Power in the Workplace: The Politics of Production at AT&T / Edition 1
This book presents a systematic case study of the hi-tech communications industry that reveals many trends in managerial authority in the workpace. Vallas reveals the mechanisms that enable advanced capitalist firms to achieve and maintain control over the workers they employ. He demonstrates that the spread and integration of automated technologies place lower level human labor in positions of declining power. The new regime does not deskill workers and need not lead toward what some have called electronic sweatshops. Nevertheless, Vallas concludes that increasing managerial control over production poses a major challenge to those who advocate labor participation in the management of American industries.

1115268451
Power in the Workplace: The Politics of Production at AT&T / Edition 1
This book presents a systematic case study of the hi-tech communications industry that reveals many trends in managerial authority in the workpace. Vallas reveals the mechanisms that enable advanced capitalist firms to achieve and maintain control over the workers they employ. He demonstrates that the spread and integration of automated technologies place lower level human labor in positions of declining power. The new regime does not deskill workers and need not lead toward what some have called electronic sweatshops. Nevertheless, Vallas concludes that increasing managerial control over production poses a major challenge to those who advocate labor participation in the management of American industries.

34.95 In Stock
Power in the Workplace: The Politics of Production at AT&T / Edition 1

Power in the Workplace: The Politics of Production at AT&T / Edition 1

by Steven Peter Vallas
Power in the Workplace: The Politics of Production at AT&T / Edition 1

Power in the Workplace: The Politics of Production at AT&T / Edition 1

by Steven Peter Vallas

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Overview

This book presents a systematic case study of the hi-tech communications industry that reveals many trends in managerial authority in the workpace. Vallas reveals the mechanisms that enable advanced capitalist firms to achieve and maintain control over the workers they employ. He demonstrates that the spread and integration of automated technologies place lower level human labor in positions of declining power. The new regime does not deskill workers and need not lead toward what some have called electronic sweatshops. Nevertheless, Vallas concludes that increasing managerial control over production poses a major challenge to those who advocate labor participation in the management of American industries.


Product Details

ISBN-13: 9780791412749
Publisher: State University of New York Press
Publication date: 01/14/1993
Series: SUNY series in the Sociology of Work and Organizations
Edition description: New Edition
Pages: 264
Product dimensions: 6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range: 18 Years

About the Author

Steven Peter Vallas is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is coeditor, with Kai Erikson, of The Nature of Work: Sociological Perspectives.

Table of Contents

Abbreviations


Preface

1. Introduction

2. Work, Power, and the Monopoly Corporation


The Emiseration of Labor?
Managerial Hegemony
The Emancipation of Labor?
Discussion

3. The Old Regime at AT&T: Taylorism, Paternalism, and Labor Struggle, 1890-1947.


Weavers of Speech: The Changing Character of Telephone Work


The Feminization of the Switchboard
The Rationalization of the Labor Process, 1890-1915


The Structure of Labor Control at AT&T


A Little Robot of Steel: The Mechanization of Labor


Institutionalizing Paternalism
Two Firms, One Regime
Conclusion

4. Capital, Labor, and New Technology


Technology, Skill, and Power at Work
The Structure of the Bell System after World War II


Tradition Amidst Bureaucracy
The 'Real Subordination of Labor' Revisited
The Nature of Plant Work in Manual C.O.s
Rationalization and Resistance


Information Technology and Work Processes


The Automation of Craft Work
The Automation of Clerical Work
Estimating the Links among Technology, Work, and Alienation


Conclusion

5. The Limits of Managerial Hegemony


The Dominant Ideology at Work
The Ideology of Participation
Economic Competition and the Workers Response
Sources of Variation in Working-Class Consciousness
Conclusion

6. Conclusion


Labor Control in the Monopoly Core
Beyond the New Regime

Appendix: Research Methods and Sample Design


Notes


References


Index

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