Forms Of Work Research Articles

Women of Steel: Constructing and Contesting New Gendered Geographies of Work in the Australian Steel Industry

The article argues that although structuralist‐inspired approaches to steel restructuring have provided significant insights and recognised the role of “labour” in sectoral change, such studies have predominantly equated labour politics with unionism, downplaying the impact of other forms of workers’ politics. This has created a problematic disjunction between “real world” events and academic research, with ensuing issues for policy development and delivery. In response to this difficulty, the paper builds on Herod’s concept of a labour geography to develop multiple labour geographies of power, an approach that describes different forms of workers’ politics. To illustrate this approach, the paper presents female steelworkers’ politics of restructuring. It details the Jobs for Women Campaign in Wollongong, Australia, a 1980s place‐based initiative that sought to gain blue‐collar employment for women in the local steelworks. The study demonstrates how female steelworkers developed restructuring politics addressing gender and employment discrimination, issues not normally associated with labour politics. The paper concludes that such workers’ struggles need to be analysed as they affect restructuring impacts and processes.

A Dynamic Model of Work Satisfaction: Qualitative Approaches

Traditional work satisfaction research iscriticized for its personalistic approach inconceptualization and measurement. Its results aredoubted because of the artificially high proportions ofsatisfied. In order to overcome some of theseshortcomings, the extended model of different forms ofwork satisfaction originally proposed by Bruggemann(1974) is validated. Six forms of work satisfaction(progressive, stabilized, resigned satisfaction;constructive, fixated, resigned dissatisfaction) arederived from the constellation of four constituentvariables: comparison of the actual work situation andpersonal aspirations, global satisfaction, changes inlevel of aspiration, controllability at work. Resultsfrom semistructured interviews, a free Q-sort, and aquestionnaire for differentiating forms of worksatisfaction for 46 nurses provide support for the model.Various methods proved useful in accessing particularaspects of the underlying cognitive and evaluativeprocesses in the formation of different forms of work satisfaction. Implications for personnelmanagement and studies in organizational behavior(performance, intervention strategies) arediscussed.

Endless patience: explaining Soviet and post-Soviet social stability

Various arguments have been put forward to explain the social stability of the post-Stalin era, in particular theories of a "social contract", "incorporation" or "atomisation". This article argues that all these theories have been cast into serious doubt by the response of workers to the reforms of the post-communist era and proposes an alternative view of the integration of workers which centres on the social organisation of the traditional Soviet enterprise. It goes on to show the way in which the form of workers' relation to the labour collective has structured their behaviour during the transition era.

An empirical “dependent economy” model for Pakistan

Pakistan's recent macroeconomic experience has been characterized by rapid growth, relatively low inflation, and the absence of severe balance-of-payments crises, in spite of very large fiscal deficits. This paper addresses the possible role that external inflows, in the form of workers' remittances and concessional lending, may have played in generating these outcomes by conducting counterfactual simulations using an empirically estimated “dependent economy” macroeconomic model.

Industrial Modernization by Workers' Participation

The European car industry is in a crisis. The saturation of traditional markets, the need for product innovation and the Japanese challenge have put this industry, more than almost any other, under pressure to modernize. This modernization has a systemic character. It creates new forms of division of labour between producers and suppliers and removes the Tayloristic-Fordist production concept in the firms without any certainty as to what will take its place. This increased uncertainty creates a boom for personnel management, resulting from a new evaluation of labour capacity, from a production factor to a human and investment factor. New forms of workers' participation are being invested in what are the consequences? Quality circles are used as an example of the possible consequences of successful participation in the field of intra-company labour relations. In this context it is worth taking a look across the border. French management discourse is more pronounced and French sociological research more productive than in Germany. What can we learn from the French experience with participative management? Are there signs of an adaptation, perhaps a European road of development in the field of intra-company labour relations parallel to the internationalization and adaptation tendencies in industrial production? Our research shows which possible development perspectives participative management contains in the field of intra-company labour relations. Nation-specific and system-overlapping aspects are presented for that purpose.

Bureaucratic corruption as a consequence of the Gulf migration: The case of North Yemen

Sizable migration of workers from North Yemen to other Gulf nations, beginning in the 1960s and continuing through the 1980s, produced a large influx of funds into the nation in the form of workers' remittances. This produced a general rise in living standards and improved balance-of-payment statistics, but also greatly increased corruption as poorly-paid officials struggled to make a living in the inflated economy and private parties sought to circumvent economic regulations. Reform efforts met with apathy or even violence, and corruption eventually reached systematic if not systemic levels. Many Yemeni migrants have recently been repatriated in the wake of the Gulf War. Whether or not this will reduce corruption depends upon many factors, such as the activities of the nation's increasingly independent press and the successful exploitation of oil and gas reserves.

Two forms of workers' enterprises facing imperfect labor markets

We analyse workers' enterprises (WEs) facing an imperfect labor market with two different internal property rights structures. One type, the discriminatory WE (DWE), admits new members sequentially, charging each the maximum he is willing to pay as entrance fee. The non-discriminatory WE (NDWE), on the other hand, admits new members in a single block, charging them all the same entrance fee. All except the marginal member in the DWE earn strictly more than their opportunity wages. The behavior of both types of WE is derived from the interests of individual members. Under perfect competition the two types coincide in their employment behavior, behaving efficiently. Under imperfect competition, while the DWE remains fully efficient, the NDWE becomes inefficient, although less so than its profit-maximizing twin acting as a non-discriminatory monopsony.

The establishment of democracy in Russia: The origins of the provisional government reconsidered

The events of February-March 1917 that ended the 300 year reign of the Romanov dynasty and brought democratic government to Russia have traditionally been viewed as a popular revolution. At the forefront of these events, according to this view, were the workers and soldiers of Petrograd, Russia’s capital, whose actions toppled the regime of Nicholas II and spurred the formation of the Provisional Government. Not yet confident of their ability to govern the nation, the workers and soldiers entrusted this task to representatives of the country’s propertied classes who organised the Provisional Government in a spontaneous response to the collapse of the monarchy. To ensure that the new government represented the will of the people, so this interpretation runs, the Petrograd Soviet of Workers’ and Soldiers’ Deputies forced it to adopt a radically democratic program significantly at odds with the government’s own moderate inclinations.’ In the words of one adherent of this view, the members of the Provisional Government ‘were the creations of the Revolution rather than active participants in it’.2 In the more than seven decades that have passed since the February Revolution, few historians have challenged this interpretation of the establishment of democracy in Russia in 1917.3 Yet the traditional view is inadequate in a number of respects. This study will briefly examine the circumstances surrounding the formation of the Provisional Government to suggest, first, that this government was not a completely spontaneous creation of the Revolution and, second, that the politicians who constituted the government were themselves responsible for the formulation of its broadly democratic program.4 The history of Russia on the eve of the 1917 Revolution leaves no doubt that popular discontent, often expressed in spontaneous, public outbursts, was responsible for creating the situation that would give rise to the formation ofthe Provisional Government on 2 March 1917. Russia’s entry into World War I had placed severe strains on the country’s still backward economy. The patriotic support that greeted the outbreak of war in 1914 had quickly turned to generalised discontent in the face of mounting hardships and deprivations. Food shortgages were chronic, and rapid inflation compounded the country’s misery. By the summer of 1915, the war weariness, anger and despair of the masses had begun to manifest themselves in public demonstrations of popular discontent. Most frequently these took the form of workers’ strikes.s In the summer of 1916, the strikes had reached an intensity not seen since the tumultuous pre-war years and, despite a brief hiatus at the end of the year, by

Protocols of the Exhibition "Points of Reference 38/88"

Points of Reference considers as a catalyst for the present, not as a systematic coming-to-terms with the past, but as a look back from the perspective of modern consciousness, because history does not repeat itself. Therefore, interest in the subject matter determines the work's form. Aesthetic qualities are not set beforehand, but result from intellectual abilities which emerge in a very specific context. Points of Reference would like to avoid spectacular, artistic decorations of the city; it considers public space not as a museum without walls but as an intellectual space of action, so that technocratic-normative control can be resisted, at least temporarily. There are neither restrictions nor prescriptions with regard to the media that the artists should use. The task is to find, independent of movements and fashions, contemporary signs whose effectiveness and impact are to be tested in their direct confrontation with an urban public. The starting point is the specific (historical, intellectual, spatial) situation. The work of art results from confronting this environment. The choice of places, which were points of reference for the Nazi regime -and are in some cases now marked as such, but in others only now being brought back to memory represents the historical dimension. (Thus, the logical places for art in the city were not chosen.) The creative use made of these places constitutes the artistic contribution.

Workplace hazards and workers’ desires for union representation

This paper investigates “voice” responses to hazardous and otherwise disagreeable working conditions in the form of workers’ expressed desires for union representation. Using data from three surveys conducted between 1977 and 1982, workers exposed to significant health and safety risks on the job are found to be substantially more likely to report a willingness to vote pro-union than are comparable workers not similarly exposed. This finding is obtained using both subjective and objective measures of hazard and both union and nonunion workers. Management resistance, however, appears to play a strong role in determining the actual extent of unionization. Between 41 and 48 percent of workers in hazardous jobs desire union representation but have not achieved it.

Profit-Sharing, Job Rotation and Permanent Employment: The Large Japanese Firm as a Producers' Co-op

This article advances the claims of Japanese firms to be considered as a form of workers' co-operative which overcomes the disadvantages of those normally encountered in the West. It proceeds by examining the nature of contracts for various groups involved in large firms and then goes on to consider the problem of exploitation and the part played by small firms in economic activity. Finally, the importance of cultural differences is emphasized.

Sibling manipulation and indirect fitness in termites

Various termite researchers have noted the presence of wing pad damage apparently due to bites inflicted by other colony members. Some have reported regression of nymphal development in response to the damage. I show that the kalotermitid species Pterotermes occidentis displays significant frequencies of damaged termites in mature (alate producing) colonies, but no damage in immature colonies. Damaged termites typically develop toward the worker form (Table 1). I hypothesize that workers are biting siblings to recruit more workers and thereby improve their indirect fitness.

Worker Management

The article uses a single theoretical framework to analyze the development of participatory organizational forms. The histories of decision-making structures are considered in terms of the structural sources of decision-making power within organizations and supraorganizational networks. The dialectic of power at the points of production and managerial planning lead to distinct forms of authority and structures of workforce participation in the decision-making process. Structural linkages between forms of industrial organization, ownership, and development and growth of corporate structure and workforce participation in decision-making are the central issues examined. Principal conclusions of the analysis are that collective bargaining, as developed within capitalism, is a form of workers' participation and that worker ownership is a necessary but not sufficient condition of workers' control.

Self-Management as a Development Alternative Reflections on the Peruvian Experience

Self-management as a form of workers’ organization and economic democracy no longer enjoys the degree of support that Peru’s government gave it in former years. Workers have experienced a decline in their living standards in the context of the country’s several serious economic crises in past decades, and this has affected the viability and even threatened the existence of many of their firms. In the context of a transition from military to civilian rule, of new forms (or, rather, the resurgence of old forms) of political articulation favorable to the urban bourgeoisie, and of an improving export income which promises to restore real income levels to their earlier levels, self-managed enterprises and their worker-owners face new challenges and opportunities.

New Data on Worker Self‐administration

Abstract. The movement for worker participation in management has developed, in various places around the world, into various forms. In Yugoslavia it took the form of workers' councils half a century ago and now, as the country is attempting to solve its grave problems by moving away from centralized command planning to more limited command planning within a market economy, workers are seeking a decentralized approach emphasizing self‐administration.

Cumulative trauma and stress at work

Cumulative trauma is a form of workers' compensation claim in which an employee contends that a major illness or disability is the cumulative result of minor job stresses and strains extending over a period of years. The paper reviews the U.S. legal developments in this area and discusses their implications for both corporate policy and the developments of accounting for the human resource.

The Function of Form: Ivanhoe as Romance

Walter Scott's critical prose does not reveal any concern on Scott's part for organic form in fiction. However, Scott's own practice as a novelist belies what appears to be his cavalier attitude toward the relationship of a work's form to its content. Ivanhoe, for example, appears on first reading to be a straightforward chivalric romance exemplifying the conventions of that form. It utilizes the conventional progression of the romance plot: the conflict between ideal good and evil embodied in the heroes and villains, the perilous journey of the main character, his individual struggle and passage through ritual death, his rescue of the endangered maiden and marriage to her, and the promise of general future happiness in a newly established social order.' However, closer readings reveal that Scott's fidelity to the conventional romance form is tempered by altered conventions and deflations of idealistic imaginative elements-variations which create a more realistic romance. Although the English nation is delivered finally from the power of the usurping Norman rulers by the accession of King Richard in union with the formerly oppressed Saxon people, the conventional romance pattern is much qualified in Ivanhoe: the heroes are not ideal; the maiden's rescue is due more to chance than to valor; the titular hero marries a second, less attractive heroine; and the new social order falls far short of a wish-fulfillment ideal. An investigation of Ivanhoe's romance form reveals how Scott tempers it with the realistic elements of the novel: the synthesis of novel-like, realistic elements within Ivanhoe's conventional romance form mirrors the general thematic synthesis which characterizes Scott's achievement in the content of the Waverley Novels as a whole.

Industrial Relations, Manipulative or Democratic?

Summary: Three historical periods of motivating workers toward increasing productivity still “coexist” today: negative incentives, external rewards, forms of workers' participation in industry. Varying modes of joint consultation at top levels existing in many countries are contrasted with American industrial research emphasizing workers' participation on the workshop level. The problems of “common goals” and “manipulation” in industry are considered as contributing factors to the gap between those two levels. To fill it, industrial sociologists should follow Mayo and others in the use of ‘clinical’ research to find new institutional forms for a democratic work process based on collective bargaining.

New forms of workers' participation in management

New forms of workers' participation in management