ABSTRACT
In the introductory part of this book it was described in brief how democratic participation was given shape in a number of African countries under postindependence mobilising regimes, and how privatisation had affected the position of workers and their trade unions. In many countries workplace democracy was exercised as part of trade union structures, combining bargaining and grievance handling with participation in decision making. Sometimes it happened in more or less ‘casual’ forms of participation, like management-initiated participative management, government-induced health and safety committees, frameworks of consultation agreed to by management and unions – or indeed a combination of all these. In a few countries workplace democracy was more structured, with statutory rules and regulations defining rights and duties of the parties involved, prescribing procedures to follow, and defining the ‘status’ of the decisions eventually reached. Where this was the case, the participatory institutions had been introduced by erstwhile mobilising regimes.
