Forced Choices

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

"…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

• Illustrations Acknowledgments PART I. INTRODUCTION Introduction Weirton: The Place and Its PeopleAn Ethnography of Class, Community, and Worker Ownership 1. Worker Ownership and Class in America Worker OwnershipEmployee ParticipationPaternalism and ClassClass and Class ConsciousnessOutline of Chapters PART II. HISTORICAL ANTECEDENTS 2. Forced Choices I: Company Town The Antecedents of Paternalism: 1909-1933The Challenge: 1933-1951Quiescence: 1951-1982 3. Forced Choices II: "Buy It or Lose It" One Side of Paternalism's LegacyDivided Loyalties"Business is Business, Morals is Morals"The Limits of DissentThe Final Deal PART III. WORKERS BY DAY 4. Forced Choices III: Employee Participation Participation by DecreeThe Structure of Employee ParticipationIdeology and Employee ParticipationSummary 5. A Fragile Trust: The Normative Order of Employee Participation Facilitators as Industrial TherapistsWorkers and Employee ParticipationInternal 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 LaborProperty RightsCommunity, Nepotism, and Local ControlSummary 8. The Struggle for Control A Changing of the GuardConfrontationTwo Years Later: The Struggle Continues 9. Conclusion The Lessons of Worker Ownership and Participation at Weirton SteelClass, Community, and Worker Ownership Notes Bibliography Index