Industrial Democracy in America: The Ambiguous Promise.

What does the history of the idea of industrial democracy offer in the way of guidance to those promoting or opposing its revival? Given current interest in this ambiguous idea stirred by the Dunlop Commission on the Future of Worker-Management Relations, by Labor Secretary Robert Reich, by union turmoil (including dissent inside the UAW-GM Saturn experiment), and union setbacks abroad (as in Israel and Sweden), a scholarly analysis of the last century of industrial democracy efforts is quite welcome, especially one as informative, wide-ranging, and provocative as this one.

Eleven original essays explore lessons from history for the "remarkable rights consciousness," the …