The Logic of Worker (Non)Participation in Yugoslav Self-Management

Abstract

A great deal of research on Yugoslav self-management has docu mented and sought to explain a lack of worker participation and influence in enterprise decision-making. This paper, based on an intensive case study of a Yugoslav plant, examines the kinds of issues over which Yugoslav workers do be come very actively involved in decision-making processes. It finds that workers' implicitly "ideological" values and principles are the key determinant of worker participation. When those values are threatened by a proposed course of action, workers participate vociferously to defend them; when they are not, workers tend to "delegate" decision-making to others At the same time, precisely because of the circumstances leading to heavy worker involvement in decision-making, the decisions in which workers participate most actively are least likely to be those over which they feel they have control, i.e., in conflicts — typically with manage ment — workers' preferences are not likely to be embodied in the final decision. In contrast, on issues where there is no conflict and in which workers as a cohe sive group are not highly involved, the final decision is likely to reflect workers' preferences as much as those of everyone else in the firm. Thus, in the case of blue collar workers, participation in self-management is likely to be inversely cor related with having influence over decisions.