Stefan Berger is Professor of Social History and Director of the Institute for Social Movements at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany. He is also Executive Chair of the History of the Ruhr Foundation and Honorary Professor at Cardiff University, UK.Ludger Pries is Professor of Sociology at Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Germany.Manfred Wannöffel is Director of the Office for Cooperation between Ruhr-Universität Bochum and the German Metalworkers’ Union (IG Metall).

• 1. Introduction.- 2. Workers’ Participation – Comparative Historical Perspectives from the Nineteenth Century to the End of the Cold War.- 3. Workers’ Participation at the Plant Level in a Comparative Perspective.- 4. Workers’ Participation at Plant Level: Conflicts, Institutionalization Processes and Roles of Social Movements.- 5. Fabians, guild socialists and ‘democracies of producers’: participation and self-government in the social theories of the Webbs and their successors.- 6. Gustav Schmoller – A Socialist of the Chair.- 7. Works Councils as Crucial Social Institutions of Labor Regulation and Participation. Friedrich Fürstenberg’s Concept of Works Councils as ‘Boundary Spanning Institutions’ .- 8. Workers’ Participation – Concepts and Evidence.- 9. Worker’s Participation in Yugoslavia.- 10. Participation and Nationalization: the case of British coal from the 1940s to the 1980s.- 11. Mondragon: Cooperatives in Global Capitalism .-12. Workers’ Participation and Transnational Social Movement Interventions at the Shop Floor. The Urgent Appeal System of the Clean Clothes Campaign.- 13. Workers’ Participation in Australian Workplaces: Past Legacies and Current Practices.- 14. Workers’ Participation at the Shop Floor Level and Trade Unions in Brazil: economic crisis and new strategies of political action.-15. Emergence of Shop Floor Industrial Relations in China.- 16. Workers’ participation in Czechia and Slovakia.- 17. Workers’ Participation at Plant Level - France.- 18. Workers’ participation at the plant level in Germany – combining industrial democracy and economic innovation?.- 19. Workers’ Participation at the Plant Level in India.- 20. Workers’ Participation in Indonesia.- 21. Workers’ Participation at Plant Level: The Case of Italy.- 22. The Rise and Fall of Labor-Management Consultations (Roshi Kyogisei) in Japan.- 23. Labor-Management Council in Korea: A Look at the Past, Contemporary Trends and Challenges for the Future.- 24. Employee Participation at the Plant Level in Mexico: Features and Possibilities.- 25. Workers’ Participation in Management at Plant Level in Nigeria.- 26. Russia.- 27. Workers’ Participation in Spain.- 28. Workers’ Participation at Plant Level: the South African Case.- 29. Workplace participation in Britain, past, present and future: Academic social science reflections on 40 years of Industrial Relations change and continuity.- 30. Workers’ and Union Participation at U.S. Workplaces.- 31. Conclusion: Workers’ Participation at the Plant Level – Lessons from History, International Comparison, Future Tendencies.