Workplace democracy: The argument from the worker–society relation

Abstract

Numerous arguments have been offered for workplace democracy, that is, the idea that employees should have an equal say in governing the firm. Lately, relational arguments, particularly of a republican and relational egalitarian kind, have become prominent. These claim that workers should have a say in how their firm is governed in order to avoid objectionable, for example, dominating or subordinating, relationships within the workplace. While I find these views appealing, I also believe that they are incomplete. By focusing on the moral quality of workers' interpersonal relations within the firm, that is, to bosses and other workers, they ignore the moral quality of workers' relations outside the firm, that is, to the rest of society. Yet, this latter is of no less significance for the justification of workplace democracy. In this article, I argue that part of the reason why workplace democracy should be adopted is that it allows workers to exert appropriate control over the operations of the firm, thus maintaining a grip on the general character of the relation between themselves as workers of the firm and the rest of society. This argument from the worker–society relation is not intended to refute or replace republican and relational egalitarian arguments, but rather to draw attention to a hitherto neglected aspect of the relational value of workplace democracy which the aforementioned approaches usually do not incorporate. In this way, the present argument strengthens the overall relational case for workplace democracy. The structure of the article is as follows. First, I introduce the concept of and arguments for workplace democracy, focusing on the most prominent relational arguments, that is, republican and relational egalitarian ones. Second, I introduce the concept of the worker–society relation and discuss its moral significance. Third, I present my argument for workplace democracy based on the worker–society relation. Fourth, I discuss the relationship between the argument from the worker–society relation and republican and relational egalitarian arguments for workplace democracy to show how the former differs from and complements these approaches. The last section concludes.