Conflict in the Workplace, and its Resolution

ABSTRACT This paper identifies four areas of conflict which arise in contemporary workplaces, conflict between management and workforce over initiative, especially with respect to decisions over choice of product and methods of production, over productivity and the response to declining demand, over innovation and technological redundancy, and over division of the company's income.
All four types of conflict are traced to the existence of the employer/employee relationship, which generates these conflicts by perpetuating both real conflicts of interest and conflictual attitudes.
The conflicts could be resolved if the employment relationship were abolished as the standard manner of participation in the economy. This paper argues for the abolition of the market for labour while retaining markets in goods, services, and capital, by the transformation of firms into production co-operatives, in which partnership, not employment, is the normal relationship to the enterprise.
The advantages of such a scheme are briefly touched on, and then some of the more obvious difficulties in implementing it are discussed. These include the Trade Union interest, problems of ownership and capital formation, recruitment questions, and capitalist resistance.