Industrial democracy is an arrangement that workers set in the Workplace to help them make decisions and share responsibilities and power in the Workplace. Workers participate in decision-making by being involved in participative management organization design in which they are listened to. Workers also share authority by being involved in the final decisive power that makes the hierarchy of power in the Workplace.
Though workers are expected to participate physically in decision-making in industrial democracy, representative democracy can also be done in which workers select members who represent them in decision-making. Industrial democracy can be achieved by having cooperatives and trade unions in which workers are members. Below is a discussion of how the two differ, in aiming to promote democracy.
Worker cooperatives are workers’ cooperatives that are managed and owned by workers. In these cooperatives, workers participate individually in decision-making that promotes industrial democracy.
In worker’s cooperatives, jobs are known to belong to terms as members are employed by their fellow; hence deployment is not common. Cooperatives give extended skills to their members and provide better and more wages. This motivates the members to participate in industrial democracy more.
On the other hand, trade unions are organizations whose members are both employers and workers formed to negotiate payments for workers purposely.
Trade unions also advocate for better health and safety for workers. Trade unions promote industrial democracy by fighting for their members to get remuneration, and it promotes a good relationship between workers and their employers.
Trade union promotes industrial democracy by promoting a good relationship between workers and their employers, improving working conditions for the workers, and solving safety issues in workplaces. This gives workers morale to work well and participate in industrial democracy, which is expected to favor the workers.
A trade union is different from a cooperative in many ways. Trade unions negotiate wages while cooperative associations join to create activities that are not connected to work. Trade union members are both the workers and employers, while cooperative organizations are only formed by workers.
Trade unions mainly aim to improve workers’ wages, while cooperatives aim to protect workers by providing good working conditions and protecting them. Trade union members are not consistently compared to cooperatives whose members last longer since the organizations are of benefit to them.
Compared to trade unions, cooperatives offer long-lasting jobs to their members. Though both trade unions and cooperatives promote industrial democracy, they both cork differently, and cooperative associations are more successful than trade unions.