no democracy in government employment, then what?

As a government employee I don't have the ability to change my employment into a democratically ran place, what does that say about government itself as a non democratic establishment of employment and what can government line staff employees do to improve such conditions? Line staff (direct public servants) are the ones doing the brunt of the labor and our benefits and pay are slashed in the same manner as employees in private sector.

Official response from submitted

No rule, law, or precedent dictates where the transition from top-down, hierarchical workplace organizations to democratic, cooperative organizations will occur or prevail historically. In some places, the private sector will be where transition occurs most or most quickly; in other places it will be the public sector. Public employees - e.g. in schools, welfare offices, firefighters, hospitals, etc. - can change and sometimes have changed the organization of their work to democratic cooperation. They encounter opposition from higher level officials, sometimes from the public, etc. In much the same way, private sector workers seeking such transitions encounter oppositions from boards of directors, investors, shareholders etc. Specific of time and place and strength of impulse to transition will determine how, when and where transitions occur. But there is no reason to believe that public transitions are less achievable than private transitions.


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  • Isabel Sydow
    commented 2017-01-05 17:15:08 -0500
    Thank you for your reply. I will continue to share and invite as many to listen and to open their time needed to learn what we could do to bring effective change. It’s a hideously hard uphill battle though.
  • Richard Wolff
    responded with submitted 2016-12-31 14:22:01 -0500
  • Isabel Sydow
    posted about this on Facebook 2016-12-30 10:03:22 -0500
    Ask Prof. Wolff: no democracy in government employment, then what?
  • Isabel Sydow
    published this page in Ask Prof. Wolff 2016-12-30 10:02:58 -0500

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