Worker Control

Abstract

Abstract With capitalism, ordinary working people—assembly-line workers, low¬ level, dead-end white-collar workers, manual labourers, hired sales clerks, and so on-must bear a triple burden. First, as compared with those in more glamorous occupations—doctors, lawyers, engineers, executives, entrepreneurs, professional athletes, entertainers—ordinary working people are paid very little. Secondly, ordinary working people have relatively little social prestige. Third, as compared with those in more glamorous occupations, ordinary working people suffer from work that offers little satisfaction. The work that those in more glamorous occupations do, although difficult, is nevertheless often exciting, challenging, even fun and, in general, personally satisfying. But the work that ordinary working people do is exhausting, often dirty, almost always excruciatingly boring, and, in general, unsatisfying. In fifteen years of research on job satisfaction, Stanislav Kasl (1977) found that the conditions conducive to the low job satisfaction of ordinary working people include a lack of control over work; inability to use skills and capacities; highly fractionated, repetitive tasks involving few diverse operations; and no participation in decision making (Kasl 1977; for more on job satisfaction, including a discussion of the accuracy of Gallup polls on ‘satisfaction at work’, see Kahn 1972). Many years of working under these conditions may even have an effect upon mental health. A study of automobile assembly-line workers, for example, found that about 40 per cent suffered from a significant mental-health problem, and only 18 per cent could be said to have ‘good mental health’ (Kornhauser 1965).