ABSTRACT
The ability of employees to influence the actions of their employer has been a contested area of working life since the beginnings of the modern industrialized economy. Where the size and nature of organizations are such that direct and frequent contact between employee and employer ceases to be commonplace, employees often seek a mechanism for putting their collective views and interests to their employer or manager. The most established mechanism for voicing the common concerns and opinions of workers to management or employer is representation by trade unions.1 However, our attention in this chapter is not solely on trade unions. We consider other forms of indirect or representative ‘participation’ by employees in managerial decisions, forms which some commentators have regarded as substitutes for the role which unions have traditionally played in the employment relationship. We also consider forms of ‘direct participation’ where no intermediaries between employees and management are involved. We then look at how the various combinations of direct and indirect participation have varied through time and across different types of workplace. At the end of the chapter we see how the various arrangements for employee voice are currently associated with employees’ perceptions of how responsive management is to their views and suggestions and how successful managers are in creating a climate of fairness at work.
