0000000000263960
AUTHOR
Keith Breen
Workplace democracy and republican freedom
In this chapter, Keith Breen and Onni Hirvonen examine the case for democratic worker voice based on the republican ideal of freedom as non-domination. While not unconvincing, this case is primarily consequentialist in character and therefore open to significant empirical disagreement. Indeed, together with republican arguments for democratic worker voice, there are republican arguments for worker voice that reject workplace democracy, republican arguments that see state regulation plus a universal basic income (UBI) as sufficient for minimizing workplace domination, and republican arguments that focus exclusively on exit rights and are hostile to augmenting workers’ voice. Breen and Hirvon…
Recognitive Arguments for Workplace Democracy
In this paper we have a twofold aim. First, we wish to show that commitments within recognition theory lend themselves readily for arguments for workplace democratization. This is done through arguing that authoritarian forms of labour organization go against fundamental recognitive needs, generating injustice and unnecessary social suffering that could be ameliorated through giving workers a proper voice. In conjunction with this aim, we offer a defence of the idea of workplace democracy from the perspective of recognition. Our goal is not to override other arguments for workplace democracy, but rather to provide additional reasons to democratize working life.