Industrial structure as a worker resource

Abstract

This article investigates the role of industrial structure in determining employees' earnings. Industrial structure arises from management strategies designed to promote profit and growth. However, this same structure may also provide employees with possible resources to use in their struggle for higher wages. These resources may be in the form of shelters from competitive market forces or in the form of technologically and organizationally based power to demand a greater share of revenues. Empirical findings indicate that organizational and technical factors providing resources of worker power are more important determinants of earnings than are market-based factors such as profit rate and concentration. These findings and interpretations are juxtaposed with those of the dual economy approach. It is argued that the dual economy approach, and economic approaches in general, are too oriented toward the structure of commodity markets to provide an adequate theoretical basis for understanding the consequences of industrial organization for employees. The current results suggest the need to develop a new theory of the role of industrial structure at the workplace that focuses on sociological and organizational dimensions rather than on market characteristics.