprise itself does not constitute an alternative, but as a model, workers’ control provides a fairly comprehensive alternative, typically along anarchist lines.
If workers do a reasonable job in running an enterprise themselves, this undermines the legitimacy of capitalism. The standard ideology is that organisational hierarchy is essential for purposes of efficiency. A functioning workplace based on participatory principles is a living rebuttal of this ideology.[6] This is one good reason why workers’ control is so often attacked by governments.
If workers’ control is introduced by workers buying an enterprise, or by owners voluntarily relinquishing their role, there is no challenge to the use of state power to enforce property rights. But if workers’ control comes about as a takeover of private property, without going through legal requirements — as in the case of a revolution — then this also becomes a challenge to the violent underpinnings of capitalism.
In summary, workers’ control satisfies point 1 extremely well.
2. Is the campaign participatory?
If workers’ control is brought about through the initiative of workers, it is almost bound to be participatory. On the other hand, if workers’ control is a “gift” from owners or imposed by government, participation may be much lower. Indeed, it may require considerable effort to convince workers that it is a good thing.
Participation of the wider community — namely, those who are not workers — is not automatic in workers’ control. If workers decide how to do their work, that doesn’t really affect others all that much. But what if workers decide what products to produce? That certainly affects others, and a fully partipatory campaign would involve community members in such decision making.
One of the most famous workers’ campaigns involved the British firm Lucas Aerospace in the 1970s. Responding to the possibility of job cuts, the Lucas Aerospace Shop Stewards’ Committee took the initiative to investigate and propose possibilities for producing alternative products using the highly skilled workforce. The alternatives proposed, including road-rail vehicles, kidney dialysis machines and artificial limb control systems, included some products that were socially beneficial even if not as profitable as other options.[7] The Lucas workers’ initiatives were repeatedly rebuffed by management but inspired many people around the world. They do provide evidence that workers, if given a say over what is produced, are likely to think more about community needs than a traditional management.
3. Are the campaign’s goals built in to its methods?
Compatibility between means and ends is greatest when workers start exercising control as a method to bring about workers’ control. Compatibility is least when the method is to lobby governments.
4. Is the campaign resistant to cooption?
Workers’ control seems like such a radical alternative that cooption would be difficult, but the reality is closer to the opposite. There have been a host of ways to give workers some semblance of participation and control over their work while falling far short of full workers’ control.
One option is to have worker representatives sitting on the board of management, along with executives and owners. This is a type of “industrial democracy” modelled on representative government.[8] It preserves the conventional structure of a corporation with board, chief executive officer and various levels of management down to workers at the coal face. The worker representatives on the board are usually outnumbered but, more importantly, they often adapt to the corporate way of doing things. They can serve useful purposes for workers, to be sure, but they can also help management by soothing the relationship between management and workers.
Industrial democracy can also be introduced at lower levels, with various committees formed allowing workers at different levels to be represented. Again, this can serve useful purposes but may also give greater legitimacy to the hierarchical structure, since workers seem to have some input into decisions but are very far from controlling things fully.
Further down the hierarchy, it is possible to have “semi-autonomous work groups,” which are groups of workers who make many of the decisions about how they do their work. Rather than being given very narrow and rigid tasks by bosses, groups of workers decide how to achieve a more general work goal, including who does what
