Document created: 21 March 03
Air University Review, September-October 1977

Industrial Democracy and the Future
Management of the United States Armed Forces

Editor's note: This article is adapted from a paper presented at the International Studies Association convention, March 1977. The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of the Department of the Navy or any other agency of the U.S. government.

THERE IS an ideological movement afoot among the industrial, democratic nations of the Western world to enhance the "quality of work life." This movement is predicated on the belief that the nature of the work performed by most people in these countries is demeaning and dehumanizing. One of the primary components in the quality of work life movement is the pressure for increased participation of rank-and-file employees in decision-making, i.e., pressure for industrial democracy. It is crucial that United States military leadership at all levels be aware of this trend. If the nature of industrial democracy is understood by military leadership, it can be turned to that advantage of all. On the other hand, if this movement is ignored or misunderstood, there will be detrimental consequences.

Industrial Democracy
in Retrospect

In order for one better to understand the driving forces behind the industrial democracy movement, it is useful to trace its historical development. As a type of democratic development, it is, of course, partly related to the general historical trend in the Western world toward the fuller exercise of democratic and egalitarian principles. Ironically, the end of the eighteenth century, when strides were being made in the establishment of political democracies, the advent of the Industrial Revolution created working conditions and practices that reduced rather than increased worker freedom and self-responsibility. These conditions continued well into the twentieth century, and as management became a skill and discipline in its own right, the first formal management style reflected these conditions perfectly, namely, scientific management. This approach to management dealt with human performance efficiency in the same way as with machine performance efficiency, by breaking the job down into the smallest, simplest individual tasks possible. Human motivation was assumed to be a function of need deprivation, best met with extrinsic reinforces such as money. The underlying assumption regarding human nature was what Douglas McGregor characterized as Theory X: ^l People are basically lazy and must be enticed into working hard by the promise of tangible rewards for increased efforts. The result of this "scientific" approach to management was that work for most people was characterized by trivial, repetitive tasks, that employees were treated by management as untrustworthy children, undesiring and incapable of handling responsibility, motivated only by money and other tangible incentives. 

The industrial democracy movement, which has gathered momentum in the past 10-15 years, has not only been a manifestation of a general political trend but more particularly a reaction to dehumanized, meaningless work content and to the demeaning way in which employees are frequently treated. In some ways, it has been made possible by the strong union movement which preceded it. When scientific management reached the zenith of its popularity at the beginning of the twentieth century, it was fairly accurate to assume that employees were primarily motivated by tangible incentives. Prior to World War II, the wages, hours, and working conditions for the average employee were poor, and improvements in the physical aspects of working life were understandably the most important. The unions derived their strength from satisfying worker demands for more extrinsic benefits, and unions generally have been highly successful in this regard.

The increase in extrinsic benefits for the rank-and-file employee relative to management, coupled with an overall increase in prosperity, has created a situation in which other, more intrinsic aspects of work have assumed a new salience. These relate to the nature of the work itself and the employees' feelings of control over it. Because there has now been an entire generation raised under conditions almost free from material deprivation, those entering the labor force in the last ten years have significantly different psychological demands and expectations of their working life than did those before them. Essentially they expect to have the opportunity to determine for themselves what work they do and how they do it. Not only do they expect to be given responsibility over their own work but they also expect to be asked to contribute suggestions toward overall operations. They expect to have their opinions valued and receive appreciation when they offer their opinions.

Unfortunately, the social upheaval of the late 1960s obscured in most people's minds, including those of the older military generation, this most fundamental aspect of the "youth revolution." During that time the most salient characteristics of youth emphasized by the media were self-indulgence, freedom of personal expression, rebellion against authority, and experimentation with unsanctioned experiences such as drugs, communal living, etc. Some of this behavior has been dismissed as that of only the radical few; some of it has been dismissed as a "phase" which all youth undergo in some form or another; some of it has been attributed to permissive childrearing practices. It is frequently assumed that these behaviors will change once individuals have to take responsibility for making their own way in the world. All of this discounting overlooks the one fundamental difference between this new generation of employees and their predecessors: the younger people expect and in fact will demand more responsibility and decision-making authority over their working lives, i.e., they are pushing for industrial democracy.

Perhaps the toughest job in dealing with the youth will be that of the immediate supervisor. He will be at the interface of the generations, and a difficult place it will be. Most young people will see their supervisors not so much as a person with formal authority who tells them what to do, but as a facilitator who provides them with the things they need to get the job done. This facilitation could be in the form of technical knowledge, physical resources, financial resources, or moral support. The personal attributes young people are likely to react most favorably to in their immediate supervisor are technical competence, honesty, sensitivity to the feelings of others. Finally, they will expect their immediate supervisor to recognize their individual talents and to challenge these talents in an atmosphere that allows them as much freedom as possible to "do their own thing." ²

This characterization of the new work force does not take into account individual differences. After many years of search for the one best style of leadership, management theorists have developed a contingency point of view; that is, there is no one best leadership style, rather that which is most appropriate depends on the situation. Management theorists are presently busy trying to determine which characteristics of the situation call for which type of leadership styles. There are numerous variables that could affect the appropriateness of various management styles, not the least of which are the personalities and needs of the employees themselves. Since there are individual differences among people, it is not possible to state that a participative management style is appropriate in all cases. However, it is possible to state that participativeness is usually the most appropriate style to use with employees who are young, whose compensation is fairly high, and who come from higher socioeconomic classes. Since increasingly more employees are falling into these categories, the pressure for industrial democracy is becoming more widespread.

Industrial Democracy,
Codetermination,
and Unionization

"Industrial democracy" is a generic term encompassing all those activities in organizations which increase employee participation in problem-solving and decision-making, at the same time increasing their feelings of self-responsibility for job accomplishment and organizational productivity. The implementation of democratic principles in work organizations takes on a wide range of specific forms, from actions that allow the employee control over getting his or her own work done all the way to actions that give employees a say in the policies and practices of the overall organization. Examples include various forms of group decision-making, flexible working hours, job enrichment, and reduction or elimination of supervision. It is specifically not meant to be confused the effects of industrial management on the political arena; rather it pertains to internal management of organizations.

"Codetermination" is a concept similar to industrial democracy, and some people use the terms interchangeably. For purposes of this article, however, a distinction is drawn between the two terms since their implications are somewhat different. "Codetermination" means that the workers share decision-making power on an equal basis with management, thus giving the work force and management equal amounts of influence over the organization as a whole. It most often takes the form of having an organization's board of directors half comprised of employee representatives. The differences between industrial democracy and codetermination are ones of degree and scope. Industrial democracy does mean increased work force participation, but it does not entail the equal sharing of control of the entire organization. Moreover, while codetermination pertains exclusively to worker influence at the top of the organization, industrial democracy encompasses increased participation at any level, including one's own immediate area of work. Most rank-and-file employees are at an informational disadvantage relative to management in contributing to decisions regarding the whole organization, but they do have the advantage in making intelligent decisions regarding their own work since they usually know more about how to get it done than anyone else.

Another movement with which industrial democracy is often confused is "unionization." It is not the terms themselves that are confused but rather what these movements are meant to accomplish. While both attempt to increase worker influence, they differ in the areas in which they try to gain that influence. Unions in the United States try to increase tangible benefits for employees. Industrial democracy, on the other hand, presses for worker influence over the work itself—a revolutionary demand in terms of traditional labor-management relations in this country. Even in the most heavily unionized places, the organization of the work itself has tended to remain a management prerogative and is fundamentally that which has distinguished management from labor. Thus industrial democracy tends to be more concerned with intangibles such as increasing employee feelings of responsibility, autonomy, effectiveness, etc., rather than with tangible benefits.

The distinction between unionization and industrial democracy can be more fully appreciated by considering what union reaction in the United States has been to the industrial democracy movement. While U.S. unions differ in their acceptance or rejection of the concept of industrial democracy, it is fair to characterize their general reaction as ranging from cautiousness to hostility. For example, William Winpisinger, Vice President of the American Machinists Union, has expressed his opposition to worker participation on governing boards of organizations because it entails a fundamental change in the union's adversary role in bargaining. "Collective bargaining is an adversary relationship. Designed that way, it should be that way, and I think you have to be on one side or the other on it, to maximize your effectiveness. I think you dilute the effectiveness of whichever point of view you have if you deal on any other basis."³ In May 1976, Thomas R. Donahue, Executive Assistant to the President, AFL-CIO, made the following remarks during an address to an International Conference on Trends in Industrial and Labor Relations:

We've watched codetermination and its offshoot experiments with interest, and will continue to do so. But it is our judgment that it offers little to American unions in the performance of their job unionism role (given our exclusive representation status and our wide-open conflict bargaining), and it could only hurt U.S. unions as they pursue their issues of quality of working life, worker alienation, job enrichment, and the like.

We are impressed as anyone with the new opportunities which modern plants and equipment, modern methods of work organization, may create for further humanizing the workplace, and we can be depended upon to participate in serious efforts to study these and develop them further. . .. But we can also be depended upon to scoff at some of the "rainbow chasing" being carried out by the less serious faddists. . . . And we'll be equally cautious . . . of those who will try to turn this into another effort to boost output without sharing the benefits of any increased productivity. . . . In spite of our best efforts to improve the quality of working life, it will remain "work" and the degree of difficulty. . . of discomfort or hardship, will be reflected, as now, as a factor of compensation.⁴

Another example of union negativism toward industrial democracy in the U.S. is the national AFL-CIO opposition to a Congressional bill to make it possible to institute flexitime (flexible working hours) in the federal government.⁵ This bill suspends for a three-year experimental period the requirement for government agencies to pay overtime for time worked past eight hours per day as long as the staggered workdays and workweeks do not average more than 40 hours per week. Of the techniques for increasing industrial democracy, flexitime is probably the most universally successful one thus far. Not only does it provide the tangible benefit of personal convenience to employees but more fundamentally it increases worker responsibility for job accomplishment. Under flexitime employees have the freedom to rearrange their schedules to match the work flow, spending more time per day when the work flow is heavy and easing up when it is light. Moreover, worker responsibility is increased because employees spend more time unsupervised. Employees' feelings of self-worth usually increase as a result of this vote-of-confidence in their trustworthiness. Despite all these benefits of flexitime, the AFL-CIO is fighting the bill because they see it as a hole in their hard-fought dike for assuring employees overtime pay for overtime work. Thus, ironically, they are fighting a benefit that has proved immensely popular and beneficial to employees almost everywhere it has been instituted.

On the other hand, there have been some instances in the U.S. where unions have cooperated in introducing industrial democracy into organizations. The key to success seems to include actively soliciting the union's participation in the process at the outset, making them full partners in the associated decisions. The best known examples are the experiments presently being performed by the National Quality of Work Center, a nonprofit institution dedicated to the study of ways to enhance the quality of work life for employees as well as the effectiveness of organizations.⁶ In each organizational site into which the center has introduced an experiment, the nature of the change is something that must be mutually generated by, decided upon, and agreeable to representatives of management, union, and employees and can be terminated at any time by any one of the parties. Thus, participation in making improvements is the keystone, and the model is one of cooperation rather than conflict. Examples of experiments include the creation of autonomous work teams in a Pennsylvania mining company; the introduction of a reward system (extra pay, time off, or the opportunity to attend school) to groups that meet production standards in less than eight hours in a manufacturing plant; the full-scale reorganization, directed by a joint management-labor-employee committee, of an engineering division of the Tennessee Valley Authority.

The success in gaining union cooperation in implementing democratic organizational practices seems to be a function, then, of actively involving the unions from the outset and allowing them equal influence over the specific nature of the changes. This points to another difference between unionization and industrial democracy: unions work as intermediaries or bargaining agents for the employees, while there is no required intermediary between employees and management in order to institute industrial democracy reforms. Unions are asked to participate in decisions regarding increased democratic practices more because success depends on it than because they are supportive of the concept, which usually they are not. Experience in the U.S., as well as experience elsewhere to be described later, leads one to conclude that in unionized organizations industrial democracy cannot succeed without union support.

It is safe to say that in all democratic nations of the Western world there is an industrial democracy movement, even though its specific nature differs in form, causal factors, and intensity from one country to the next. A comparison of the industrial democracy movements in four countries—Sweden, West Germany, Great Britain, and Italy—with that of the U.S.⁷ will suggest that the U.S. can expect to be influenced by what is happening in some of these countries; on the other hand, it can expect to have certain unique elements in its industrial democracy movement because of particular conditions in this country.

Comparative Analysis of Industrial
Democracy

The Scandanavian countries have been in the forefront of the industrial democracy movement, and their industries were the first to become actively involved in experiments in increased employee participation. For example, the job enrichment programs in traditional assembly-line systems, such as Volvo, have received worldwide publicity. In Sweden the movement probably has its strongest ideological component: industrial democracy is felt to be morally right, and this is reason enough to support it. Moreover, industrial democracy has been relatively easy to implement due to the 60-year Swedish history of fairly classless cooperation between employees and management.⁸ The union situation is streamlined, with most workers belonging to one of the two major union confederations. There are few jurisdictional disputes, and most bargaining occurs at national political levels. Consequently, the labor confederations have had a great deal of influence in seeing legislation passed to benefit their employees. These labor confederations have been actively pressing for all types of industrial democratic reforms. In 1946, works councils to represent employees on shop-floor matters became a legal requirement, and in 1973 legislation was passed requiring direct election of blue-collar and white-collar representatives to the board of any company having more than 200 employees, if the unions in the company so desire. ⁹ On 1 January 1977 legislation took effect providing employees with a qualified veto over many types of corporate decisions. Management must secure employee agreement on all major changes in organization, production, and large-scale staff transfers.¹⁰  

West Germany shares the lead with Sweden in terms of the extent to which industrial democracy has taken hold, but the reasons differ. In Germany, industrial democracy was deliberately installed into the postwar government to ensure against any future return to totalitarianism. The most powerful instrument employed in this regard has been a legal requirement for one-third employee representation on the boards of most companies and one-half employee representation on the boards of steel and coal companies (bearing in mind the close alliance between these latter two industries and the Third Reich). This coequal worker control represents true codetermination. Overall, the experience with codetermination has been viewed positively within Germany. ¹¹ German unions have been the primary political force to press for codetermination, and currently they have been responsible for legislation being considered to require all companies to increase employee representation on their boards to half. The internal political debate on this issue is complicated by the external effects this bill's passage might have on relationships with other countries whose citizens own stock in German firms yet, whose national policy and philosophy do not presently support codetermination. One legal opinion, for example, holds that instituting codetermination into companies which have U.S. stockholders is in violation of the German-American Commercial Treaty of 1954.¹²

Another current development indicative of the strength of industrial democracy in West Germany is the Humanization of Work program. This program, a result of union pressure, represents an expansion in the scope of German union interest in industrial democracy toward enhancing employee influence over their own work and workplace.¹³ Under this program, field experiments in new forms of work and work organization are conducted. While almost all Western European countries have such a governmental program, the German one is the most ambitious, with government funding of about $15 million in 1976 and likely to be $20 million in 1977.

In Great Britain, the situation is quite different, with industrial democracy being far less advanced than in Sweden or Germany. The primary explanation is in terms of the fractionated state of British society, with deep-seated class conflict, deep-seated hostility between labor and management, and even considerable conflict across unions whose structures are fragmented by craft loyalties. One result is that unions, tend automatically to oppose almost anything that management advocates, even proposals to enhance participation of employees.¹⁴ Unions see their power being undercut by abandoning their adversary stance. However since the entry of Great Britain into the Common Market, the British unions have shown increased favorability toward the idea of having representation on company boards. ¹⁵

Italy falls at the other end of the participativeness scale from Sweden and Germany. Many Italian industries are family-owned, and managerial positions are often occupied by family members. Lines of authority and hierarchy conform to traditional bureaucratic models and are clearly delineated. Unions work primarily at the national level rather than the local plant level and consequently focus on political issues. Unions advocate participative practices, but management has for the most part avoided such practices. ¹⁶

The United States falls somewhere in the middle of this dimension of participativeness. Unlike most Western European countries, there is no federally sponsored program in the U.S. to run experiments in industrial democracy and work humanization.¹⁷ Also unlike the unions in these Western European countries, U.S. unions tend to bargain individually at the local plant level, focusing on bread-and-butter issues, while European unions bring their influence to bear on political issues at the national level. The unions in the U.S. and Great Britain are the only ones of these five countries that do not support worker participation because of their adversary model of labor-management relations, with British unions being the more extreme of the two countries. What union support does exist in the U.S. favors ways to increase employees' influence over their own work rather than influence over organizational governing bodies. Of all five counties, the U.S. has most management and corporate support for industrial democracy relative to union or governmental support. This U.S. management support is not based on ideological belief in egalitarian principles but on typical U.S., pragmatism for adopting anything that will result in increased employee productivity and satisfaction. The U.S., having had far less class conflict than Great Britain or Italy, has more informal participativeness in its work practices than either of these two countries. Consequently, there is less alienation of the working class even though formal participative practices are not that frequent.

Policy Implications

There can be no doubt that the United States is caught up in the industrial democracy movement which is sweeping the free world.¹⁸ However, the implications of this fact have by no means been fully appreciated by the leaders of the U.S. armed forces. This lack of awareness, coupled with the conservatism of the military generally, has resulted in a working environment in which many military personnel are alienated because they feel underutilized, dependent, unrecognized, or oversupervised. They resent their potential for contribution going unnoticed, and they resent having little influence over the formulation of military policies and practices. The result is a military work force that is not fully motivated or productive and even sometimes destructive. The gap between the rising expectations and demands of the military work force in this regard and the extent to which these expectations are being met appears to be widening.

There are a number of practical reasons for U.S. military leadership to implement industrial democracy to the extent possible. First, if appropriate forms of democratic, participative techniques are implemented into military organizations, increases in overall military effectiveness and readiness can ensue. ¹⁹ Given the rapidly rising costs of military manpower, increased public questioning of those costs, and the general bite of inflation, it is imperative that this manpower be more fully utilized. Second, if appropriate democratic techniques are implemented into the military structure, the job satisfaction of personnel will increase. Since job dissatisfaction is related to absenteeism and turnover, there would be benefits for retention and personnel costs. Third, since the armed forces must compete with the private sector for manpower, the extent to which the armed forces can recruit sufficient numbers of qualified personnel is a function of what benefits it offers relative to the private sector. Democratic practices are a benefit that the armed forces will be obligated to offer as more and more private enterprises adopt these practices.

The last argument for instituting democratic practices is that it will lessen the pressure for unionization. The basic purpose of a union is to give employees a voice in influencing the conditions of their employment, and industrial democracy provides a partial vehicle for doing just that. This is not to say that democratic management will preclude unionization. Some personnel policies are determined outside the Department of Defense, and the most direct way for military personnel to influence these may be via unions. Moreover, given the current somewhat negative stance of U.S. unions toward industrial democracy, if unions do organize military personnel, industrial democracy will be that much harder for military managers to implement. Nonunionized companies in the private sector have a far freer hand in introducing democratic methods into their management practices than do unionized companies. Moreover, no matter how the unionization issue is resolved for the armed forces, the pressure for industrial democracy will continue. The extent to which these demands for democratic practices are met will have progressively more of an effect on the ability of the armed forces to fulfill their mission.

In addition to the practical benefits, there are moral benefits as well. The military force that sees its mission as defending a nation devoted to democratic principles is forever having to justify why it does not practice those principles it is defending. Management practices that enhance one's feeling of competency, self-esteem, and job satisfaction are worthwhile as long as they do not hamper organizational functioning.

There are two levels at which industrial democracy should be implemented in the armed forces, at the level of general personnel policy and at the level of individual leadership. In personnel policy, there is a management philosophy issue, an image issue, and a policy formulation issue. Military policy-makers must confront the fact that implementing democratic practices represents a fundamental change in the traditional hierarchical, authoritarian managerial philosophy of the armed forces. As the management philosophy changes, so will the public image of that philosophy change. In certain ways, the traditional military management philosophy has more symbolic than actual meaning, since in fact military personnel with technical jobs and skills are rarely being managed by highly authoritarian methods. However, the public image of the military establishment has always been one of strict hierarchy. Top military leadership must be prepared for both the positive and negative public reactions to a change in its management image.

In terms of policy formulation, vehicles should be created for enabling military personnel to have input into decision-making. Due to its combat mission, the armed forces will undoubtedly always have some element of a chain-of-command structure. Consequently, it will require considerable ingenuity to develop representational vehicles, particularly since the vehicles developed in the private sector are probably not directly applicable. In an analysis of the implications of industrial democracy for the U.S. Navy, Krendel and Gomberg stress the need for sharing decision-making with the junior officer corps.²⁰ It is important to note that there are two broad types of policies governing the armed forces: those which the armed force set for themselves and those which Congress sets for the armed forces. The vehicles for enabling rank-and-file input would be somewhat different for these two areas. An example of policies determined by the military would be the rules governing appearance and behavior of military personnel. With rank-and-file input, military leadership should be prepared for changes in those regulations that inhibit personal freedom without hampering productivity or readiness, e.g., personal appearance. An example of military policy set by Congress is compensation. It is reasonable to assume that budget requests to Congress for personnel compensation, for example, would carry more weight if they represented the collective body of opinion of members of the armed forces as opposed to representing the opinions of a handful of high-ranking officers.

At the level of specific command and individual leadership, those democratic methods, if any, which are appropriate depend on the individuals involved and the nature of the unit's mission. Contingency theories of management specify that there is no one best style of management. One instance where democratic methods are rarely appropriate is when a unit is under fire, when quick decision-making is of utmost importance. This is the argument most frequently presented against democratic methods for military management in general. However, most U.S. military personnel never see combat and in fact serve in situations highly amenable to democratic practices.

It is at the level of command leadership that the U.S. armed forces have already taken initiative in introducing democratic practices. This has been done in conjunction with their organization development/organization effectiveness programs. It is here that participative practices are incorporated in to some of the decision-making of individual commands. The most extensive of these programs, the Navy's Human Resource Management System, among other things allows representatives from almost all ranks to contribute toward a command action plan for their organization's improvement.

At the level of individual leadership, there real need to introduce material on the techniques of democratic managerial practice into the formal leadership training provided. There is also a need to increase the frequency with which such training is offered. An example of an appropriate training package is that of Vroom and Yetton. ²¹ In their scheme there are five basic leadership styles, ranging from one extreme, in which the supervisor makes the decision alone, to the other extreme, in which his work group makes the decision. The supervisor chooses the most appropriate style by defining the situation at hand in terms of seven attributes, such as whether the supervisor believes he or she has sufficient information/expertise to make a high-quality decision himself, whether acceptance or commitment on the part of subordinates is critical to the effective implementation of the decision, etc. To the seven situational attributes are applied a set of decision rules to maximize the quality of the decision and the acceptance of the decision by the work group. The outcome is the most appropriate style or set of styles for the supervisor to employ. The training consists of teaching supervisors how to apply these decision rules.

THE IMPETUS within the Western world, since at least the Renaissance, has been in the direction of increased egalitarianism, democracy, and protection of basic human rights. Like any institution, the armed forces must adapt to changes in the environment in order to maintain their effectiveness. While the armed forces have been quick to adapt and adopt when it comes to technological change, they have lagged behind in assimilating changes in the social and cultural environment. Much attention has been paid of late to military personnel restiveness, attributing it to erosion of tangible benefits. While benefits are certainly an important factor, just as fundamental a concern is the right to participate in the decisions regarding those benefits as well as in all aspects of one's working life. This constitutes the demand for industrial democracy, and it is likely that the U.S. armed forces will have to accommodate this demand. The extent to which military leadership takes appropriate action soon or postpones it to the eleventh hour will affect a number of important aspects of military functioning, including recruiting, retention, readiness, the role of unions in the armed services, and the overall quality of military work life.

Navy Personnel Research and
Development Center
San Diego, California

Notes

1. Douglas McGregor, The Human Side of Enterprise (New York: Development McGraw-Hill, 1960).

2. Eugene Koprowski, "The Generation Gap, from Both Sides Now," in Gordon L. Lippitt, Leslie E. This, and Robert G. Bidwell, Jr., editors, Optimizing Human Resources Reading in Individual and Organization Development (Reading, Massachusetts: Addison-Wesley, 1971), pp. 287-88

3. Bill Moyer’s Journal, "Why Work" Part I, produced and written by Alan Levin and Marc Levin, March 21, 1976, pp. 13-14.

4. "Collective Bargaining, Codetermination, and the Quality of Work," World of Work Report, 1 (August 1976), p. 1.

5. Joseph Young, editor, Federal Employees' News Digest (June 14, 1976), p. 1.

6. The Quality of Work Program: The First Eighteen Months, National Quality of Work Center, Washington, D.C. (April 1974-October 1975).

7. It is not within the scope of this article to describe the unionization movement per se in other countries or the unionization of the armed forces in other countries. However, the latter topic has been well covered in an earlier issue of Armed Forces and Society, 2 (Summer 1976), in a series of articles on military unions in Belgium, West Germany, the Netherlands, Sweden, and France.

8. Nancy Foy and Herman Gadon, "Worker Participation: Contrasts in Three Countries," Harvard Business Review (May-June 1976), pp. 73-74.

9. Ibid., p. 74.

10. "Swedish Legislation to Give Veto Rights to Workers," World of Work Report 1 (July 1976), p. 6.

11. A parliamentary commission was appointed to review the German experiences with codetermination through the end of the 1960s. Their findings were based primarily on extensive discussions with managers and others actively involved, and their conclusions were quite positive. Their final report, Codetermination in the Enterprise (commonly known as the "Biedenkopf Report" after the commission's chairman) published in January 1970, is available in English translation from the Anglo-German Foundation for the Study of Industrial Society, St. Stephen's House, Victoria Embankment, Westminster, London SW1A 2LA.

12. Wilhelm Wengler, "A Legal Opinion Given at the Request of the American Chamber of Commerce in Germany," American Chamber of Commerce in Germany, 1974.

13. "Germany's 'Work Humanization' Program Aims at Major Advances in Work Reform," World of Work Report (May 1976), pp. 3-5.

14. Nancy Foy et al., "Worker Participation: Contrasts in Three Countries," Harvard Business Review (May-June 1976), pp. 75-78.

15. David Orr, "David Orr on Employee Representation and Cooperation," Harvard Business Review January-February 1977), pp. 36-41.

16. Arnold S. Tannenbaum, Bogdan Kavcic, Menachem Rosner, Mino Vianello, and Georg Wieser, Hierarchy in Organizations (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1974), pp. 36-46. 17. The National Quality of Work Center began as the Quality of Work Program under the Federal Price Commission in 1972 but has become part of the private sector. It is funded through government, foundation, and corporate sources.

18. The extent to which the movement has become a truly popular, broadly based one as opposed to one of a few narrow interest groups be ascertained by its extensive coverage by the public media. Among the numerous books on the topic are Studs Terkel, Working (New York: Avon 1972); and Barbara Garson, All the Livelong Day (Garden City, New York: Doubleday, 1976). Television coverage has included a two-part series in Bill Moyer's Journal, "Why Work," broadcast on PBS, March 21 and 28, 1976, and segments on CBS's "Sixty Minutes." In addition, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare report Work in America (1972), which described the degradation in attitudes of the American employee toward his work, received much publicity and was the focus on considerable attention.

19. Synergy, the enhanced capability of a group to find a better solution to a problem than any single group member, is well-documented for many types of problems. In a large-scale evaluation of the effects of redistributing influence and control in organizations, Raymond Katzell and Daniel Yankelovich conclude that generally this can produce an increase in both worker satisfaction and overall organization effectiveness, provided that a thoughtful combination of techniques be used rather than a single one in Work, Productivity, and Job Satisfaction (New York: The Psychological Corporation, 1975), pp. 1-36.

20. Ezra S. Krendel and William Gomberg, The Implications of Industrial Democracy for the United States Navy, NKG-10 (Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: Management and Behavioral Science Center, The Wharton School, January 1975).

21. Victor H. Vroom and Philip W. Yetton, Leadership and Decision-making (Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania: University of Pittsburgh Press, 1973).

The long term questions are equally grave. Basic to all of them is the fact that we have indeed become the dependent America pictured thirty years ago by the late Secretary [of Commerce, William Cox] Redfield. Both our economic well-being and our lasting security will rest increasingly on the degree to which we are able to buy abroad the materials once obtainable at home, but now permanently withdrawn from the "carrying power" of our homeland. Hand in hand with provision for a rising flow of imports must come the realization that we can never again afford to be profligate in spending what is left of our natural heritage. The question is no longer one of merely being damned by future Americans as wasters of their inheritance. Instead, it reads: How and to what extent can we provide in the future the assured supply of materials demanded by a healthy and growing American economy? The military corollary follows: without adequate security for such commerce from source to port of entry, our economic future will rest on a gamble.

Colonel Herman Beukema, USA
"U.S. Economic Prospects,"
Air University Quarterly Review
II (Winter 1948), p. 27

Dr. Laurie A. Broedling (Ph.D. George Washington University) is a research psychologist at the Navy Personnel Research and Development Center, San Diego, and a lecturer in management and industrial psychology at San Diego State University. She does research on factors affecting work motivation and productivity. She has published on these topics as well as on the results of survey research within the Navy.

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