Technology and the Labour Process

TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Book Reviews 429 friction emerges in a shop, as described by Eugene Cooper among Hong Kong wood-carvers. The completion of the apprenticeship is marked by a formal ceremony, at which master and apprentice may exchange small tokens. In the Japanese pottery the master presented his apprentice with one of the apprentice’s first, misshapen sake cups. The Kenya blacksmith forged an iron band for Coy’s forearm. As Esther Goody points out in her concluding essay, such practices prevail in a wide variety of cultural settings, and they persist whether apprenticeship is formal or informal. The prevalence of common practices as well as the pervasiveness of apprenticeship are this book’s most important findings. Michael Coy’s Apprenticeship is a significant contribution to both the history and the anthropology of work. W. J. Rorabaugh Dr. Rorabaugh is professor of history at the University of Washington. He is the author of The Craft Apprentice: From Franklin to the Machine Age in America (1986). Technology and the Labour Process: Australasian Case Studies. Edited by Evan Willis. Winchester, Mass.: Unwin Hyman, 1988. Pp. ix + 201; bibliography, index. $24.95 (paper). The publication of Harry Braverman’s Labor and Monopoly Capital (New York, 1974) reinvigorated the study of the labor process. Historians and sociologists, applying Braverman’s analysis to specific industries and groups of workers, have extended the analysis beyond the basic issues of workers’ control and deskilling by raising questions about the nature of skill itself, the role of the state and ideology, and the influence of gender on how technology is used. Technology and the Labour Process contributes to that debate. A short introductory chapter provides a clear and perceptive review of the issues raised by Braverman and his critics and of the subsequent developments in studies of the labor process.Ten case studies follow, covering a wide range ofjobs from secretarial work to butchering in the meat-freezing industry to professional workers in health care. Dawn Butler and Rosslyn Reed in their respective studies of secretarial workers and printers argue that changes in the labor process are determined not by a detailed analysis of actual skills but by perceptions of skill requirements that are influenced by gender relationships. Printers employing keyboarding skills considered a transfer from a linotype machine to computerized photosetting machine as “demasculinization” of their skills: computer input was seen as women’s work and as less skilled. Word-processing compe­ tence takes a year or more to achieve, but managers acting on suppliers’ claims that competence is acquired by attending a three-day course downgraded word-processing operators. 430 Book Reviews TECHNOLOGY AND CULTURE Gender relationships also influence the resistance to changes. Highly organized male print workers strongly challenged new tech­ nology and attempts to “downgrade” their skills. In offices, male managers dominate the largely female office staff, and their decisions on new technology have rarely been challenged directly: staff mem­ bers leave the job rather than oppose changes. Raelene Francis, in a historical study of changes in the clothing and boot industries, shows that resistance to change is strongly influenced by gender and gives examples in the clothing industry of male trade union officials supporting management rather than joining with a largely female membership to fight for the retention ofjob control. On the basis of a study of the meat-freezing industry in New Zealand over an extended period of time, Kerr Inkson and Peter Cammock argue that control of production may fluctuate between workers and managers: the introduction of a new technique may break workers’ control, but workers may reestablish control by adapting practices to the new conditions. A similar conclusion can be drawn from Richard Dunford and Peter McGraw’s study of the introduction of quality circles in two factories. The importance of organized action in contesting changes in work practices is illustrated by studies of two contrasting industries, health care and fast food. Fast-food workers are young, part-time, and temporary and provide no organized resistance to change, so management is able to shape the work as it chooses. By contrast, professional health-care workers, dominated by the medical profession, are highly organized and fight to retain professional autonomy

Apprenticeship · Archaeology · Craft · Deskilling · Economics · Management · Sociology · Work (physics) · Engineering · History · Labor Movements and Unions