Review
"...informative, wide-ranging, and provocative....Academics and activists alike will find this a sound addition to their `must-reading' shelf." Labor Studies Journal
"This is an important and rich book that should and must be read by anyone interested in the quality of working life." Bryn Jones, Contemporary Sociology
"The book is excellently organized and edited...the list of chapter authors is a virtual 'who's who' of labor scholarship...should be listed in any bibliography on the changing structure of work in the United States." Henry P. Guzda, Monthly Labor Review
"...an astonishingly cohesive edited volume that does more than simply provide a rich and detailed history of the idea and practice of industrial democracy in the United States....This is an important and rich book that should and must be read by anyone interested in the quality of working life." Bryn Jones, Contemporary Sociology
"The book is excellently organized and edited...the list of chapter authors is a virtual 'who's who' of labor scholarship...should be listed in any bibliography on the changing structure of work in the United States." Henry P. Guzda, Monthly Labor Review
"It is an excellent anthology, suffering from none of the usual pitfalls of such collections. The chapters are well written, related to a single topic with virtually no overlaps, yet referenced to each other. The introduction by the editors serves as an excellent guide to the contents of the book and the relationships between chapters. It is the book's own best review." Kenneth Casebeer, Law and History Review
Book Description
Industrial Democracy in America begins its close examination of what came to be known among collars of any color as "the labor problem" with the railroad strikes of the 1870s. The contributors cover the theory and practice of the American labor movement, the promise and demise of industrial jurisprudence, the law of collective bargaining, workplace contractualism, and shop-floor reality in the United States auto industry, and compare these with employment systems in Japan. Industrial Democracy in America contemplates America's industrial decline and will provoke questions, even within management circles, of the long-run viability of a work regime that does not respect or motivate its workers--that does not persuade them to identify themselves with the enterprises of which they are members.
Industrial Democracy in America: The Ambiguous Promise FROM THE PUBLISHER
Industrial democracy is an old idea that has once again become both in vogue and controversial. Originally deployed as part of a late nineteenth-century radical critique of American capitalism, the language of industrial democracy - of participation, empowerment, flexibility, and teamwork - is now more likely to be found in the pages of the Wall Street Journal and other business publications. This collection, composed of nine original essays by well-known students of industrial America, offers many insights into the ways in which workers, capitalists, unionists, and managers have come to understand and transform the meaning of democracy and consent in American workplaces, both white and blue collar. David Montgomery, Howell Harris, and Joseph McCartin probe the meaning of industrial democracy during the Progressive Era. Ronald Schatz, Nelson Lichtenstein, James Atleson, and David Brody critically rethink the effectiveness of the collective-bargaining mode, which reached its greatest influence between 1935 and 1970. Finally, Sanford Jacoby and Mike Parker assess current problems of industrial governance in a global workplace.
Art & Photography
Book Info
