Workers’ self-management is associated with times of social transformation. The state may chose to either restrict self-management or facilitate it so the conflict is institutionalised and contained.
Brazilian teacher Henrique T. Novaes looks at advantages and limitations of the Latin American practice of workers trying to overcome capitalist work relations through the control of their workplaces.
Workers' management is not just a new administrative technique: it means that for the mass of people, new relations will have to develop with their work, the very content of work will have to alter.
In regard to workplace occupations, the decision relates to workers’ assessments of their situation and their expectations about whether this will bring useful leverage.
"The difference between councils and trade unions is that, while the latter lose their functions in a decaying capitalism, the former become a prefiguration of the organisation of socialist society."