How to boost democracy in the workplace? The case of ‘Erroak’ process (2022-2023) in ‘Bogan’ cooperative group

Laburpena

this article addresses the topic of democracy in the workplace, understood as the participation of workers in management. Given our research question "How to promote democracy in the company", we carry out research from the perspective of the cooperative company. By using the systematisation methodology and techniques such as observation, group interviews, focus groups and data collection through a questionnaire, we carry out a case study of the "Erroak" process (2022-2023) implemented by the second-degree cooperative "Bogan". The co-operative, founded in 2018 and with around 800 workers, aimed to use this process to establish its ideological foundations in view of the major growth it had experienced and the recent merge of the three first-degree co-operatives of which it is composed. The interest of the process in view of the research question is that it represents a way of promoting democracy in the workplace through the collective construction of ideology. In addition, other ways of promoting democracy in the workplace have been identified through the case study, such as creating a team in charge of facilitating participation; reviewing the state of the objective, subjective and organisational conditions for cooperative identity and participation in management; or involving a broad base of workers in the design and prioritisation of management decisions. The implementation of these and other actions identified in this article brings us closer to an emancipated society in which human beings can truly deploy all their capabilities.