Participatory problems for syndicalists?

I met an "another" anarchist today in the interval between two Introduction to Politics lectures today.  "Another" in the sense that, as a syndicalist, and on past form in my interaction with anarcho-syndicalists or libertarian-communist types, I imagine he probably doesn't really accept me, as a market anarchist, as a real anarchist!  Still, I hope it doesn't preclude further discussion.  But shortly after the break the lecturer was talking about political participation, and especially how low is the proportion of people who really participate, at least at a level beyond, say, voting in elections.

Anyone who has been in local government will know the small number of people often referred to as the "usual suspects" who, though I am sure I am being too cruel here, seem to want to be part of local government without the inconvenience of having to run for office.  Even when you look at "big" well organised campaign groups like "38 Degrees" we find that their claimed "membership" runs to around 800,000 people, or only something over one per cent of the population (and that includes, I assume, anyone like me who don't care much for their campaigns but happened to register on their website before they turned out to be meddlesome, self-interested, lobbyists).  And that something around 300 people appear to be camped out in the City of London claiming to be the "99%".

Now, back to my syndicalist classmate.  In any of these communist type systems, as an alternative to the free market and property rights, resources are allocated, decisions made, production and distribution of goods decided by what they call "consensus decision making".  Given the above levels of participation, how would they defend against the accusation that a tiny minority willing to participate can disproportionately affect what other members of their community or syndicate get or are asked what to do?

Is it simply that in the fairy tale world of happy classless workers with no cares, everyone would want to participate?  Or that without participating they would starve, have no home allocated to them and end up only ever cleaning the sewers instead of what work they wanted to do?  In which case, how is that "freedom" in any sense of the word.

In the case of the "freed market" of course, we participate every time we interact with someone - and not necessarily only in the "cash nexus" - so there are no additional calls on someone's time or interest.  Participation is automatic and voluntary - you get involved in those allocation decisions in which, by definition from wanting to trade in that market, you have an interest in.