This is of course no explanation of the ‘circumstances’ prevailing
in India and the ‘West’. India launched her ‘joint-management
councils’ in 1958 in order to promote ‘consultative and par-
ticipative management’. These councils were to be consulted by
managements on the administration of standing orders, changes in
techniques or operations and were entitled to receive information
on, and react to, various issues concerning the well-being of the
enterprises. In time, however, both consultation was limited and
information was generally unsatisfactory. Thus the International
Labour Organisation series of studies on this subject concludes
that ‘the Indian experience provides little encouragement to those
who would like to see a greater and speedier development of par-
ticipative managerial practices.’*®

The idea of workers’ participation has not received serious ex-
perimentation in the continent of Africa. In the early sixties,
Algeria tried ‘self-management in a number of enterprises; each
unit of management had, at least in theory, a hierarchy consisting
of ‘the general assembly of workers’, ‘the workers’ councils’ ‘the
management committees’, ‘the President’, and ‘the director’. In
fact on the day preceding the coup that toppled him, Ben Bella is
said to have told a journalist that ‘self-management is more suc-
cessful in Algeria than in Yugoslavia'.*® Notwithstanding, this was
a nine day wonder.

E. Workers’ Participation in Tanzania

In Tanzania, the idea of involving the workers in the
management of enterprises was first substantiated in a Presidential
Circular issued in January, 1970.%° The entire programme is based
on this circular in fact. It is significant that this project was laun-
ched through a Presidential Circular rather than, say, a bill through
Parliament or pressure from the National Union of Tanganyika
Workers (NUTA). This precluded the possibility of a thorough
discussion of the whole idea as well as the details pertaining to its
implementation. In the process, the government machinery seems
just to have been set in motion to implement the directives of the
circular.

The circular directed, among other things, that ‘every Public
Corporation or firm employing more than ten workers .
establish a Workers’ Council . . .> This workers’ council was to
be yet another organ of workers’ representation in institutions and

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