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Confrontations and Compromise: Dispute Resolution at a Worker Cooperative Coal Mine

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 December 2018

Elizabeth A. Hoffmann
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Abstract

This paper compares dispute-resolution behavior at a large coal mine in South Wales at two times: when the mine was run as a conventional, hierarchical organization by British Coal and, several years later, when it was bought out by the employees and converted into a worker cooperative. Synthesizing themes from law and society, organizational theory, and alternative dispute resolution (ADR) research, I demonstrate how shared ownership, flattened hierarchy, and cooperative ideology impact on disputing behavior. By changing from a hierarchical organization to a worker cooperative, the coal mine increased is level of procedural justice and transformed its dispute-resolution behavior to rely much more on informal resolution. Using qualitative methods, this research draws on 42 in-depth open interviews with miners and managers.

Type
Student Prize Winner
Information
Law & Social Inquiry , Volume 26 , Issue 3 , Summer 2001 , pp. 555 - 596
Copyright
Copyright © American Bar Foundation, 2001 

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