Forced Choices

Class, Community, and Worker Ownership

By Charles S. Varano

Subjects: American Labor History
Series: SUNY series in the Sociology of Work and Organizations
Paperback : 9780791441824, 396 pages, May 1999
Hardcover : 9780791441817, 396 pages, May 1999

Alternative formats available from:

Read Excerpt View Table of Contents

Request Desk or Examination Copy
Request a Media Review Copy

Table of contents

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

PART I. INTRODUCTION

Introduction

 

Weirton: The Place and Its People
An Ethnography of Class, Community, and Worker Ownership

 

1. Worker Ownership and Class in America

 

Worker Ownership
Employee Participation
Paternalism and Class
Class and Class Consciousness
Outline of Chapters

 

PART II. HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS

2. Forced Choices I: Company Town

 

The Antecedents of Paternalism: 1909-1933
The Challenge: 1933-1951
Quiescence: 1951-1982

 

3. Forced Choices II: "Buy It or Lose It"

 

One Side of Paternalism's Legacy
Divided Loyalties
"Business is Business, Morals is Morals"
The Limits of Dissent
The Final Deal

 

PART III. WORKERS BY DAY

4. Forced Choices III: Employee Participation

 

Participation by Decree
The Structure of Employee Participation
Ideology and Employee Participation
Summary

 

5. A Fragile Trust: The Normative Order of Employee Participation

 

Facilitators as Industrial Therapists
Workers and Employee Participation
Internal Communications: Public Relations at Work

 

PART IV. OWNERS BY NIGHT

6. Class and Worker Ownership

 

Worker Ownership and the "Equity solution"
Owners by Night . ..
. ..Workers at Heart

 

7. The Moral Economy of Worker Ownership

 

The Value of Labor
Property Rights
Community, Nepotism, and Local Control
Summary

 

8. The Struggle for Control

 

A Changing of the Guard
Confrontation
Two Years Later: The Struggle Continues

 

9. Conclusion

 

The Lessons of Worker Ownership and Participation at Weirton Steel
Class, Community, and Worker Ownership

 

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Examines the celebrated case of Weirton, West Virginia where steelworkers and area residents fought to save a steelmill, community, and way of life.

Description

CHOICE1999 Outstanding Academic Title
2000 Distinguished Scholarship Award presented by the Pacific Sociological Assocation

What happens to employees when their company decides to close? Thousands of workers across America have faced this prospect in the past twenty years, but relatively few have chosen to buy the company and operate it as a worker-owned concern. Forced Choices examines the celebrated case of Weirton, West Virginia, where steelworkers and area residents fought to save a steelmill, community, and way of life.

Charles S. Varano is Assistant Professor of Sociology at California State University, Sacrament.

Reviews

"…an ambitious and important study … Forced Choices is a vivid reminder of the way that corporate managements often attempt to contain employee ownership and involvement and to manipulate ownership and involvement plans to increase profits rather than empower workers. " — American Journal of Sociology

"This book is clearly going to be a sourcebook for those interested in the conditions that affect employer-worker relations, employee ownership, and the current trends in American industry. It captures the flavor of the struggles of workers and is likely to be a classic in the same sense that Alvin Gouldner's Wildcat Strike has been for well over forty years. " — A. Gary Dworkin, University of Houston

"Forced Choices is a great read; a clearly written, engaging story! For those interested in worker ownership, local economic development, the history of company towns, the steel industry, unions or industrial democracy, this is fascinating material. " — Robert N. Stern, Industrial and Labor Relations–Cornell University

"This book makes a very important contribution to understanding the dynamics behind the rhetoric of employee ownership. " — Teresa Ankney, Hood College