By the same token, in countries such as France and Germany it
is the marriage of convenience between trade unions and industrial
capital which has precipitated agreements on worker represen-
tation in decision-making organs, of enterprises. The systems of
‘workers' committees’ and ‘co-determination’ in France and Ger-
many respectively, provide for the participation of workers in
discussions concerning organisation, administration and such
other matters that affect the efficiency of ‘their’ plants.?

Nevertheless, in the majority of countries even these modest at-
tempts to involve workers have been more of an ideal than a
reality. It has to be noted that in all these countries the institutions
which are created are not intended to give the workers yet another
forum for airing their grievances against management or for
demanding more rewards. These are supposed to be the purview
of trade unions. The councils are inte. Jded to ‘tap’ the initiative
and creativity of the workers for the benefit of production.

Yet it is because of this unrealistic dichotomy — from the
workers’ point of view — that many ‘workers’ councils’ systems
have met shipwreck. Apropos France, Sturmthal reports that ‘of
all institutions creat. d in th~ field of industrial relations at the end
of World War Two none has been more disappointing in its prac-
tical results than the plant committees’.'® However, he goes on to
put the ‘blame’ on the trade unions and the workers for seizing the
opportunity to further wage their struggle against the capitalists.
The committees in France have tended to change, in his opinion,
‘from instruments of co-operation between workers and
management into devices to carry on the class struggle more ef-
fectively in the plants.'’

It is difficult to imagine how workers could disinterestedly
discuss production and productivity without finally concerning
themselves with the distribution of the product. Naturally
managements have an interest in seeing that the real state of
production is not known to workers, and it is for this reason that
even in the cases where the law authorises the workers’ councils
to make suggestions on the use of profits, in practice such
authority is rarely exercised because of employers’ understandable
reticence to provide the workers with all the date and because the
councils’ decisions are usually not binding upon the employers
anyway.

In Sweden, for instance, the councils are entitled to obtain from

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