(I) (i) Introduction:
Three groups of managerial decisions affect the workers of any industrial establishment and hence the workers must have a say in it. • Economic decisions – methods of manufacturing, automation, shutdown, lay-offs, and mergers. • Personnel decisions – recruitment and selection, promotions, demotions, transfers, grievance settlement, work distribution. • Social decisions – hours of work, welfare measures, questions affecting work rules and conduct of individual worker’s safety, health, and sanitation and noise control.
Participation basically means sharing the decision-making power with the lower ranks of the organization in an appropriate manner.
Definitions:
The concept of WPM is a broad and complex one. Depending on the socio-political environment and cultural conditions, the scope and contents of participation change. International Institute of Labour Studies: WPM is the participation resulting from the practices which increase the scope for employees’ share of influence in decision-making at different tiers of organizational hierarchy with concomitant (related) assumption of responsibility.
ILO: Workers’ participation, may broadly be taken to cover all terms of association of workers and their representatives with the decision-making process, ranging from exchange of information, consultations, decisions and negotiations, to more institutionalized forms such as the presence of workers’ member on management or supervisory boards or even management by workers themselves (as practiced in Yugoslavia). The main implications of workers’ participation in management as summarized by ILO: • Workers have ideas which can be useful; • Workers may work more intelligently if they are informed about the reasons for and the intention of decisions that are taken in a
