Workplace democracy has been advocated by labor as a means of worker empowerment and by
management as an effort to improve productivity and quality. This article seeks to clarify this
contradictory support through an analysis of American managers’and workers’attitudes. Class
ideology and class experience are tested as factors that underlie attitudes toward three different
forms of workplace democracy. Ordinary least squares regression and path analysis are
employed in an analysis of national survey data from 1991. Class location is found to be a weak
predictor, whereas class experience is a strong determinant. The findings indicate that American
workers want more control once they get some influence over workplace decision making, highlighting
a paradox behind the often narrow goals of managers. Implications are discussed vis-àvis
the labor movement and contemporary corporate participation programs.