Worker co-operatives, firms owned and democratically administered by their workers, provide a robust type of industrial democracy with significant historical foundations in Ireland and the European Union (EU). This article analyses the progression of worker co-operatives within these circumstances, mapping their emergence as reactions to social inequity, economic disruption, and the pursuit of fair working standards. It rigorously examines the legal frameworks governing worker co-operatives in Ireland and the EU, emphasising the obstacles presented by fragmented law, restricted access to financing, and insufficient support mechanisms. Notwithstanding governmental support for co-operative principles at the EU level, worker co- operatives constitute a rather insignificant industry. This article examines obstacles to expansion, such as cultural prejudices against conventional corporate methods and insufficient understanding of co-operative governance. Utilising successful models from nations such as Spain and Italy, it delineates plans for development, including adjustments to Irish and EU law, augmented financial assistance, and education about the advantages of co-operative enterprises. This article presents a historical and legal study that highlights the capacity of worker co-operatives to mitigate economic inequality and promote industrial democracy in Ireland and the EU. It desires focused governmental measures to fully realise the sector's groundbreaking potential.

Trade Unions and Industrial Democracy in Zimbabwe’s Health Sector

The article aims to compare the level of social justice in the countries of Central and Eastern Europe (CEE) in terms of the individual indicators that constitute the Social Justice Index and to determine their level of convergence with the European Union average. The paper also describes changes in this area of social justice in recent years and examines the relationship between social justice and industrial democracy. The analysis was based on statistical data from Eurostat and the results of a study conducted by the European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions, the European Institute for Gender Equality, and the Legatum Institute. The findings show that Romania achieves the worst results in most indicators in the Social Justice Index, but many of them have improved significantly in recent years. Slovenia, Czechia and Slovakia are the most successful in preventing poverty and equalising income. The degree of gender equality in all CEE countries was lower than the EU27 average. Finally, CEE countries that promote social dialogue and employee participation rights also have higher levels of social justice.

This article deals with the reception of the Yugoslav model of self-management in Italy between the 1950s and 1970s. Drawing on a wide range of archival sources from Yugoslav and Italian archives, this research provides new evidence about transnational exchanges of models of industrial democracy that transcended ideological barriers and the Cold War divide and linked Italian party elites, trade unions and Christian-oriented movements to the ‘Yugoslav model’ in a common search for a ‘third way’ in industrial relations.

Abstract Inequality has increased over recent decades in many advanced industrial democracies, but taxes have rarely become more progressive. One possible explanation for the lack of a policy response is that, despite rising inequality, voters support higher taxes on incomes weakly, if at all. Using original representative surveys in Austria and Germany, we elicit voters’ preferences over the progressivity of income tax policy and examine whether exposing them to accurate information about inequality affects those preferences. Voters, we find first, express an abstract preference for progressivity but concretely support tax plans that are only somewhat more progressive than the status quo in Austria and less progressive than the status quo in Germany. Second, we find evidence that certain kinds of information about inequality moderately increase progressive tax preferences in Germany; however, we find no equivalent effects in Austria. While information on inequality does seem able to affect tax policy views in certain contexts, it seems unlikely that lack of this information can fully account for the lack of rising redistribution through the income tax system in the face of increasing inequality.

ABSTRACT The intensification of military conflict is leading to sharp increases in military spending across advanced democracies. As public budgets are constrained, the welfare state is a candidate for savings, which could lead to a trade-off between military and social expenditure. Our paper explores how the public perceives this possible trade-off. To do this, we use original public opinion data fielded in 10 advanced industrial democracies to examine the role of different individual and contextual factors that shape attitudes on this trade-off. The results reveal, firstly, widespread opposition to welfare retrenchment for funding military spending. Secondly, our regression analysis identifies unidimensional political conflict: opposition to welfare cuts decreases steadily from the radical left to the right. Thirdly, individual level of concern for war and socio-economic conditions seem to matter much less. Fourthly, individuals in countries with a stronger military presence are more inclined to support welfare cuts, although increases in national military spending further fuels opposition to cuts. The implication is that policymakers who prioritize defence expenditure for national security concerns, may be compelled to decrease welfare expenditure, but this could be politically contentious and could lead to electoral backlash.

This article assembles an archive of published and unpublished material to reconstruct Du Bois’s cooperative critique of capitalism. For most of his life, Du Bois supported efforts to organize African American communities into consumers’ cooperatives and championed cooperation as a key practice of industrial democracy. I leverage these cooperative investments to illuminate Du Bois’s critique of the psycho-social regime of capitalism, taking us beyond the well-studied problem of the “public and psychological wage” of whiteness. African American communities needed a mass cooperative movement, Du Bois maintained, because the practice of cooperation could enact a “readjustment of ideals” away from individualized concerns with wealth accumulation toward an embrace of the ideals of public welfare and no-profit service. Such psycho-social renewal would produce empowered collectives, unburdened by the narrow thinking promoted in capitalist culture and eager to find “new ways of doing things.” While this cooperative critique makes visible Du Bois’s insightful concern that dominated peoples can come to desire their own “exploiting set-up,” translating it into practice proved difficult work. The failure to organize a mass cooperative movement raised a practical question: How do you attract new cooperative participants in a world already saturated with the depleting psychologies of late modern capitalism?

Drawing on war coverage and media studies, this article analyzes coverage of the May 7–11, 2025 interstate conflict that followed the Pahalgam attack in Indian-administered Kashmir and analyses the role of electronic media in India and Pakistan. With the help of Framing Theory and a qualitative content analysis, the study analyses if the media behaved responsibly with regard to informing people about possible pandemics, or irresponsibly by spreading false rumors and exacerbating people’s anxieties. The study tracks the narratives of six top news channels — three each from India and Pakistan — measuring the coverage tone, feelings it invoked, true-true and false-true (sensational) nature of content. The results show that the media of both sides played a role in creating a higher-nationalism and mutual-hostility environment through sensational or false report, but some attempts at fact-checking and balanced journalism existed as well. The paper concludes with the thesis that media was less a force for industrial democracy than a tool of polarization. The article concludes with proposals to reinforce journalistic responsibility, cross-border media collaboration, and media literacy for the public in the event of a crisis.

O presente texto tem como objetivo dissertar sobre o conflito e a posterior ruptura de caráter geracional entre a League for Industrial Democracy (LID), associação de esquerda destinada à formação e discussão política, e aquele que a princípio era seu grupo estudantil Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), no contexto dos Estados Unidos dos longos anos 1960. Para dar conta de tal tarefa esse texto refletirá brevemente sobre a natureza dos embates entre as duas agremiações representantes de distintas gerações esquerdistas norte-americanas e apresentará uma reflexão sobre a noção de metáfora e sobre a possível dialética entre tendências aristocráticas e democratizantes com vistas de interpretar o conflito e o recorte estudado.

Purpose This paper aims to highlight the contributions of American utopian fiction writer Edward Bellamy in the realm of management and workplace history. Design/methodology/approach Critical biography was used to place an understanding of Bellamy’s contribution to management thinking in the context of the social and economic times as well as via his life experiences. Findings Bellamy’s utopian workplace included early elements of industrial democracy, proposed a system of vocational testing, addressed gender differences in the workplace and elevated the role of leisure. Originality/value Consideration of Bellamy’s utopian fiction, and its vision for the USA of year 2000, provides an understanding of ideas that, while outside the management history canon, provides insights into key aspects of humane management theory.

ABSTRACT The transition to democracy in South Africa in 1994 brought with it a new labour relations framework that included a vehicle for democratisation of the workplace – the workplace forums provided for in chapter 5 of the Labour Relations Act (66 of 1995). The potential for the workplace forums gave rise to a lively debate amongst progressive academics and trade unionists. They also gave impetus to a cautious optimism about the prospects for worker participation and change to the adversarial labour relations that characterised South Africa under apartheid. Despite these optimistic perspectives, and Eddie Webster's contributions to them, South Africa's industrial relations have remained relatively unchanged thirty years later. Why is this the case and what has happened to workplace democratisation? This article seeks to review the changing prospects of worker participation and industrial democracy from the mid-nineties to the present. Drawing on local and international literature on industrial democracy and with Eddie Webster's work, in particular, the article aims to expand on the concepts of co-operation and trust in order to gain a better understanding of industrial democracy in South Africa's industrial relations path.

Abstract: Fifty years out from the third wave of democratic transitions, democracy is under threat across the world, in a wave of global retreat for more than a decade (Bermeo, 2016; Carothers and Press, 2022; Carothers and Hartnett, 2024; Freedom House, 2024; V-Dem 2024; Riedl et al., 2025; Svolik, 2020; Somer, McCoy, and Luke, 2021; Haggard and Kaufman, 2021). What is particularly striking is that the increase of authoritarian rule and tactics is occurring across very distinctive buckets: the advanced industrial democracies; longstanding, postindependence democratic regimes; competitive authoritarian regimes consolidating their authoritarian-ness; and more recently established Third Wave democracies with potentially tenuous institutional and economic foundations. And it is even more striking that this global retreat stems from the very combination of liberal economic order with political competition that was fruitful at the outset of the third wave. While the third wave largely rode a global wave of neoliberalism, late-stage neoliberalism's crisis has now become democracy's crisis.

Purpose This study aims to study the impact of unionisation of voter turnout, with unionisation instrumented with a measure of the nature of economic policy. Design/methodology/approach The study made use of IV regression and panel data. Findings Using a nation-level panel of data relative to 20 advanced industrial democracies observed between 1960 and 2015, the empirical results of the IV regression of this paper show that economic policies determine the socio-economic conditions which influence the size of the labour unions, which, in turn, determine voter turnout. Originality/value No paper attempted to account for what influences unionisation when examining the relationship between unionisation and voter turnout.

Evaluating the efficient and effective techniques of Workers Participation In Management is the challenges of the organization to cope up with the changing environment. Organization support provides accountability and responsibility to each employee of the organization. As the communication channel develops the workers involvement and trust towards management and the employees to continue with the satisfaction and cooperation in the system. As the whole productivity of the employee depend on the involvement and organization support with the smooth communication channel regulated in the organization. The trust and loyalty between management and employee creates environment of satisfaction and belongingness. The efficient relationship of management and employees deliver productivity and growth of the organization. Workers Participation at all level in the organization provide open culture and climate. Industrial democracy leads to the satisfaction with upward movement towards efficiency and productivity of the Learning organization. Workers Participation In Management Tools as works committee, Joint Management Council, Board representative, Shop Floor Etc is the way of creating j9b as well as physical security to each employee. How each variable as Management committee, Organization Support, communication Effectiveness, Trust between worker and management, workers involvement effect the workers Participation in management is the focus of the research analysis. WPM will provide social justice and economic prosperity to each employee.

There is a growing need to address the unique challenges of academic staff in universities such as unsatisfactory welfare and incessant disputes. In this regard, industrial dispute management was looked into as a tool to improve the welfare of academic staff in Nigeria. The study adopted the quantitative research approach and descriptive research design. The population of the study was academic staff from six federal universities in Southwest, Nigeria. A sample size of 377 was determined using the Taro Yamane sample size determination and was distributed to the selected Universities based on their respective population. The study sourced for primary data through which a structured questionnaire that was administered online to academic staff. Data collected were analysed with inferential statistical techniques such as correlation and regression analysis. The study found that collective bargaining has significant negative impact on the welfare of academic staff in the universities investigated (β=-0.494, p<005). Similalry, industrial communication had a negative significant impact on the welfare of academic staff in the universities investigated (β=-0.438, p<005). Furthermore, joint consultation had a negative significant impact on the welfare of academic staff in the universities investigated (β=-0.462, p<005). It was also revealed that industrial democracy had a negative significant impact on the welfare of academic staff in the universities investigated (β=-0.319, p<005). It was concluded that the existing industrial disputes management tools are not helping out in improving academic staff welfare in the universities. The study recommends a new approach to improving academic welfare without disputes.

Though “Bartleby, the Scrivener” takes place in the three-block area in and around the lawyer’s Wall Street offices, the uptown attitudes toward city life of the suburbs inform the lawyer’s relationships to his urban or downtown space. Wall Street stands as a central feature of the island city’s history, taking its name from a physical wall built to protect the Dutch from the British and the Indians. As a result, Wall Street served to differentiate the suburban from the urban confines of the city. Through the position of the lawyer in the Master Chancery office on Wall Street and his esteem of Jacob Astor, Herman Melville examines how the lawyer’s view of the city as hierarchical shapes the lawyer’s disaffection from the lives of his idiosyncratic office copyists. But as Bartleby disrupts the customs at the Chancery, Melville alludes to Benjamin Franklin’s own work as a pressman in the Watts Printing House in London. Franklin’s and Bartleby’s labors represent the vast distance between the craft culture of eighteenth-century London and the industrial democracy of antebellum New York City. I argue that Melville criticizes the spatial divide of the city wherein the uptown (private) and downtown (public) faces of the lawyer never amalgamate into a singular conscience. In exploring contrasting accounts of workers trapped in the city, I examine how the lawyer forms a melancholic sympathy with Bartleby that pulls him into the Egyptian gloom of the city. When the lawyer visits Bartleby in the Tombs, he sees the stark and brutal Pharoah-like top-down power structure of the Whig city dissevered from its Whiggish time’s arrow of progress.

ABSTRACT Integrated into a comparative approach across twenty European countries, this article conceptualises, maps, and analyses social dialogue outcomes in the governance of professional sports in Europe. Results derived from an online data collection among key stakeholders and subsequent document analysis show that social dialogue is increasingly practiced, yet still a rare phenomenon in this emerging economic sector. While public authorities are largely excluded, actor constellations underpinning the adoption of SD outcomes and the employment and social issues addressed by them are diverse. In the absence of transnational harmonisation, large differences across countries, types of sports, and gender prevail. Linear and logistical regression models suggest that key characteristics of national industrial relations systems such as collective bargaining coverage rates (using data from the OECD and Eurofound) rather than the specific configuration of national sport policy systems are associated with the (non-)existence of social dialogue outcomes in professional sports. This study advances the international labour rights-based discourse on innovative forms of social dialogue in sport policy making and discusses the implications of the diffusion of industrial democracy for the concept of a European Sport Model and the European integration process.

PurposeThis article presents a compelling case study of a workers’ cooperative in the cultural sector. It offers a unique opportunity to delve into the tensions between managerial and democratic control, particularly in the context of heightened artistic claims. The pivotal role of an accountant in management for nearly two decades sparks a thought-provoking question about the potential for cooperative degeneration.Design/methodology/approachOur research employs a rigorous qualitative method, utilizing semi-structured interviews of six key members and a comprehensive analysis of legal, accounting and other media documents.FindingsOur findings offer a significant perspective, refuting any indications of organizational degeneration. The decision-making processes continue to uphold democratic principles. While the manager and his administrative staff wield substantial authority, this is justified by their duty to preserve the collective. This duty is executed under democratic control, facilitated by information transparency. The low level of democratic participation poses a challenge, but the manager’s initiatives are aimed at addressing this. The effectiveness of this control, however, relies on the active participation of the members, which acts as a strong deterrent against organizational degeneration.Originality/valueThe originality of our contribution lies in our reference to Chester Barnard whose reflections on industrial democracy have been forgotten, reflections linked to his conception of managerial authority. We also highlight the importance of empowering individual members, which leads them to consider the consequences of their actions. As a result, the manager is not placed in a situation where he has to decide alone, as the scope of his unilateral powers is de facto delimited.

ABSTRACT Neoliberalism has reinforced inequality, environmental collapse, famine, refugee crises, supply chain vulnerabilities and more. We agree with Gibson-Graham (2006) that the core of the issue for a post-capitalist politics is to overcome the sense of the inevitability of the dominant system of political economy. With this argument in mind, we analyse the diversity, innovativeness, and resilience of two specific manufacturing alternatives to neoliberal capitalism: the Norwegian industrial democracy and the Mondragon Cooperative Experience. The cases show that each example arises from a unique history, environment, and has unique structures. This diversity shows that there are many paths to workplace democracy, such systems are capable of innovation, and they are internationally competitive. Our comparison also reveals that no successful equilibrium is ever static. Scaling (up or out) to secure market share presents a challenge potentially existential for both models. Reviewing their efforts for meeting these challenges conclude our analysis.

ABSTRACT While most of the literature on public opinion has explored how motivated reasoning makes some individuals discredit survey results in advanced industrial democracies like the U.S., few studies have considered how voters perceive electoral polling in young democracies like Mexico. This study included a survey experiment that found that voters perceived polls that matched their partisan preferences as more credible. Moreover, voters were requested to provide an estimate of candidates’ vote intention. The results highlight that voters’ partisan bias – not lack of information, prior expectations or low levels of interest – makes them overestimate their co-partisan candidate’s vote intention. The findings of this study contribute to our understanding of the conditions that make some voters interpret political events through a partisan lens. Voters choose interpretations that rationalize their partisan predispositions even in young democracies, where partisanship is commonly perceived to be weak.