Work, employment and society sans frontières: extending and deepening our reach

Abstract

Work, employment and society (WES ) was launched in 1987 in a period in which a number of features of British society were changing rapidly. The vibrancy and the optimism of the 1960s looked increasingly remote and sociology and the study of work reflected the more straitened times that came with the social transformations wrought by Thatcherism. The early 1980s had seen savage deflation, a consequent sharp contraction of the manufacturing industry and a series of set piece confrontations with unions (in the print and steel industries and on the docks) culminating in the defeat of the miners’ union after a year-long strike (1984–5). A further result was rapid contraction of the numbers of trade union members and the demoralization of those that remained. One focus of industrial sociology, shopfloor trade unionism epitomized by Beynon’s (1984) study of Ford’s Halewood plant, became difficult if not impossible to repeat. The differences to and implications for the current sociology of work are discussed in the recent WES book review symposium of Beynon’s study. Richard Brown’s editorial introduction to the first issue drew upon these societal developments to explain the rationale for the journal. Reviewing the sociology of work he noted that it had traditionally focused on male, manual workers in manufacturing industries and to a lesser extent on those who supervised and managed them, exactly the constituency hit hardest by the ongoing changes. The limitations of the focus on one gender, in one predominantly UK-based sector, became obvious with the relative and absolute decline in UK manufacturing and the new international division of labour; the growth of unemployment; the increase in women’s employment; and employer attempts to establish more flexible patterns of employment. The limitations of more traditional approaches were also heightened by developments in other areas of social science with broader concerns. The persistence of unemployment and the increasing North–South divide, along with entrenched patterns of low pay, had expanded interest in labour markets; discrimination against women and minorities was made more visible; and, following the impact of Braverman’s Labor and 613747WES0010.1177/0950017015613747Work, employment and societyEditorial research-article2015