The Labor Process and Control of Labor

Today, in the final decade of the twentieth century, the condition of labor in the United States is in a more precarious position than at any time during this century. During the past several decades, workers have experienced major transformations in the labor force structure and the labor process at the point of production, through corporate restructuring and reorganization, while real wages have declined. At the same time, an enormous increase in corporate profits, takeovers,...
More Description

Today, in the final decade of the twentieth century, the condition of labor in the United States is in a more precarious position than at any time during this century. During the past several decades, workers have experienced major transformations in the labor force structure and the labor process at the point of production, through corporate restructuring and reorganization, while real wages have declined. At the same time, an enormous increase in corporate profits, takeovers, mergers, and acquisitions during the decade of the 1980s has widened the gap between labor and capital. All these factors have increased the control and exploitation of labor at the point of production, which is the hallmark of the labor process under capitalism.

Focusing on work relations in the auto, steel, and computer industries, agriculture, and other sectors of the U.S. economy, The Labor Process and Control of Labor provides case studies of the labor process in the United States in the late twentieth century. The authors of the ten chapters that comprise this book address some of the key issues confronting workers today: plant closings, decline in union membership, drop in living standards, automation and deskilling, level of class consciousness and political organization, and the role of unions and other mediating forces in the formation and transformation of labor and the labor process. One chapter is devoted to the U.S. auto industry and how its pioneering minute division of labor affected the power of the labor force; another focuses on how the steel industry further facilitated labor control. Other chapters deal with the computer industry, women's labor power, immigrant labor in California agriculture and various other labor issues related to the control and exploitation of labor. This volume is an important new work for scholars of labor studies, sociology of work and occupations, industrial sociology, and related fields.