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Contrary to prevalent arguments in the literature on Iranian work councils ('showras'), this article contends that the push for councils was a premature initiative. While political repression was a very important factor in the defeat of council movement, the demise of the movement stemmed mainly from the weaknesses of the Iranian working class and the left, from the nature and structure of the councils and from the objective conditions in which they were operating. Questioning the theoretical and conceptual basis of workers' councils and worker control, the article points to different forms of industrial democracy as the only viable option for articulating the demands of working people.

During the Portuguese revolution of 1974-1975 many production and service firms came under worker control. The movement for worker control in enterprises, though part of a larger movement for self-determination in other institutions, was inspired less by ideology than by the need to preserve employment in the face of economic crisis, capital flight, and owners' refusal to meet contractual obligations. Despite adverse circumstances during the revolution and neglect by subsequent conservative governments, these firms have achieved real worker control: though they generally maintain traditional work organization, they have taken steps toward hierarchical and income equality and, by mobilizing workers' commitment to their firms and to each other, salvaged foundering enterprises and usually increased production and employment. Since maintaining employment is their primary goal, the economic logic which governs them is different from that in capitalist firms. The place of worker control in revolution and socialist transition is discussed.

A vast amount of research on women and work indicates that women have not gained parity with men in the paid workforce. Workplace democracy is particularly relevant for women. I employ US national survey data from 1991 to analyze women's support for worker control over workplace decision-making. The nature of this support is hypothesized using four branches of feminist theory. An analysis of the gender gap in attitudes is performed and then I incorporate logistic regression to test for cleavages in women's attitudes. The lack of consistency across the items suggests that these specific work issues are not reflective of a larger, generalized predisposition to workplace democracy. I conclude by considering the relationship between women and the labor movement. Union-supported worker participation is most likely to improve women's working conditions.

A vast amount of research on women and work indicates that women have not gained parity with men in the paid workforce. Workplace democracy is particularly relevant for women. I employ US national survey data from 1991 to analyze women's support for worker control over workplace decision-making. The nature of this support is hypothesized using four branches of feminist theory. An analysis of the gender gap in attitudes is performed and then I incorporate logistic regression to test for cleavages in women's attitudes. The lack of consistency across the items suggests that these specific work issues are not reflective of a larger, generalized predisposition to workplace democracy. I conclude by considering the relationship between women and the labour movement. Union-supported worker participation is most likely to improve women's working conditions. (Economic and Industrial Democracy / FUB)

Technology is enabling new forms of coercion and control over workers. While digital platforms for labour markets have been seen as benign or neutral technology, in reality they may enable new forms of worker exploitation. Workers in precarious conditions who seek employment via digital platforms are highly vulnerable to coercion and control via forms of algorithmic manipulation. This manipulation is enabled by information asymmetries, lack of labour protection, and predatory business models. When put together, these deficits create a perfect storm for labour exploitation. This article describes how digital platforms alter traditional labour relations, summarises case data from several existing studies, and details emerging forms of worker control and barriers to worker agency. It explores current definitions of forced labour and whether digital spaces require us to consider a new conceptualisation of what constitutes force, fraud, and coercion. It concludes with a summary of possible responses to these new forms of abuse in the global economy, including alternative models for business and for worker organising.

This thesis examines the role of accounting control and labour resistance in platform organisations. In the context of disaggregated forms of work, the applicability of traditional modes of management control is unclear. As such, this thesis is motivated by the complexities and opportunities that characterise the literature on control and resistance in platform organisations. Uber is selected as the site for investigation. Drawing on interviews with 36 Uber drivers from Australia, France and Canada, and a wide range of secondary materials, this thesis asks the following questions: (i) how do we understand the control that platform organisations exert over their disaggregated workforces? (ii) what are the effects of this style of control? (iii) why and how do workers resist the conditions and control they are subjected to in the provision of disaggregated work? and (iv) what are the implications of this resistance on the management control environment? This thesis addresses these research questions by means of two articles. Combined, these articles contribute to the literature on accounting control and resistance in platform organisations as follows: (i) Article One conceptualises platform-based control as technocratic, where technocratic control is understood as control enacted through data accumulation and experimentation, and the corresponding predictability of worker behaviour; (ii) Article One argues that algorithmic technologies enact control with dividualising, as opposed to individualising, effects; (iii) Article Two conceptualises resistance as the workers' opposition to constraining controls that are decoupled from the neoliberal promises of the platform organisation; and (iv) Article Two finds that resistance is mobilised because of threats to the drivers' imagined sense of self-identity rather than because of threats to a narrative of identity already established. Together, the two articles affix the post-disciplinary foundations of platform-based control and labour resistance

China's export-led manufacturing model has been built on extensive exploitation of its migrant workforce under a despotic labor regime, but the methods of control have shifted considerably during the past decade and a half. This article examines new modes of domination over Chinese factory workers, based on fieldwork conducted while the author was living with workers at a foreign-invested garment factory in southern China. The article shows how mechanisms to control the workers are embedded today not only in directly coercive practices but also in a new shop floor culture with affective personal ties and implicit bargaining in wage systems. Against the scholarly literature of management controls that emphasizes rupture and discontinuity between labor regimes, this article argues that China's emerging labor regime, here referred to as "conciliatory despotism," inherits despotic features of the labor regime exercised in the 1990s but adds new normative measures of soft control that seek to conciliate worker resentments. This hybrid form of management control represents a stage in China's evolving labor-management relations in which workers possess more implicit power and can push management into greater concessions than previously.