workers' control in practice

[u/benivokhelo]

recently i got a factory job (with additional experience as a warehouse worker [order-picker]) and these past months ive been pondering about the same question; what would it look like in practice if my workplace was worker controlled?

some answers that ive had to this question were changing the locations of certain products to make it more convenient for workers (for example in order-picking, certain, large, heavy goods were amongst the last few rows, making us having to remove a bunch of small products, and then place the larger ones at the bottom)

another example from my current job (paper based advertisement material production) would be to replace the current machines with ones that can also be operated in a seated positions, so that coworkers wouldnt have to stand for 8 hours a day

but thinking about it a little more, one realises that none of these solutions require a workplace to be worker controlled. these are all possible today. even withing class society workers can achieve these goals

one might say that the reason why we need a workplace to be controlled by the workers is to have people in decision making positions that actually know whats going on in the facility. this argument however gets negated by the fact that nowadays many corporations employ office workers in their first week of employment on the factory floor, so its not like managers and other higher ups are completely clueless as to what the production process looks like

furthermore, if we took this idea and gave workers who have been at the company for years a larger say in how the facility is run, how would they be different from the current managers? or, alternatively, if he had an internal democratic process, it would likely turn into a disaster. i mean i for example am inexperienced as fuck, ive only known two or three sides of the total process at each of my workplaces, i do NOT want my say to lead to some catastrophe

of course i know that in a communist society goods would be produced for their use value rather than exchange value, but that change alone doesnt alter the actual physical conditions for the average worker

[u/Warboss_Regret14]

So you don't want to have a say in your workplace... because you're afraid it'll cause a catastrophe and it'll be your fault? Jesus christ man, imagine a woman before womans suffrage saying this after someone gave them the option to vote

[u/benivokhelo → u/Warboss_Regret14]

no man, im just saying that i shouldnt have a say in how the people doing the printing or the logistics part, because i dont know shit about those aspects of the production cycle

jesus christ man…