Workers' Self-Management

Workers' Self-Management (also known as self-management, labor management, autogestión, workers' control, industrial democracy and democratic management) refers to the democratic and horizontal management of a workplace. In some variants, all the worker-members manage the enterprise directly through assemblies; in other forms, workers exercise management functions indirectly through the election of specialist managers. It is a key component of libertarian socialist philosophy, particularly syndicalism.

Data

• Research of self-managed enterprises in the US, Latin America and Europe found self-management had staff working 'better and smarter' with production organized more efficiently. They were also able to organize more efficiently on a larger scale and in more capital-intensive industries than hierarchical firms.
• One meta-study of research on self-managed enterprises found that they 'equal or exceed the productivity of conventional enterprises when employee involvement is combined with ownership' and 'enrich local social capital.'
• One massive meta-study on self-managed enterprises found that they can increase worker incomes by 70-80%, that they can grow 2% faster a year than other businesses and have 9-19% greater levels of productivity, 45% lower turnover rates and a 30% less likely to fail in the first few years of operation.
• One 1987 study of self-managed firms in Italy, the UK and France found a “positive” relationships with productivity. It also found that they do not become less productive as they get larger.
• One 1995 study from the US indicates that “employees who embrace an increased influence and participation in workplace decisions also reported greater job satisfaction”.
• One 1995 study of self-management in the timber industry in Washington, USA found that self-management is "more efficient than the principal conventional firms by between 6 and 14 percent”.
• One 2011 study in France found that self-managed businesses “had a positive effect on workers’ job satisfaction.”
• One 2019 meta-study indicates that “the impact [of self-management] on the happiness workers is generally positive”.
• Three studies from Canada found that self-managed firms were on average half as likely to fail compared to hierarchical firms in the market economy in 10 years.
• One 2014 study from of all businesses in Uruguay between 1997 - 2009 found that self-managed firms worker have 29% smaller chance of closure than other firms.
• One 2005 study from Germany found that on average 1% of businesses failed a year, but only 0.1% of self-managed firms.
• One 2014 study of self-managed firms in Italy found that they were the only kind of workplace that led to increased trust between workers.
• One 2018 study of self-managed firms in South Korea found that workers maintained higher motivation than in hierarchical firms.
• One 2013 study of self-managed healthcare firms in the US found that workers were significantly more satisfied with their jobs than in workplaces.
• One 2012 study of three Italian towns of similar demographics, income and geography and found that towns with more self-managed enterprises had:
  1. Better mental and physical health, and longer lives, with less strokes and heart attacks.
  2. Children were less likely to skip school and skipped school less.
  3. Less crime, including less domestic violence and greater feelings of safety.
  4. Higher rates of ‘social participation’ (joining clubs and charities; giving blood; voting).
  5. Perception of a more positive society, more supportive personal networks and more trust in the government.
• During the Sydney Opera House Work-In, productivity improved by 27% during construction work as workers' self-management was experimented with, due to 'a reduction in absenteeism, abolition of demarcation among work roles, and, in general, more efficient organization of production by the workers themselves.'
• During the Nymboida Mine Work-In production was six hundred to seven hundred tons of saleable coal a week, compared with about five hundred during hierarchical management.
• During the Harco Work-In, production increased by 27%.
• From 1968 to 1972, experiments with self-management in General Electric's aerospace factories saw increased output and machine utilisation, and a reduction on manufacturing losses.
• From 1992 to 2017, the Marland Mold Factory became self-managed and productivity improved by 26%.
• In 2001, FaSinPat in Argentina saw productivity improvements by 50%.

Famous Examples by Country

Main Articles: Historical Examples of Workplace Takeovers and List of Worker Cooperatives

(Note: this refers to examples of workers taking over a capitalist workplace and instituting workers' self-management. Not examples of worker cooperatives which have been set up within capitalism.)

Algeria

During the Algerian Revolution peasants and workers took control of factories, farms and offices that were abandoned, with the help of UGTA militants. Around 1,000 enterprises were placed under workers' control in 1962, with that number quickly climbing to 23,000+ in the following years. The FLN passed laws in the newly independent Algeria which partially institutionalized workers' control, creating a bureaucracy around workers' councils that centralized them. This caused massive corruption among new managers as well productivity and enthusiasm in the project to fall, leading to numerous strikes by workers in protest. Following a military coup in 1965, workers' control efforts were sabotaged by the government which began to centralize the economy in the hands of the state, denying workers control. Following the Black Spring in 2001, degrees of workers' control have been practiced in the area of Kabylie, notably Barbacha.

Argentina

In 1973, with the end of the self-proclaimed Argentine Revolution, there was a wave of strikes and workplace occupations that rocked the country as the first elections were held, mainly in state-owned industry. 500 occupations of workplaces were taken out overall, with 350 occurring between the 11th and 15th of June, mostly of media outlets, health centres and public transport and government administration. These occupations were predominantly done in support of Peronism, and failed to achieve any long lasting results on the eve of the Dirty War. During the Argentinazo in 2001 and in the following years, around 200 workplaces were taken over by their workers.

Australia

Aboriginal Australia arguably practiced degrees of self-management before contact with Europeans for thousands of years around farming, construction of villages, irrigation, dams and fish traps. In Northern Queensland from 1908 to 1920, the IWW and the Australasian Meat Industry Employees Union organized a degree of self-management among meat industry workers. From 1971 to 1990, Australia saw a massive wave of workers' control corresponding with strikes all over the country. Including:

• 1971: Harco Work-In
• 1972: Clutha Development Mine Work-In
• 1972: Sydney Opera House Work-In
• 1972: Whyalla Glove Factory Work-In
• 1974: Wyong Plaza Work-In
• 1975: Nymboida Mine Work-In
• 1975: Coal Cliff Work-In
• 1978: Sanyo Television Factory Work-In
• 1979: Union Carbide Work-In
• 1980: Department of Social Security Work-In
• 1990: Melbourne Tramworkers' Strike

Bolivia

Self-managed firms are promoted by FEJUVE and SEMAPA is partially self-managed.

Bosnia and Herzegovina

In 2015, workers took over the Dita detergent factory in Tulsa that was on the verge of bankruptcy, running it as a co-operative.

Brazil

Around bankrupted 70 enterprises have been taken over by about 12,000 workers since 1990 as part of the recovered factories movement, mainly in the industries of metallurgy, textiles, shoemaking, glasswork, ceramics and mining. This has been concentrated in the South and Southeast of Brazil.

Canada

In 1981, workers led a province-wide takeover and occupation of BC Telephones' phone exchanges for five days in protest of layoffs, privatisation of a public good and the increased deskilling of work.

Chile

Throughout the 1960s and early 1970s, many Chilean workers experimented with self-management within agricultural, manufacturing and transportation industries. Following a wave of strikes for land reform, higher wages and an expanded welfare state. Throughout the presidency of Salvador Allende, 35 enterprises experimented with self-management.

China

Self-managed was practiced in the Guangzhou Commune in the 1920s and the Shinmin Autonomous Zone from 1929 to 1931.

Czechoslovakia

Workers' control occurred during the Prague Spring, by January 1969 there were councils in about 120 enterprises, representing more than 800,000 people, or about one-sixth of the country’s workers. They were banned in May 1970 and subsequently declined.

France

The Paris Commune saw the first applications of workers' self-management to an industrial economy, with 43 enterprises being given to their workers in 1871.

Greece

Since 2016, several bankrupt factories have been re-occupied and controlled by their former workers who blocked the auctions.

India

Workers' Control has been common in West Bengal, where feminist workers took control of a tea plantation in response to abuses from management in 1974. In Calcutta, 20 factories have been taken over by their workers throughout the 1980s and 1990s.

Indonesia

During the Indonesian National Revolution, railway, plantation and factory workers across Java implemented workers' control from 1945 to 1946, until it was crushed by the new Indonesian Nationalist Government. In 2007, over a thousand workers in Jakarta inspired by workers' control in Argentina and Venezuela took over a textile factory in response to wage cuts, repression of a recently organized union and efforts to fire and intimidate union organizers.

Mexico

Self-management has been practiced among farmers in the Zapatista Communities since 1994. Since 2011, Cherán has built 3 new self-managing enterprises, a greenhouse, a sawmill and a concrete factory.

Poland

Workers' control had been practiced in Poland during the Revolution of 1905 as workers protested a lack of political freedoms and poor working conditions. Workers' control also occurred in around 100 industries in the aftermath of World War I with around 500,000 participants. Notably in the short-lived Republic of Tarnobrzeg. As World War II was ending, workers took over abandoned and damaged factories and began running them between 1944 and 1947. In the aftermath of the 1956 Poznan Protests, workers' control was partially applied in 3,300 workplaces, but the top-down nature made people lose faith in them.

Russia

Between the Revolutions in 1917, several instruments of worker representation rose up, called Factory committees. Each committee had varying degrees of workers' representation; with some acting as organs of worker control and management (or at least supervising the managers), while others acted as rudimentary forms of trade unions, participating in collective bargaining agreements. However after the October Revolution, the factory committees became under the control of the trade unions, while following a continuing trend of centralization within the soviets.

The USSR experimented with workers' control with the Kuzbass Autonomous Industrial Colony thanks to the influence from IWW from 1922 to 1926 before being destroyed by the government. During May 1988, Under Gorbachev - along with his reforms of perestroika and glasnost - the Supreme Soviet implemented the Law on Cooperatives. This legislation enabled and regulated the creation of worker owned and control of enterprises, while imposing high taxes and employment restrictions (which deterred the creation of them).

Serbia

From 2003 to 2004 in the city of Zrenjanin, workers battled a private security force after they had taken control of Jugoremedija, a pharmaceutical factory. They were given ownership and control of the factory in 2006.

Spain

During the Spanish Revolution in 1936 and 1937, 1700 workplaces were taken under workers' control. All industry in Marinaleda has been under workers' self-management since 1990s. The town has seen full employment and the lowest house prices in Spain.

Sri Lanka

Under self-management, workers were able to efficiently run the largest bus service in the world with 7,000 buses from 1958 to 1978. The ending of self-management in the industry has led to an increase in accidents, late buses and overcrowding.

Syria

Workers' control has been practiced in several cities and towns during the Syrian Civil War since 2012 as they maintain agriculture, run hospitals and maintain basic social services in the lack of a state. Workers' control is also practiced in Rojava, with around a third of all industry being placed under workers' control as of 2015.

Turkey

In 2013, the Kazova textile factory in Istanbul was occupied by its workers, and in 2014 it was converted into a worker co-operative.

Ukraine

Workers' Control was practiced in Ukraine from 1918 to 1921 within the Free Territory of Ukraine in farms, factories, railways and schools.

United Kingdom

In the 1970s, 260 workplaces were occupied across the UK, many being run with self-management.

United States

In 1919, the Seattle Uprising saw workers' control in milk deliveries, cafeterias, firefighting and laundry.

From 1968 to 1972, General Electric experimented with self-management at their plant at Lynn River Works in Massachusetts as part of their Pilot Program. The results led to immediate increases in output and machine utilisation, and a reduction on manufacturing losses. The program was terminated after it threatened the traditional authority of management and led to too much self-reliance, self-respect and self-discipline among workers.'

In 1976, Gore Associates introduces a high degree of self-management in their factories, which the company credits with its ability to make innovations in technology and maintain high productivity.

Following the Great Recession, the Republic Windows and Doors Factory was occupied and run as a co-operative in 2008. The Evergreen Cooperatives, Cooperative Jackson and United States Federation of Worker Cooperatives are the three largest groups advocating for workers' self-management.

Venezuela

Following the Bolivarian Revolution, there have been two waves of expropriations linked to workers' self-management. The first occurred between 2003 and 2005, the second from 2009 to 2010, both occurred with limited support from the state and unions. With Hugo Chavez claiming 1,100 workplaces had been put under self-management. However, heavy state involvement, a lack of autonomous worker organizing and corruption led to a strong feeling of apathy and growth of a bureaucracy. But in spite of this development, several successful cooperatives have developed from this process, drawing inspiration from figures like Anton Pannekoek and historical episodes of workers' control in Argentina and Yugoslavia.

Yugoslavia

In Yugoslavia, there was a limited degree of workers' control of industry which was encoded into law in 1950. This occurred due to the Tito-Stalin Split and inspiration from the Paris Commune. However, the poorly designed, top-down nature of the workers' councils led to corruption, cynicism and inefficiencies until they were destroyed in the Yugoslav Wars.

See Also

• Anarcho-Syndicalism