Power in the Workplace: The Politics of Production at AT&T(SUNY series in the Sociology of Work and Organizations)

This book presents a systematic case study of the hi-tech communications industry that reveals many trends in managerial authority in the workpace. Vallas reveals the mechanisms that enable advanced capitalist firms to achieve and maintain control over the workers they employ. He demonstrates that the spread and integration of automated technologies place lower level human labor in positions of declining power. The new regime does not deskill workers and need not lead toward what some have called electronic sweatshops. Nevertheless, Vallas concludes that increasing managerial control over production poses a major challenge to those who advocate labor participation in the management of American industries.

Table of Contents:
Abbreviations Preface 1. Introduction 2. Work, Power, and the Monopoly Corporation The Emiseration of Labor? Managerial Hegemony The Emancipation of Labor? Discussion 3. The Old Regime at AT&T: Taylorism, Paternalism, and Labor Struggle, 1890-1947. Weavers of Speech: The Changing Character of Telephone Work The Feminization of the Switchboard The Rationalization of the Labor Process, 1890-1915 The Structure of Labor Control at AT&T A Little Robot of Steel: The Mechanization of Labor Institutionalizing Paternalism Two Firms, One Regime Conclusion 4. Capital, Labor, and New Technology Technology, Skill, and Power at Work The Structure of the Bell System after World War II Tradition Amidst Bureaucracy The 'Real Subordination of Labor' Revisited The Nature of Plant Work in Manual C.O.s Rationalization and Resistance Information Technology and Work Processes The Automation of Craft Work The Automation of Clerical Work Estimating the Links among Technology, Work, and Alienation Conclusion 5. The Limits of Managerial Hegemony The Dominant Ideology at Work The Ideology of Participation Economic Competition and the Workers Response Sources of Variation in Working-Class Consciousness Conclusion 6. Conclusion Labor Control in the Monopoly Core Beyond the New Regime Appendix: Research Methods and Sample Design Notes References Index

About the Author :
Steven Peter Vallas is Assistant Professor of Sociology at the Georgia Institute of Technology. He is coeditor, with Kai Erikson, of The Nature of Work: Sociological Perspectives.

Review :
"The issues of labor force deskilling versus enskilling, and the questions of why labor has not been more forceful in response to recent economic changes are very significant. The discussion and evidence are central to arguments in the field of the sociology of employment." - Paul Teske, State University of New York at Stony Brook "This is a serious contribution to the labor process debate. I am especially impressed by the way Vallas combines a historical/theoretical approach with his case study." - Philip Kraft, State University of New York at Binghamton