In regard to workplace occupations, the decision relates to workers’ assessments of their situation and their expectations about whether this will bring useful leverage.
Britain in the 1970s was a period of crisis and polarisation. Workplace closure led to resistance by workers, which defined the relations between capital and labour for subsequent decades.
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.
The history of worker management of Barcelona's transit system during the revolution and civil war is an illustration of the ability of workers to directly manage the industries where they work.
In Argentina, the government attempted to ‘institutionalise’ the occupied factories, de- politicising the radical aspects of workers’ actions in exchange for financial and technical assistance.