The Survival of Employee Participation Programs in Unionized Settings

Data from two surveys are analyzed to identify determinants of the survival of participative programs in unionized settings. The first survey responses were collected in 1987 from local union representatives of 86 bargaining units involved in a participation program; the second were collected from 66 of those same representatives, as well as 49 of their management counterparts, three years later. A surprisingly low failure rate of approximately 20–30% was reported. The results indicate that the perspectives of managers and union representatives differed sharply. For example, union representatives, but not managers, often ascribed program failure to poor labor-management relations and concessionary bargaining; and union respondents were considerably more likely than management respondents to perceive a program as defunct.