WORKERS’ PARTICIPATION AS A POLITICAL
WEAPON: SOME LESSONS OF A DISPUTE IN
THE CONSTRUCTION INDUSTRY

M.A. Bienefeld

Introduction

Workers' participation is often treated as that most useful of
panacea, namely the kind that can be applied in all situatons,
across ideological and systematic boundaries. But the wide range
of managers and administrators who hail its benefits seem often to
be united only in the notion that it promises support of present
managerial practices. The workers are expected suddenly to mature
and become ‘responsible’, which means to see problems from the
managerial perspective ‘as they really are’. Hence these same en-
thusiasts speak readily about political interference in managerial
decisions, which are represented as objective, even scientific, in
nature — though when pressed they may also be heard to insist
upon managerial prerogatives and ultimately even the essential
rights of private property. They are united in their refusal to
recognise the existence of objective conflicts of interest, or the
very real shortcomings of hierarchical and authoritarian decision-
making mechanisms. The achievement of efficiency, narrowly
defined, is seen as the managerial function. Other considerations
are paid lip-service, but in practice they invariably count for very
little.

Little wonder that the expectations generated by this kind of

wishful thinking are often disappointed, for workers brought face
to face with company problems tend to employ their own

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