WORKER CO‐OPERATIVES AND THE LABOUR PROCESS

The need to survive in a capitalist economy provides considerable constraints within which co‐operatives must operate. Existing research has been misplaced in believing that the co‐operative doors can be closed and analysis made without reference to the economic environment. Within these constraints some control over the labour process is still possible. Some potential for democratic control by the workforce exists. This control of the labour process within the co‐operative is complex and rests on three levels: control of the work process; control of the co‐operative process; control at the level of the individual. Further investigation is needed into the processes that are at work in the crucial transition from early exhilaration to practical control of the co‐operative process and through that the work process itself.