was, though at least two out of the fifteen did not know the
TANU Branch Chairman.

What however is obvious at UFI is that there is a much better
relationship between the management and the workers than is
usual in industries generally. This is so partly and maybe mostly
because of the trade union background of the two top officials.
Workers are more at ease with their bosses than anywhere I have
ever seen—and the manager and his subordinates take part in
quite a lot of the workers’ extra-curricular activities.

Yet this should not be overemphasised. The relationship bet-
ween the managers and the workers remains one between
‘business boss’ and ‘factory hand’. The differences in incomes and
the general standard of living as a whole militate against the
growth of harmonious comradeship. Thus often even the attempts
to involve the workers in decision-making at various levels are
regarded at best as exercises in mere window-dressing and at
worst as clever methods of hoodwinking the masses.

Conclusion

Of all aspects in organisation, bureaucracy has received the
greatest attention. Many people with different theoretical and
ideological inclinations have added to the interpretations of the
phonomenon. Similarly, many ways and means of de-
bureaucratisation have been suggested by those who feel it is a
curable disease. Some see it as a necessary component of
organisation itself.

Bourgeois thinking on this issue is often guided by Michel’s
thesis on ‘the iron law of oligarch’, which postulates the existence
in all organisations an inherent tendency towards oligarchic
characteristics. At first glance the ‘law’ seems very straight-
forward, yet is analytically untenable because it looks only at the
outward structures of the organisations—that differentiate
organisations from one another in essence.

To unveil these forms one must examine, first and foremost, the
social relations in the broader context. Organisations, in the final
analysis, are but a product as well as an instrument of these
relations. It is for this reason that I chose to examine the relation-
ship between socio-economic systems and the theory and practice

of workers’ participation. Undoubtedly, this discussion must have
seemed very farfetched to some, but I think it is the only way one

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