Democratic justice regimes in work organizations: The case of Israeli taxicooperatives

This article argues that democratic institutions for conflict resolution su ch as an independent judicial process are an important extension of workpla ce democracy. Using a survey of all taxi stations in Haifa, Israel, this st udy tries to describe and explain the existence of democratic justice regim es in work organizations. The study finds that all the worker-owned taxi st ations studied elect both managers to run the stations and judges to operat e an internal court. Most worker-owned stations institute a separation of t he executive and the judicial branches. The study also finds a positive rel ationship between having a majority of hired drivers in worker-owned statio ns and having democratic governance structures, including an independent ju diciary. This finding poses a challenge to existing literature that portray s a growing percentage of hired labour in cooperatives as a sign of 'degene ration' of democratic values. Finally, a positive relationship is found bet ween ethnic succession among members in taxi cooperatives and the existence of democratic justice regimes.