The Social Bases of Support for Workplace Democracy

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Abstract
After analyzing attitudes toward the distribution of political power, Form and Rytina (1969) called for increased investigation of the relationship between social stratification and political ideology. This article complements their focus by analyzing attitudes toward the distribution of power in the workplace. We do this specifically by examining the social bases of support for workplace democracy in the United States. Workplace democracy is important because in and of itself, it is an indicator of the democratic versus undemocratic tendencies of individuals, and support for it questions the existing distribution of power between workers and owners/managers. Drawing on data from a 1975 national sample, our principal findings are that there is widespread support for a democratic reorganization of power in the workplace, with blue-collar workers being the most in favor of it and managers the least disposed to it. Furthermore, affluence does not seriously decrease blue collar workers' support for it. In the concluding section, we discuss the practical and scholarly implications of these results.