Industrial democracy offers workers the promise of greater control over their working lives. Employers have also supported forms of industrial democracy to improve worker morale and productivity. Industrial democracy can have a variety of implications for capitalism. Workers’ control of businesses through ownership by workers’ cooperatives challenged the traditional notion of the capitalist firm and could ultimately supplant it. Other forms of industrial democracy are less challenging for capitalism. Representative or indirect forms of industrial democracy include works councils and joint consultation, where representatives of workers and managers sit and discuss problems. They can take the form of non-union employee representation (NUER), such as in employee representation plans (ERP) or German works councils, or involve unions, such as union-management cooperation. In the US and the UK, the term “industrial democracy” also refers to collective bargaining, in which employers recognise unions and negotiate a collective agreement that covers wages and working conditions. Direct forms of industrial democracy focus on the way work is organised at the workplace level: these can include team-focused work and semiautonomous work groups. Financial forms of industrial democracy focus on the way financial rewards are distributed through employee stock ownership and profit sharing. The terms “employee democracy,” “employee involvement,” and “employee consultation” are used interchangeably with “industrial democracy.”

This book will focus on the debates and practice relating to four versions of indirect industrial democracy in the interwar period at the workplace level – ERP, union-management cooperation, Whitley works committees and German works councils. It will examine what we can learn from the interwar period to inform contemporary debates about industrial democracy and the “representation gap” of workers without union coverage in the workplace. The book will explore the interwar experiences of these ideas in Australia, Canada, Germany, the UK and the US. ERPs and union-management cooperation emerged in the US, while the UK provided the context for the development of Whitley works committees. The German interest in works councils dates back to the mid-nineteenth century, and culminated in works council legislation in 1920. While Australia and Canada were not the source of these approaches, they are examples of economies that were looking for ideas overseas to ensure labour harmony and industrial productivity in the uncertain world that accompanied the end of the First World War.