Taking the Measure of Labor

Rural Rationalization in Twentieth-Century Brazil

Bibliographic Data

ID11213142
AuthorsThomas D Rogers (0000-0002-1077-6182, Emory University, corresponding author)
Year2014
Volume85
Pages138-161
Publication date2014-01-01
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
VenueInternational Labor and Working-Class History (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0147-5479 • E-ISSN: 1471-6445
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s0147547913000537
OpenAlexW2038299165
LanguageEN
References cited25

Rural sugarcane workers in the Brazilian Northeast negotiated with planters in 1963 to establish guidelines for measuring jobs, producing a document they called the Task Table. This article situates the Table in historical context, placing it in a long-term process of agricultural rationalization that generated struggles over flexibility, control, and freedom on the job. The Table emerged at one moment in these battles and since conflicts like these over productivity, efficiency, and control are common to industrial and agricultural work alike, analyzing the Table offers insight into a broad struggle between workers and employers over the conditions and regulation of labor. For a region of hundreds of thousands of sugarcane workers, the Task Table reflected and facilitated the transformation of labor relationships, views of the working environment, and worker consciousness

Consciousness · Economics · Labour economics · Political science · Rationalization (economics · Sociology · Global trade, sustainability, and social impact · Law · Migration, Ethnicity, and Economy · Political Economy and Marxism · Psychology

Tools

Open DOISci-Hub