College and Research Libraries


Participative Manage~ent 

or Unionization? 

One of the legacies of the protest movement of the last several 
years has been a certain restlessness and searching on the part of 
librarians for a greater role in the decision-making process in their 
libraries and a voice in the conditions of their employment. Two pow-
erful ideas and trends have begun to emerge out of this confused and 
stressful situation: participative management and unionization. 

We are told by some authorities that a managerial revolution based 
on participative management is in progress and that the death knell 
is sounding for the hierarchical form of organization. However, other 
evidence and other authorities suggest that the current trend toward 
the unionization of white-collar workers will accelerate in the next 
decade and eventually become the dominant form of employer-
employee relationship in government ~d education-including librar-
ies. While there is perhaps no inherent reason why unionized organi-
zations cannot at the same time be participatory, it is far more likely, 
given their basic conservatism, that unions will reinforce the conven-
tional hierarchical structures and inhibit any parallel movement 
toward participative management. It is clearly understood and ac-
cepted in the union culture that management and employees are in 
an adversary relationship. The workers do not aspire or pretend to 
participate in the management or governance of the organization. 
The unions themselves, despite a veneer of democracy, are frequently 
as authoritarian as the managements they oppose and severely limit 
the individual freedom of action of their members. 

The hypothesis upon which participative management is based is 
that the greater the involvement of the employees in the decision-
making process, the more satisfied and productive they will be and 
the more effective the enterprise will become. Although these as-
sumptions are widely accepted as truisms they have not yet been 
adequately proved. While there is some evidence that involved em-
ployees may be more satisfied, it does not necessarily follow that they 
will be more productive or that their organization will be more effec-
tive. In any case, all of us have hada lifetime of experience and con-
ditioning in conventional hierarchical structures and are accustomed 
to directing, being directed, and generally behaving in certain famil-
iar ways. It would be totally unrealistic to expect that in the space of 
a few short years we will all-managers and managed-shed these 
deeply ingrained habits and attitudes and embrace a whole new life 
and work style in our organizations. Participative manag~ment is a 

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, 
174 I College & Research Libraries • May 1972 

process that must be learned, and the learning will take time and 
effort. 

While it is difficult to predict whether unionization or participative 
management will emerge as the dominant trend in libraries in the 
next decade, it is quite clear that these two ideas are basically incom-
patible. Those idealistic librarians, and there are many, who espouse 
both unionism and participation will be forced to make a choice when 
these two ideas clash as they inevitably must. Whatever the choice, 
there is likely to be considerable disillusionment, for the disadvantages 
of unionism are sometimes underestimated while the promises of par-
ticipative management are frequently exaggerated. 

RICHARD DE GENNARO 

' 
I 

)